BYO'S Berliner Weisse...

I'm going to be doing the extract recipe from BYO (Sept. 2009) for the 15 minute boil Berliner Weisse this weekend.
Has anyone tried this?
Any hints/tips/tricks that I need to know?

You should crawl through the posts in the thread for Jason's recipe, there is lots of good info and our experiences in there. Most of us pitched the lacto and waited for activity (2-3 days) before pitching any saccharomyces yeast, this way it has a chance to get nice and sour.

that's what I did. took a while for mine (lacto) to start. I just pitched a tube. if I had it to do again i would make a lacto starter. I kept mine at 100 during the lacto only pitch (first 40 hours or so) and it came close to needing a blow off.

Thanks guys.

interested to see how the recipe works out. is that from the partial mash article? looked like a solid beer.

It is the Sept 2009 issue, the "Style Profile" article. There are 2 recipes, an all grain and an extract only. I did the extract only version. Fermenting as we "speak".

I brewed the AG 3 weeks ago and checked FG last night. No sourness at all. Pitched a tube of lacto and it took off within a couple hours and I let it sit for 3 days before I pitched my yeast starter. Transferred to a secondary to age. Not sure what happened and need to check my notes.

I brewed that recipe last year and followed Jamil's process. You can find the Berliner show on the BN to hear some more info (it's actually one of the shorter episodes).
However, like others have said, I recommend giving the pack/tube of Lacto at least 24 hours before pitching any yeast. I think I let mine go too long (~32hours), as the yeast never fully attenuated and it stopped at 1.009. I also skipped the boil completely, did a two step decoction, and just brought the wort up to temp to pasteurize. This method worked out really well and is a lot easier than busting out your burner just to do a 15 min boil. Let us know how it turns out.

I tried a sample this evening and it still is not sour at all. You can smell it, but when you taste it you get disappointed. Tastes kinda thin and I read the mash temp went down to the low-mid 140's and then I moved the mash inside.

I'm wondering it there is anyway to save it. It got moved into a keg and is sitting there waiting for me to get back to it. I set this keg aside as a secondary fermenter since it is a PITA to seal. Could I just toss some acid into the keg and try it then? It tastes fine otherwise, but just no sourness.

I will try making this beer again and will try another sour going with a sour mash once I can control the temp a little better.

Thanks.

Either bring it up to 80F or so and leave it for a few months, or just add lactic acid.

Adding lactic acid really does result in a pretty darn nice character. I am starting to lean towards that as the best way to get sourness in a berliner weisse, tradition be damned.

ChrisKennedy said:

Either bring it up to 80F or so and leave it for a few months, or just add lactic acid.

Adding lactic acid really does result in a pretty darn nice character. I am starting to lean towards that as the best way to get sourness in a berliner weisse, tradition be damned.

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How much Lactic acid would be enough and not too much?

It is common for Berliner weisse to range anywhere from .5% acid to 1%+ acid.

So depending on your volume, and assuming an 88% lactic acid that you got from the homebrew store, you can figure it out from there.

Mostly you are going to do it by your own personal taste. I don't think starting with an entire 4oz bottle is going overboard. It would take 7.3oz of 88% lactic acid to get 5gal of beer to 1% lactic acid solution. This is firmly sour, but some traditional berliners were this tart.

I tasted this again and still no sourness. I tossed in 4oz of Lactic Acid and carbed it up. Gave my GF a glass when she got home from work today and got a nice nod! Got to find some bottles for it now. Going to make another sour maybe next week.

Got me a gold at the NM State Fair. I opened a Swing-top bottle I had and it had mellowed a lot.

Saccharomyces said:

You should crawl through the posts in the thread for Jason's recipe, there is lots of good info and our experiences in there. Most of us pitched the lacto and waited for activity (2-3 days) before pitching any saccharomyces yeast, this way it has a chance to get nice and sour.

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I brewed the AG recipe that was in a past BYO a few years ago and it turned out good, but not sour enough. I am definitely going to try what Saccharomyces suggests to increase the sourness. Other than that, the recipe is good, in my opinion. I fermented with Wyeast 1007 and added the bacteria about a week or so later.

A few friends have done no boil BWs where they decocted a portion of the mash and added the small amount of hops in that. The best 2 I tasted both started off slow and the brewer tossed in a handful of grain with the wort in primary after the first day or so. They smelled like vomit for awhile in the fermentor, then cleaned up completely with a nice level of sourness as well.

On the flip-side, EVERY BW I've tried with lactic acid added later for sourness tasted boring and very synthetic. The sourness has a very chlorine-like quality in BWs using post fermentation lactic acid additions.

Jaymo said:

On the flip-side, EVERY BW I've tried with lactic acid added later for sourness tasted boring and very synthetic. The sourness has a very chlorine-like quality in BWs using post fermentation lactic acid additions.

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I get a butter toffee flavor, but I know what you mean and I agree. I've considered using lactic acid early in fermentation in conjunction with brett for some synthesis of lactate ternary products to see if that works out flavor-wise. My best berliner was brewed traditionally, with no boil, decoction hop, and a decent sized lacto pitch.

Have you considered using a large percentage of acidulated malt? I've been curious if this would give a more natural acidity.

That said, there's a funky complexity to the no boil spontaneously fermented BWs that I doubt can be imitated through other means.