First attempt at Berliner weiss not going as expected

Let me start with my process and then get down to the concerns later:
8 days prior to brew day, began a L. Delbruekii starter (500ml of 1.020 SG sterilized wort) and held at 92F.
Brew day: Sanitized all equipment, heated strike water and infused for saccharification @ 149F for 60 minutes. Pulled 5 quarts thick mash for mash-out decoction. Added 1 oz Hallertau hops and boiled in decoction for 15 minutes. Return decoction to main mash for mash-out. Proceed with single batch sparging, collected 5 gallons of liquid and rise to boiling temp. Cut heat at signs of beginning of boil. Chill & pitch lacto starter, added ½ lb crushed pale 2-row malt to primary to assist lacto. 24 Hours later krausen head begins to form.


~12 hours later, high krausen. With slight concern for the beer, added the originally intended US-05 yeast.

So I’m wondering now if I prepared my brew too liberally to foster conditions for spontaneous fermentation. I’m not terribly worried how the brew turns out, the whole batch probably only cost me $10. Should I have concern for any harmful pathogens?

you dont need to be concerned about pathogens, but why did you add the crushed grains? I mean you already had a lacto culture, and planned on adding yeast

there are a ton of other bugs on grain besides lacto, and will funkify the beer like nobodies business, I havent done it like you have but Ive used grain to sour the mash and it smelled like hot garbage - now your going to be in anoxic conditions but only time will tell, how does the airlock smell??

also 1020 is a bit low for a starter, shoot a bit higher even for lacto, I would also recommend a bit larger starter for lacto as well, you want a very high cell count

I can't find the thread at the moment, but someone on the forum contacted Wyeast on recommendations for a lacto starter, hence my procedure.

The crushed grain in the primary idea came from a friend who's got experience under his belt with sours. linky

The airlock was smelling fine to me this morning, reminded me of a clean mash. I'll see what I get in a few days and hope for the best.

Transfered to secondary last night as high krausen ceased. The stuff still doesn't smell like vomit, but definitely ain't right. I don't really have high hopes and when I have a second attempt will definitely omit the grain to primary. That was probably the factor that put this beer over the edge.

Hey Wes, just to be clear, I never did the grains in the fermenter, I was throwing it out there as a suggestion. I have read at least a dozen accounts of others taking this approach, so I know it is used in the berliner process by others. In making my berliners, I achieved sourness from very long, hot, sour mashes and the pure culture.

I am sure you are fine however, I think you might have been better served adding the grains after activity took off.

Lessons learned, I'll change up my process in the future. I'm still letting it run it's course.

wscott823 said:

Lessons learned, I'll change up my process in the future. I'm still letting it run it's course.

Click to expand...

The mantra of the homebrewer.

Don't have any experience with exactly what you did, but I would like to add that I brewed the linked recipe and am thus far pleased (bottling tomorrow so yea there is time for something to go wrong I suppose). Many others have used this method as well with positive results so don't chuck it under the bus just yet.

http://www.ratebeer.com/Recipe.asp?RecipeID=110