Berliner Weiss, many ways

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Any batch spargers out there that have done a sour mash? I think this is the route I'm going to take but I'm wondering if should mash in as normal and then batch sparge after my mash has reached desired sourness? Or do I try to fit as much of the total volume in the first infusion?

I batch sparged mine in a bucket because I didn't want to infect my Nash tun. I ran the mash as usual with about a 1.25 qts/lb ratio. I then added boiling water to bring it up to 180 for a quick pasteurization and then added cool sterile water at the end to bring it back down to about 100F and then threw in my uncrushed grains for a true sour mash. By this point I was at maybe 1.75-2 qts/lb, still under my 6 gal total batch size and using a heat mat, I held it at 100F for 5 days. Mine worked fine and then I just "mashed out" by pouring the liquid and grain through a 5 gal paint strainer and topped up with water and boiled for 15 mins. The batch came out great..
 
Why would you be concerned about infecting your mash tun? I would think you could always pasteurize it with heat, as you did for this mash. Even if some microbe did survive, I wouldn't expect it to do much to your wort during your typical 60 minute infusion mash, and after that you boil anyway.
 
Why would you be concerned about infecting your mash tun? I would think you could always pasteurize it with heat, as you did for this mash. Even if some microbe did survive, I wouldn't expect it to do much to your wort during your typical 60 minute infusion mash, and after that you boil anyway.

I'm not interested in having any possibility of problems in the future after investing time and money to build a mash tun. Like I said, the bucket worked way better and allowed the aquarium heater to do its thing and keep my sour mash locked in at 100F. A cooler MLT works both ways, it acts as an insulator and keeps either drinks cold for its originally intended purpose or mashes warm as homebrewers have commandeered it for. The aquarium heater would not have worked very well through 2" of insulation. Also, I'm glad I did this because even after my 15 minute boil time with the sour mash, when I put the wort into a fermenter and allowed regular saccharomyces to do their thing, I noticed a fresh pellicle form.
 
Just drank my first bottle of this and I have to say that it is delicious. Even swmbo likes it and she doesn't care for beer.
 
72 hours into a sour mash and its not quite sour enough yet. I stopped purging it with CO2 everytime after opening and took off the plastic wrap for the last 24 hours. I'm thinking this should be ready to boil tomorrow afternoon.

No horrible smell and nothing funky looking so far. Smells like creamed corn and has a good tart flavor. Hoping this turns put good.
 
Thanks troll. Why even bother chiming in with negative comments? I'm a BSChE, I think I know what I'm doing.

easy there - wasn't trolling and wasn't trying to be negative - i have no idea what your background is nor does it matter in this situation.

i simply stated a fact; you are concerned about bugs in your mash tun when in fact you introduce them everytime you use it to mash - you expressed fears about ruining your MLT from doing a sour mash and i simply pointed out that you expose it to bugs and wild yeast everytime you use it - no need to be defensive about it :mug:
 
easy there - wasn't trolling and wasn't trying to be negative - i have no idea what your background is nor does it matter in this situation.

i simply stated a fact; you are concerned about bugs in your mash tun when in fact you introduce them everytime you use it to mash - you expressed fears about ruining your MLT from doing a sour mash and i simply pointed out that you are doing so expose it to bugs and wild yeast everytime you use it - no need to be defensive about it :mug:

The idea is to not cause any problems down the line. If you read my post you would have seen that I only mention not infecting my mash tun because I noticed a pellicle had still formed in my fermenter post boil, so I'm very glad that I had isolated the sour mash. What's the cost of a 5 gallon bucket? Like $5, so why risk it with a mash tun that cost much more in both time and money to build. I think the bucket mash went very well considering I was able to hold temp for 6 days. No need to come in here and hate on a process that worked perfectly.
 
He told you the truth.



Do you mean that you received a BSChE? Well, that is indeed impressive.



Obviously.
You're an even worse troll. This forum is meant to help people. I simply told someone what I did that worked and some of the reasoning behind it. You simply insulted people and offered nothing to the discussion.
 
fc36 said:
You're an even worse troll. This forum is meant to help people. I simply told someone what I did that worked and some of the reasoning behind it. You simply insulted people and offered nothing to the discussion.

I just read your process. How do you explain the pelicle in the fermentor in beer that was boiled for 15 min? That had to be a post boil/chill contamination that can't seem to have anything to do with the mash vessel, either the one you used or the one you didn't use...

