This Berliner Weisse is delicious!

So I was recently intrigued by this beer style.... Berliner Weisse.... Even the name sounds tasty and exotic. After reading a description of the procedure at seancoats.com, I took hold of my trusty grain mill and began my own two day sour mash! When the soured wort seemed sufficiently sour, I boiled for approximately 15 minutes At this point I experienced an unpleasant cooked broccoli smell, but don't worry, fellow brewer/blogger, this aroma promptly disappeared after fermentation. After it fermented with some clean tasting yeast this is one of the most interesting beers that I have ever produced. My taste buds are constantly begging for another chance to swim and bathe in this glorious brew.
As you can probably imagine, I am very happy about the way this brew came together. I wish I could personally thank whoever it was that (most likely accidentally) figured this recipe out for me. I do not think my feeble mind might have ever came up with the idea of Berliner Weisse. It is perfectly tart, light bodied, deliciously fizzy goodness that will make you want to take your coat off and run for the nearest watering hole, for along with these flavors comes deceit, forcing me to believe that outside it just another hot summer day, taunting me, begging me to get the sun tan lotion, bring the Weisse and bask in its never ending warmth.... But, alas, it is not the summer day I believed it might be, I will just close my eyes while I drink this keg dry.

I appreciate that your review was more elaborate than the usual beeradvocate/ratebeer review of, "it pours a copper color like a toddler's diarrhea after too much pedialyte..."

Hahahaha.... Well, thank you. Good beer deserves a good review.

How about sharing the recipe? I've heard of sour mashing, but haven't seen how it's done.

I followed the recipe on seancoats.com, something like 55% pale malt, 45% wheat for 5 gallons. Sour for two days and boil with .5 oz hops. He says to use clean yeast, I used cali.

The recipe (http://seancoates.com/brews/summer-sour) shows a mash for 60 minutes. I assume this is just a default value that never got changed. Was there more detailed info on his site somewhere about the process?

Ya... http://seancoates.com/blogs/about-beer

Interesting. Without having to worry about infected equipment, this sounds like a fun experiment. I am not very familiar with the style but would be willing to try it out.

bknifefight said:

The recipe (http://seancoates.com/brews/summer-sour) shows a mash for 60 minutes. I assume this is just a default value that never got changed. Was there more detailed info on his site somewhere about the process?

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It is actually a 60 minute mash (followed by a lactic fermentation, short boil, normal fermentation). Explanation is here: http://seancoates.com/blogs/berliner-weisse

S

somedudefromguam said:

I followed the recipe on seancoats.com, something like 55% pale malt, 45% wheat for 5 gallons. Sour for two days and boil with .5 oz hops. He says to use clean yeast, I used cali.

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Did you sour it like he says, in a cooler flooded with CO2? Or did you do something else? Did you try to maintain a certain temp during the 2 days?

The first time I used a 3 gal pot to mash in, covered tightly around the top with cling wrap and also flooded with co2 after I sealed, and after stirring/tasting (not during the mash, but after you pitch extra grains around 110-120 degrees). This is the brew I raved about in the original post.....

I recently brewed a a larger batch and had to use a 7 gallon pot to mash in. The cling wrap was not big enough to go over the pot and keep a tight seal. I loosely covered the sour mash, but also tried to "blanket" it with co2 when I disturbed it, I do not think this helped because it was very loosely covered and the room it was located is kinda drafty.... I also put cling wrap directly on the mash grains, and pushed any bubbles out from under it to eliminate any oxygenation. The smell that I experienced during the sour mash and boil was different than the first Berliner Weisse, but it all tasted the same. This brew is in the fermenter and I will likely review it again after it is ready to drink.

The difference between the two brews: the first brew was covered very well, I could not smell the sour mash when I walked into the room. The second was covered poorly and I could smell the sour mash as soon as I entered the room, which seems to indicate that the mash was exposed to circulating air/ oxygenated. This is probably why the two sour mashes smelled differently. I transferred to my mash tun, not worrying about aeration at this point... Added boiling water to the mash to reach 160 degrees and sparged ...

As for the sour mash temperature (after sacc. rest) I tried to maintain 120 degrees (F), but only succeeded in holding about 100 degrees for most of the time (overnight each time dipping to 80 degrees, whoops). Soured for approximately 40 hours each time--you just have to taste it and stop the sour when you are comfortable, but remember that the sourness will be balanced by the sweetness of the unfermented wort, when it ferments out, you will perceive more pronounced sourness.

I feel Berliner Weisse is not widely drunk and is fairly underrated, I sort of reached a brewing plateau until I discovered this remarkable beer! Brew on!

Thanks. Great info. I'm going to give it a try when it warms up again.

I have a couple clarifying questions for ya as far as your process goes.

