Berliner Weisse Secondary?

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Munsoned

Munsoned

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I have a Berliner Weisse fermenting away. Started with a lacto culture for 2 or 3 days, then pitched a European Ale yeast. It's been in the primary for a tad over 45 days now. It was not very sour the last time I tried it, but I'm patient. My plan is to wait to try it again when it's at the 180 day mark.

Here's my question: should I rack to a secondary to get the beer off the yeast cake? My fear is that keeping it on the yeast for six months may result in autolysis. Is that a real concern? What do you guys do/recommend?
 
I would say that if you plan on leaving your beer for 6 months, it would not be a bad thing to transfer. Autolysis may become an issue if it goes that long. I havent aged a beer that long, so Im not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure you could run into those issues by then
 
I think you'll be fine either way, but if you do decide to leave it in the primary and it does autolyze, then an easy fix would be to add Brett, which will consume the autolyzed yeast. I would be tempted to do add Brett C anyway if you are planning on leaving it for 6 mo.
 
wetherel said:
I think you'll be fine either way, but if you do decide to leave it in the primary and it does autolyze, then an easy fix would be to add Brett, which will consume the autolyzed yeast. I would be tempted to do add Brett C anyway if you are planning on leaving it for 6 mo.
Click to expand...

Now that's an interesting idea that I hadn't thought of...

I ordered a new (used) 5 gallon corny yesterday, should be here by early next week. Maybe I'll split the difference: rack half into the extra corny and purge it with CO2 and let it sit, and put the other half into a secondary carboy with some Brett C (also purge the headspace), and see how they both turn out.
 
Bump. I too have a BW that has been in primary for about two weeks. If I plan to age it ~6 months, does it need to be racked at some point? I would prefer not to add brett to take care of autolysis.
 
If it's been 45 days and it's not sour, I don't think it's going to get sour. If it's not sour already, then the sacch ate most of the sugar and left the beer too dry and too alcoholic for the lacto to do anything. Next time, wait until your beer is sufficiently sour before you add sacch. For now, I think you have three options.
1. Drink it as is. The high carbonation of a berliner will accentuate what sourness there is.
2. Add acid powder to taste and bottle/keg. This is my choice.
3. Add pedio, which will sour, but needs brett to clean up after it. This will take months, and will look revolting, ropy and potentially toxic in the interim. Also makes it a little funky, which may or may not be to your taste.
 
kingwood-kid said:
If it's been 45 days and it's not sour, I don't think it's going to get sour. If it's not sour already, then the sacch ate most of the sugar and left the beer too dry and too alcoholic for the lacto to do anything. Next time, wait until your beer is sufficiently sour before you add sacch. For now, I think you have three options.
1. Drink it as is. The high carbonation of a berliner will accentuate what sourness there is.
2. Add acid powder to taste and bottle/keg. This is my choice.
3. Add pedio, which will sour, but needs brett to clean up after it. This will take months, and will look revolting, ropy and potentially toxic in the interim. Also makes it a little funky, which may or may not be to your taste.
Click to expand...

This is my first time attempting a berliner weisse, and I just used the BW blend from white labs. I think I'm just going to wait for the sulfur compounds to dissipate, taste and evaluate. If it needs more acidity for my taste, the acid powder (I assume lactic acid would be best?) seems like the best route.
 
I have not tried this, but you could do a small batch where you just pitch a big lacto starter and then blend that with your BW. You could even do a simple 15min boil on DME without hops.

I did a seven day lacto ferment at 110f for a Brett sour. It was definitely more sour than my BW. I don't have a clue about a blending ratio, but it might give you a more three dimension sourness than adding lactic acid from a jar.
 

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