I also agree with posters who said you weren't being trolled...no need for getting snarky about it...it is common noob (and I'm not calling you that!) misconception that the mash tun should be sanitized, even when working with non-sour beers. This is simply a huge waste of sanitizer and shows a poor understanding of the mash. We all know the raw grain is covered with wild bugs, that's why we can use it to sour wort. Mash can't possibly be sanitary, neither can the container that holds it.
 
I do not and never have used sanitizer pre boil. Sanitizing pre boil on any beer is simply folly and waste. I put away everything clean and then just rinse and clean before use and sanitize only items used post boil. I just mentioned my observations from my batch that went well mind you.

EDIT: My best guess for the source of infection was my well used auto-siphon (at the time). I have since switched to an eBIAB with a ss chugger pump. I still use my old rig from time to time for things like sour beers, just to avoid any complications, but I did buy a new auto-siphon. And for what it's worth, most commercial breweries use completely separate systems and even brewhouses for brewing sour beers vs sacch beers, so it's not that crazy of an idea.
 
So I tried culturing lacto from some uncrushed 2-row malt. This is the third time I've done this. The first time went okay, but I didn't let it get sour enough for my liking. The second time was the best beer I've ever made. This time I'm trying essentially what I did last time, but with a partial mash.
I'm having an issue though. After pasteurizing the beer to ferment normally, my gravity is now 1.018. The actual OG should have come out to about 1.039 (assuming 60% efficiency, which is what I typically get doing a BIAB partial mash.) While I had the wort souring outside in the heat, there was tons of bubbles in the airlock and fermentation seemed really active. Is it possible that there was a big enough wild yeast count to actually ferment half of the sugars in the beer, or is it possible that lacto could eat that much sugar?
Anyway, when I pasteurized, I kept it at 145 degrees F, which should not have driven off any possible alcohol in there, so hopefully everything is just fine.
Has anyone else had any experience with a significant gravity drop from souring with grain?
 
I've always been told that you need to boil pilsner for 90min to get the DMS out of the wort. If that is true then why does the no boil method work? Wouldn't it be full of DMS? Maybe I'm missing something.
 
As has been said in this thread several times, Pilsner has DMS precursors that are then converted to DMS starting at temps just above sparge temps. As long as you don't ever reach 175 degrees, you won't get any DMS.
 
So I tried culturing lacto from some uncrushed 2-row malt. This is the third time I've done this. The first time went okay, but I didn't let it get sour enough for my liking. The second time was the best beer I've ever made. This time I'm trying essentially what I did last time, but with a partial mash.
I'm having an issue though. After pasteurizing the beer to ferment normally, my gravity is now 1.018. The actual OG should have come out to about 1.039 (assuming 60% efficiency, which is what I typically get doing a BIAB partial mash.) While I had the wort souring outside in the heat, there was tons of bubbles in the airlock and fermentation seemed really active. Is it possible that there was a big enough wild yeast count to actually ferment half of the sugars in the beer, or is it possible that lacto could eat that much sugar?
Anyway, when I pasteurized, I kept it at 145 degrees F, which should not have driven off any possible alcohol in there, so hopefully everything is just fine.
Has anyone else had any experience with a significant gravity drop from souring with grain?

As far as I know, sour beers are harder to understand via gravity readings than clean beers. When we think of drops in gravity in clean beers, the assumption is that the bulk of the drop in gravity is due to sugars being replaced with ethanol. However, in sour beers a substantial amount of the sugar is replaced with lactic acid. Without having a good sense of what portion of the sugar is replaced with lactic acid versus ethanol or how the dissolved lactic acid will impact the gravity, the case is a bit hopeless. I once read that "lactic acid has a similar specific gravity to sugar", for what's it worth, but I would think it's worth nothing since sugar doesn't have a specific gravity (i.e. a pound of sugar in a gallon of water has a specific gravity, and it's not clear under what conditions of dissolution lactic acid has a similar specific gravity to sugar).
 
As far as I know, sour beers are harder to understand via gravity readings than clean beers. When we think of drops in gravity in clean beers, the assumption is that the bulk of the drop in gravity is due to sugars being replaced with ethanol. However, in sour beers a substantial amount of the sugar is replaced with lactic acid. Without having a good sense of what portion of the sugar is replaced with lactic acid versus ethanol or how the dissolved lactic acid will impact the gravity, the case is a bit hopeless. I once read that "lactic acid has a similar specific gravity to sugar", for what's it worth, but I would think it's worth nothing since sugar doesn't have a specific gravity (i.e. a pound of sugar in a gallon of water has a specific gravity, and it's not clear under what conditions of dissolution lactic acid has a similar specific gravity to sugar).

