Berliner Weisse not sour enough?

Brewed the Berliner Weisse recipe from The Naked Brewer as my first sour (and first extract in a very long time!), which called for Lacto and European Ale yeast to be added at the same time. I bottled today, and the hydro sample has a slightly "sour"-ish, smooth character, but it's more pleasant and balanced rather than Sour Patch Kids. It was my understanding that Berliner Weisse should be a little more on the puckering side of things, hence the need for syrup.

Would it be better going forward to add the lacto first, then the yeast a day or two later? Or is my palate just dead to sour sensations? Don't get me wrong, it was tasty, and I'm sure it'll be better with carbonation. I was just expecting more pucker.

Adding lacto first will help. The longer lead time you give it, the more sour your beer will be. Lacto works fastest around 98.6F, so high temps will also speed things up, although they aren't necessary.

How long did you leave it in the fermenter before bottling?

With the lacto starter, I typically have left it for several months. But I also finished the beer with a pitch of brett to chew through anything left by the lacto and sacc.

I've had more luck with sour mashes to be honest. I make sure to blanket with CO2 and haven't had the garbage smell that some report. I get a much more complex taste and that is after a week fermentation (I used the Chico strain to finish the beer). I do have five gallons that is sitting with some brett to see what will happen. I plan on that being a lawn mower beer this summer.

My advice is to go with a sour mash if you can.

latium said:

How long did you leave it in the fermenter before bottling?

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Was shooting for two weeks, but got lazy. Ended up at 4 or 5. Forgot to record my brew date.

Hmm, without knowing more about the recipe, I'd guess that that was the issue. In Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil mentions three main ways to sour a Berliner weisse: Dosing lactic acid (which he compares to microwaving a steak: it's fast and gets the job done, but the taste and texture is not the same as grilling); letting the mash or the wort sour before boiling, which he suggests doing by throwing a handful of grain in it around 100F and letting it sit for a few days; and dosing with a commercial Lactobacillus delbrucekii culture, which you did. (His recipe calls for European ale (WLP011 or Wyeast 1338, with an alternate of US-05) and lacto (WLP677 or Wyeast 5335), like you've done.)

The point of writing all that was to pass along his recommendation for an aging time for the last method, which I could have sworn he suggested, but I don't see one in the text, so I must be remembering something that I saw online. Bearing in mind that this is a style that I want to brew but haven't yet gotten around to, I'm pretty sure that I've read to age this kind of beer for six months. Some web searching finds people recommending at least three months, and the longer the better. Again, bearing in mind that I haven't (yet) worked with Lacto, I would think that continued aging in the bottle would be fine and allow it to sour more.

Wyeast recommends extended aging for this style, and at least one review of a White Labs blend suggests six months. Hopefully someone else with more experience with this style or this bacterium will chime in, but it seems to me like you should just give it more time.

This is what they recommend in The Naked Brewer:

2.5 gallons

3.5 gallons water
1 lb 6 oz Pilsner extract
1 lb 6 oz Wheat extract
.5 oz Liberty hops (10 min)
Wyeast Lactobacillus
White Labs WLP-011 European Ale yeast

Boil for 15 min, hops for 10 min
Pitch yeast and lacto at same time, ferment for 2 weeks, bottle.

OG: 1.035
IBU: 5.8
ABV: 3.5%

Only, a 15 minute boil in constant threat of boil-over didn't boil off a full gallon, so I ended up with a little over three gallons, OG 1.030, FG 1.007, about 3.0% ABV. In primary 4-5 weeks, bottled yesterday.

I was always under the impression that because these are low gravity beers they should be consumed fairly young.

If you add brett, long aging is necessary to develop the desired flavors and avert explosions. If you're going brett-less, you don't have to age it any more than any other low-gravity beer. The lacto will shut down when the pH gets low enough, the ABV gets too high or it runs out of food. All three of these things will happen inside of a week, assuming you add sacch. The commercial lacto cultures tend to be less aggressively sour than what you'll get from adding raw grain. Whatever sourness you have after a few days is what you'll end up with, although the perceived levels will be a little higher if the beer is dry and carbonated. I don't think it greatly matters what sacch strain you use, as long as you pitch enough to handle the low pH.

kingwood-kid said:

If you add brett, long aging is necessary to develop the desired flavors and avert explosions. If you're going brett-less, you don't have to age it any more than any other low-gravity beer. The lacto will shut down when the pH gets low enough, the ABV gets too high or it runs out of food. All three of these things will happen inside of a week, assuming you add sacch. The commercial lacto cultures tend to be less aggressively sour than what you'll get from adding raw grain. Whatever sourness you have after a few days is what you'll end up with, although the perceived levels will be a little higher if the beer is dry and carbonated. I don't think it greatly matters what sacch strain you use, as long as you pitch enough to handle the low pH.

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The kid is completely right. Well stated and spot on from my experience and what I've read.

You could always brew a second batch and sour mash for 48 hours and blend it to taste. That would be my advice before you do anything rash like dose with pure lactic acid.

kingwood-kid said:

If you add brett, long aging is necessary to develop the desired flavors and avert explosions.

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Not really. 1.007 is slightly high, but 1.005 is fine to pitch Brett and bottle without adding sugar. 2 point drop in gravity will create 1 vol co2.

Thank you for the correction and education! It will be very handy when I finally brew myself a batch of this delicious, delicious style.

Lacto doesn't like alcohol, hops, or oxygen.

The few Berliners that I have done:

- I've made my wort without any hops, short boil to sanitize and boil off entrained O2, siphoned into fermenter to minimize O2 pick up, pitched lacto, placed on airlock, and maintained temperature around 90 F.

- After about 5 days I start tasting it to see how sour it is. Once it is sour enough I boil it to add hops (this will also kill the Lacto), but you could just boil a portion.

- cool to normal fermentation temps, pitch LOTS of yeast, aerate and ferment normally.

The beer is in the bottle in 3 to 4 weeks and I start drinking a couple of weeks later. I have been very pleased with the ones I have made, and very surprised at how easy they were to make.