I take it you did a 100% sour mash? So did you mash as normal then just let it cool down to 100°F for the lacto ferment, then move back to mash tun and sparge?

I am attempting my first Berliner this weekend and the cool thing about sours is there is so many ways to go at it. I have narrowed it down to three ways I would like to try.

First, I was thinking 100% sour mash. I would mash as normal, sparge as normal, then spike the wort with Lacto. After it is sufficiently sour, bring to a boil to kill off lacto, hit with some hops, then cool and ferment as normal.

Or, i was thinking mash as normal, raise temp of whole mash to 170°F to denature enzymes, cool to 100°F and then throw in fresh grains and let it sour via "wild" lactic fermentation. Once lacto ferment is complete, bring to a boil, add hops, chill and ferment.

Third, I have read about no boil berliner weisse beers. This method involves hops in the mash. So mash as normal, throw in the hops that are being used for the recipe, let mash sour, then sparge out at 170°F follwed by a fermentation as normal. I dont like this method as much as it gives the chance of some of the LAB to survive into primary fermentation and beyond with the potential for bottle bombs in the future.

I am leaning more towards method one. That way I have the most conrol over the process. I can do the lacto ferment in one of my primary fermentors with a brew belt for temp control, keep O2 minimized, and then effectively eliminate all lacto in the following primary fermentation.

Thoughts?

bb239605 said:

I take it you did a 100% sour mash? So did you mash as normal then just let it cool down to 100°F for the lacto ferment, then move back to mash tun and sparge?

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Exactly what I did. Just remember to pitch .5 - 1 pound of uncrushed grains after it has cooled.

Method 1 sounds good to me. I don't know if there would be a different outcome from souring after the sparge versus before sparge. Does not seem like there would be.
Method 2 is pretty much how I did it, except, I don't think there is any reason to heat the mash to 170 to denature. I would definitely do that after the mash has soured, before I sparge.
Method 3 seems like a bad idea, I guess. I liked the idea of lacto being contained in the mash tun(where it usually is anyway) and there is no chance of it getting in my fermenters, racking canes, kegs, bottles, etc..

I hope this helps. This brew seems complicated, but, after the first time I brewed it, I realized how simple it really is. I try not to over complicate things when it comes to brewing. Keep it simple, do what makes sense. Have fun!

somedudefromguam said:

I hope this helps. This brew seems complicated, but, after the first time I brewed it, I realized how simple it really is. I try not to over complicate things when it comes to brewing. Keep it simple, do what makes sense. Have fun!

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This is some sound advice. Over the years, I have realized that prior to a new brewing technique I overthink and overanalyze the technique often times adding undue worry to the brew day when in reality it is much easier than it seems. Lagers and decoction mashing is a prime example.

Thanks for the help!

The reason why I want to try this recipe is the fact that the infection is contained in the tun, that way I won't have to worry about causing issues with other beer!

I do a short boil and pitch lacto into the wort. Keep it at 90 deg for 2 days then pitch US-05. I have done a no boil batch that being the more traditional meathod and if you are going to drink it right away. the no boil gives you the most complexity. Also i fine it aggressively with gelatin to get it brilliantly clear. Last touch is to carbonate it to 4 volumes

crazyirishman34 said:

I have done a no boil batch that being the more traditional meathod and if you are going to drink it right away.

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What's your rationale behind the bolded section? I have a no boil I'm getting ready to bottle.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I appreciate that your review was more elaborate than the usual beeradvocate/ratebeer review of, "it pours a copper color like a toddler's diarrhea after too much pedialyte..."

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And the requisite beeradvocate flowerly, description of whatever ********* glass it went into and the complete lineage of the damn bottle from store to car to fridge to glass.

"Poured from a 48.9F bottle, taken from the second shelf of my gunnmetal gray samsung side by side fridge, the bottle dripping with sweaty condensation like a canadian on a white sand beach, into my personally signed and etched Schlitz 1972 pilsener glass given to me by a college roommate of John Palmer's podiatrist. It pours a copper color like a toddler's diarrhea after too much pedialite and a heaping scoop of wet rotavirus. "

bknifefight said:

Interesting. Without having to worry about infected equipment, this sounds like a fun experiment. I am not very familiar with the style but would be willing to try it out.

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You already have infected equipment. It's slathered with a thick coating of bacteria, funguses, viruses and all sorts of random ****. Then you add water and grain to it, which is covered in a greater magnitude of ****, let it sit for an hour or two giving the random **** time to become even more random **** before boiling it.

So it's no worry. Just boil it.

highgravitybacon said:

You already have infected equipment. It's slathered with a thick coating of bacteria, funguses, viruses and all sorts of random ****. Then you add water and grain to it, which is covered in a greater magnitude of ****, let it sit for an hour or two giving the random **** time to become even more random **** before boiling it.