Which would mean that the gravity of my berliner should be higher than the amount of sugar left in it. But it's all the way down to 1.015. I'm pretty sure there's some wild yeast living on my grain.
 
In principle, you would expect a higher gravity reading, but without having more knowledge about the dissolution of lactic acid in water and bugs' metabolic pathways, there's no way for me to say for sure. Someone else probably has that knowledge though, I just meant to point out that it's a subtle subject. If you cultured bugs from grain then you almost certainly have a diversity of microbes in your beer.
 
I made a Berliner batch of 5 gallons by brewing three gallons of half pilsner and half wheat with like 7 IBUs. Then I added two gallons of wort off a sour mash I did for two days. So five gallons of wort into the fermenter then pitched sach of it. Obviously a quick ferment with an of of about 1030.

So my question is should I move that beer off the yeast if I plan on aging the beer for another couple months or should I just let it ride?
 
2a I undertook 2a and I'm on my second batch.
The first batch:
5 gallons
2.5 pils
2 wheat
1 acidulated malt
no boil
pitched 1L lacto Starter @ 110˚f
The idea with the acidulated malt screwed up the conversion and I ended up at 1.020 OG. Since this was more experimental than anything else I continued. I pitched a white labs lacto starter which consisted of dme @ 1.020 for a week. I took a reading before pitching and got a ph6.5 I left the fermenter at room temperature for 3 days and took a sample showing no change to gravity or ph.

I decided to change gears I hiked over to the LHBS and purchased some unmilled wheat and pilsner malt brewed up another 1.020 starter and put a cup of the unmilled grains at a 50% mix into a 1L erlenmeyer. I wrapped the fermenter in a heating blanket and set the temp for 110˚F and rested the starter on top of the bucket. Two days later I took another sample from the fermenter with no change in gravity or ph. The starter was another story the ph had dropped to ph3.6 and had a nice fluffy pellicle. After 5 days of inactivity I decided to take my chances... I simply filtered out the grain from the starter and dumped the starter liquid into the fermenter. The next morning I had heavy airlock activity and a sample at ph4.2. 3 days after the second pitch under a constant 110˚F I was at ph3.2 and a gravity reading of 1.018. I dropped the temp to 65˚f and pitched some white labs german yeast. 6 days later airlock activity had stopped 2 days earlier and the gravity was at 1.003. The beer had a single dimension to the flavor lemony acidity with a dry finish. Given the luck other have had reaching desired acidity I was pleased.

Three days after the second pitch on the initial batch I brewed again
5 gallons
2.5 wheat
2.5 pilsner
OG 1.030
No boil no hops

Right after the initial success of the first starter I brewed a 1L 1.030 starter at ph4.2 (pure lactic acid) and added 1 cup of unmilled wheat and pilsner inoculant. By brew day, two days later, the ph was at 3.2 on the starter. I pitched the starter @ 110˚f and wrapped the fermenter in my heating blanket set to 110f˚. 2 days later the ph was at 3.4 and the gravity has dropped to 1.025.

I plan on bottling the first batch with some Brett L. to add some dimension. I will update further in the future. this thread has been rather helpful. One note is that acidity can be rather subjective if anyone could include ph readings as a more concrete measurement I would greatly appreciate your efforts.
Thoughts....
I will add more observations as they develop.....
 
trying my second attempt at a Berliner style beer - no boil this time

60% 2-row, 27% flaked spelt, 13% raw spelt - couple oz of Acid Malt in the mash for pH adjustment and another 4.5oz when sparging to help lower the pH (planned on using more but that was all I had)

ended up adding a few ml of lactic acid as well in the keg to help lower the pH to keep anything unwanted from growing that may have survived in the starter

souring the wort in a corny now to give me better control over 02 exposure, using a lacto starter from apple juice and grain.

will be pitching a healthy starter of Brett B trois later in the week to ferment once the sourness is at the target level
 
trying my second attempt at a Berliner style beer - no boil this time

60% 2-row, 27% flaked spelt, 13% raw spelt - couple oz of Acid Malt in the mash for pH adjustment and another 4.5oz when sparging to help lower the pH (planned on using more but that was all I had)

ended up adding a few ml of lactic acid as well in the keg to help lower the pH to keep anything unwanted from growing that may have survived in the starter

souring the wort in a corny now to give me better control over 02 exposure, using a lacto starter from apple juice and grain.

will be pitching a healthy starter of Brett B trois later in the week to ferment once the sourness is at the target level

Despite my efforts to keep o2 out and a clean smelling/tasting starter ive got that wretched butyric acid smell when I vented the keg (plus plenty of blow off). Taste is mildly tart and not too nasty but pretty bummed. Brett should clean it up but hopefully it doesn't require much aging
 
I just tried a bottle of my first batch which I bottled with some white labs Bret. L. I bottled into 750ml heavy flip top bottles without racking or going to a secondary and enough dextros to get me to 3 atmospheres. Litmus on the beer in glass showed a ph of 3. The beer was tart, acidic, and lemony, and well carbonated with a dry apple finish. I am well pleased.
I obviously should have racked to a secondary as there is a good amount of sediment in the bottles about .25 inch.
All in all I couldn't be happier for a first attempt. My notes for the third attempt will be to mash for a drier finish, whirlfloc, a short boil for hot break, and a bit of time in secondary. I am also considering skipping the starter and just throwing some grain in the primary.
Thoughts, ideas, observations?
-s
 
About to brew my first Berliner. Thanks to all for the great info in this thread.

Does anyone think this style would benefit from brewing with spring water?

My tap water isn't horribly chlorinated, but it seems there's not a lot of darker/stronger malts to "hide" any less desirable flavors behind.

Cheers
dj turner
 
All in all I couldn't be happier for a first attempt. My notes for the third attempt will be to mash for a drier finish, whirlfloc, a short boil for hot break, and a bit of time in secondary. I am also considering skipping the starter and just throwing some grain in the primary.
Thoughts, ideas, observations?
-s

If you boil for a short time, you bring DMS back into play. You really should go one or the other. Either don't boil at all or boil for 60. Good luck.
 
djturner said:
About to brew my first Berliner. Thanks to all for the great info in this thread. Does anyone think this style would benefit from brewing with spring water? My tap water isn't horribly chlorinated, but it seems there's not a lot of darker/stronger malts to "hide" any less desirable flavors behind. Cheers dj turner

You never want to brew with water that hasn't been dechlorinated.
 
mysteryshrimp said:
If you boil for a short time, you bring DMS back into play. You really should go one or the other. Either don't boil at all or boil for 60. Good luck.

I wonder about this because this is what I do is a 15 minute boil and it does not have cooked corn flavors, I've had many taste it with comments of green apple, lemony, very tart, grainy, and delicious. I use pilsner malt and dechlorinated water. Seems like the water and primary yeast have minimal impact on this. The tartness really overrides many of the subtle flavors it seems.
 
I wonder about this because this is what I do is a 15 minute boil and it does not have cooked corn flavors, I've had many taste it with comments of green apple, lemony, very tart, grainy, and delicious. I use pilsner malt and dechlorinated water. Seems like the water and primary yeast have minimal impact on this. The tartness really overrides many of the subtle flavors it seems.

I've done the same (short, 15 min boil) on all three batches of Berliner Weisse that I've made and have not noticed any DMS flavors. I've entered these batches in Competitions and never had any of the judges pick it up either. I can only assume the acidicty covers up any flavors that are there. My grain bills are close to 50% pils too. I know some people use more pils so maybe that's why it's worked out for me so far. :mug:
 
So for those of you using method 2a (normal mash, pitch lacto a few days before pitching ale yeast), how long does the sourness take to develop?

Also, when would I add fruit using this method? Give it say 2 weeks in primary, then rack to fruit in secondary for a few months? I want to have a fruited BW ready for drinking next summer. ANy thoughts?
 
Quick question, so i made my Berliner pitched lacto and S05 at the same time, beer fermented out, lacto came in and was going along nicely, so i decided to transfer it to a secondary to get it off the yeast cake and let it sit...

My question is what temp should i hold this at? Is 70 ok? Should i bring it up to 75-80 or higher to really let the lacto take off? I dont see how going higher now that the fermentation is done and the yeast are mostly gone could hurt the beer, but ive never done a sour so i just dont know!
 