So it's no worry. Just boil it.

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I see what you're saying but I was more referring to people keeping separate equipment for their brett beers.

What I mean is that you have zero control over what spoilage bugs you get when you do a no boil. So it doesn't store too well unrefrigerated.

With an extra long weekend for Christmas I decided to make a batch of this. The recipe was simple:
4 lbs 2 Row
3 lbs White Wheat
1 oz Hallertau (15 minutes)
I mashed thick (0.75 qrts/gallon) at 151* and cooled to 105*. It took a long time to cool so I ended up adding ice cubes to speed it up lol. Every 8 hours I checked the temperature and it usually had dropped to about 95*. Added boiling water to bring it back up to 105*.

Each time, I flooded it with CO2 and did not use any cling wrap or anything. You could smell it outside the mash tun, but it wasn't bad. It almost had a cooked corn scent to it. I tasted it each time too and it wasn't bad. What was gross about it was it was a murky yellowish grey color that was sort of chunky (grain). I would just swish a little in my mouth to see how it was souring and spit it out. After 36 hours I decided it was soured enough and finished it up.

There is no sense in vorlaufing this kind of beer, it is a waste of time. I spargued, boiled (15 minutes) and pitched some SA-05. It was a Christmas brew day for me

Glad to see someone else brewing Berliner Weisse in this fashion. I hear about so many people trying to pitch White labs or Wyeast Lacto strains, then they complain about how long it takes to perceive any sourness. Or, it ends up too sour, or not sour at all. This way you can stop the Lacto from working as soon as you achieve the right amount of sourness.

Also, letting lacto work for only 36 hours on your first try was probably a good idea. I have brewed this beer 3 times now and the first time was perfect @ 40 hours. The second batch was also 40 hours, but it was much more sour, almost too sour. I am actually about to boil my third batch right now, just tasted it and I almost can not taste any sourness at all, but I am going to give it a try. Seems that Lactobacillus is kinda wild (get it? hahahaha) and unpredictable, with varying levels of sourness over the same period of time.

Anyway, please let us know how your brew turned out.

I read about this and thought "A new brewing technique, I need to try this!" lol Im not very keen on sour brews but when the beer is so cheap (I figured about $10 for 5 gallons), I couldn't not brew it

So last night I decided it was time to keg up my Berlinner Weisse. I figured I would carb it with priming sugar while I waited for a spot to be free in the kegerator.

Anyways, even though it hadn't been in the carboy long it is unnaturally cloudy. More so than a hefeweizen at that age. Wheat was 40% of the grain, did the souring have some effect on this? It was a really nice light straw color.

I was able to taste it for the first time since sampling the sour mash. It is super light (didnt take a FG but assume pretty low, 1.005 or so) and brightly tart. I am glad I sour mashed and sampled it, because it is as sour as I would want. Sours aren't my thing, so this is going to be an experiment to get used to them. It definitely has the wet hay/horse blanket character to it but not overpowering. It is definitely one of the most interesting beers Ive brewed!

bknifefight said:

Anyways, even though it hadn't been in the carboy long it is unnaturally cloudy. More so than a hefeweizen at that age. Wheat was 40% of the grain, did the souring have some effect on this?

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I usually keg my Berliner Weisse pretty quick, always cloudy. I did bottle condition a few and they turned out crystal clear...

On Friday night I had a brew day and invited some interested friends. My keg of Centennial Blonde kicked after a pint and a half and I put the Berlinner Weisse on tap. Everyone LOVED it, including me. As it chilled, it only got better. I am very happy with this beer, and at about $10 for a 5 gallon batch, it's a no brainer to make more!

With wheat being part of the grain bill, is there a need for a protein rest if it can be done or just the single infusion at 154 F?

Single Infusion is what I did and it was fine. I imagine you can mash however you want.

One question about this process. So you mash in for a full mash to be soured, but then do you drain the mash tun into another vessel to sit for the souring period (with the added cup of unmilled grain), or do you leave the entire mash alone to sour for a couple days? The reason I ask is that the pic shown on the Sean Coates site looks like the running from a mash tun, and not the entire mash, grain and all.

Leave the mash as is. Don't even spargue.

Add ice to cool it to ~105*, add the grain and seal it up.

The reason it looks like it is not a normal mash is because you need to add hot (boiling) water every so many hours to maintain the temperature. It ends up a very thin mash.

excellent, thanks! With such a thin mash, and a low gravity beer - I imagine you'll end up with your volume from the single runnings, yes?

It depends on how much you add each time you heat it up and how long you let it sour. Mine was 36 hours, adding about a quart every 8 hours, so I added a little over a gallon. I believe I still spargued because I remember having good efficiency.