I brewed a Saison a while back that I wanted to sour a bit using the sour mash technique I described earlier. Because I only wanted it a little sour, I racked off a couple of gallons, added the grain and put it in the oven at 105F. After three days, it had a bit of a pellicle but was not very sour at all and a gravity check showed very little sugars had been consumed. I left it for another day but it did not improve. I then checked on my kettle (which I had left at cellar temp, ~62F). It had a giant pellicle and tasted quite sour, and was about 8 gravity points lower than where I started, so I proceeded I did before (did a normal boil, 105 minutes since I had Pils and for volume). It worked out great, but the portions I separated behaved completely opposite as anticipated.
 
Next week i'm trying a new method. Here it is:

3lbs Pils
3lbs Red Wheat Malt

Step Mash
Filtration
15 minutes boil with 10g EKG (4 IBU) (1.030-1.035)
Active lacto culture pitch in the kettle after cooled to 100°F (Lacto D.)
2 or 3 days sour worting
60 minutes
1/4oz Cascade 20m
1/4oz Cascade 5m
(11 IBU final)
Us05 fermentation
Bottling with Brett Lambicus addition

It should give me, after carbonation and some brett over work, a 4% really sparkly BW.
 
Why are you doing two boils?

The first one is just to sterilise the wort prior to the sour worting. Then I'm sur I have nothing else than lacto going on. The second is to sterilize again, boil off DMS and hop the wort.
 
The first one is just to sterilise the wort prior to the sour worting. Then I'm sur I have nothing else than lacto going on. The second is to sterilize again, boil off DMS and hop the wort.

Your first boil is completely unnecessary. Mashing at 150 takes care of most beasties and anything that tries to take root in there will be discouraged by heat (100-110F or 38-43C) and by covering your vessel and purging the headspace with CO2. Butyric Acid bacteria and Acetobacter are your main culprits of Berliner problems and both work to convert alcohol to the dreaded butyric acid and acetic acid (vinegar) respectively.

However, your initial fermentation is using Lactobacillus Delbrueckii to convert sugar to lactic acid. Lacto D. is a known homofermentative species and as such will not produce anything but lactic acid during its fermentation process. Your wort will contain sugar, starch, proteins, lactic acid and water, but no alcohol until you introduce yeast after your proposed second boil.

Furthermore, once the wort is inoculated with Lacto D., it will crowd out competitors like a yeast when introduced in a large enough quantity, like let's say, a smackpack. And once it takes root, it will work rather quickly to lower the pH below 4.5. Again, the low pH is in your favor and makes it hard for undesirables to gain any headway.

Like any other beer, with proper sanitation and a little preparation, you can sour mash easily and safely with very little to worry about.
 
I know all that (and by the way, lacto D is hetero, blowing out a lot of co2, wich is impossible if producing only lactic acid). But hey, could it hurt to take 15 minutes more? Better be too safe than not enough.


Envoyé de mon iPhone à l'aide de Home Brew
 
I know all that (and by the way, lacto D is hetero, blowing out a lot of co2, wich is impossible if producing only lactic acid). But hey, could it hurt to take 15 minutes more? Better be too safe than not enough.


Envoyé de mon iPhone à l'aide de Home Brew

Just because you have airlock activity does not mean its exclusively CO2. During any fermentation gaseous byproducts are produced. Check this out...http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Lactobacillus_delbrueckii
and this...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus

Both sources list Lacto D. as an obligately homofermentative species. I'm not trying to prove you wrong, just give you a little food for thought. The first boil is unnecessary, but can certainly give someone peace of mind. I've done several berliners with no pre-inoculation boil and I've also done a few with the always scary sour mash technique, all to spectacular results.
 
Just because you have airlock activity does not mean its exclusively CO2. During any fermentation gaseous byproducts are produced. Check this out...http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Lactobacillus_delbrueckii
and this...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus

Both sources list Lacto D. as an obligately homofermentative species. I'm not trying to prove you wrong, just give you a little food for thought. The first boil is unnecessary, but can certainly give someone peace of mind. I've done several berliners with no pre-inoculation boil and I've also done a few with the always scary sour mash technique, all to spectacular results.

Well, that shakes my knowledge... My lacto culture is going on in a erlenmeyer right now, since over a week, with an airlock. I have a massive gaz expulsion, for several days, and no pellicule at all, wich means no oxygen. I also did a 100% lacto D fermentation for 3 weeks in a carboy, (wich I after blended with a 100% brett fermentation), and I never had any sign of pellicule. And I can tell it was alcoholic at the end.

That said...
1- What might be, if not CO2, that is pushing out?
2- Well, maybe Wyeast Lacto D isn't a pure lacto D culture?
 
Back
Top