Thoughts on a Berliner Weisse and Jolly Pumpkin yeast/bacteria

I've done a berliner weisse each year for the past 2 years. Given its low gravity I have been able to do 10 gallon batches using my standard 5 gallon setup, which is great because, in my opinion, it is a great beer both to drink in quantity as well as set some aside to develop in the bottle.

This year I am thinking of doing my batch using 100% jolly pumpkin yeast, cultured from a relatively fresh bottle of E.S. Bam that I have. I am pretty experienced in yeast culturing at this point so I have little doubt that I can grow up a viable and ample cell count of this yeast. I think that the flavor profile of jolly pumpkin yeast has everything I want from a berliner weisse, both the tart and the complexity that makes it more interesting than a pure lacto/sacch ferment. I know that it may not be traditional, but I have not particularly enjoyed (both my homebrew and commercial) BW's that either use a sour mash or do not have any brett in them, they seem a little on dimensional.

I usually brew this towards the end of the summer and bottle in the spring, so I am looking at at least 6-8 months aging before bottling. Does anyone have experience doing an 100% jolly pumpkin culture beer? I am wondering if, given the low gravity, it will develop the requisite sourness, given time.

Thanks.

I have a 100% JP dregs only 1 week in. I ferment in my kettle and racked it to a carboy last Thursday night. Saturday morning I cleaned the kettle. The 2 liters remaining below my valve port already had a pellicle forming on it and there was even some tartness already in the sample I drank. You'll have no problem. I actually assume I'll need to blend it back with a base beer way down the road to cut the sourness and funk.

Listen to the CYBI episode for Bam Biere. Mike Mraz fermented some with dregs culture and another with sacc first plus dregs. The latter was found to be a more true clone.

RJ, I think Jimmy and Nick have done a handful of beers with harvested JP dregs built up to a decent cell count, have you had any of those to compare?

My buddy and I loved your BW you poured us a few weeks ago at Barry's, we've been talking about it ever since. Care to share you process/recipe for that one?

JP dregs are awesome and you'll have no trouble getting the sourness and funk. They're my go to option for 6 month sours, I have four batches from jp starters brewed just this summer and a jp Berliner is in the plans.

Coff said:

RJ, I think Jimmy and Nick have done a handful of beers with harvested JP dregs built up to a decent cell count, have you had any of those to compare?

My buddy and I loved your BW you poured us a few weeks ago at Barry's, we've been talking about it ever since. Care to share you process/recipe for that one?

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Thanks, Ed. I had a couple of their JP dreg beers, most recently a JP IPA that was really excellent, it was not really sour though because I believe it was turned around rather fresh. I am more interested in how sour this blend gets with 6-8 months of aging.

That berliner I brought to the meeting was made with 50/50 pils/wheat, mash hops, no boil. I built up a starter of WL lacto in apple juice and pitched that and let it sit go for 2 days, at which point I added a starter of brett c. I'm sure I added dregs too somewhere in the 6 months it sat before bottling.

BTW, at this Friday's meeting I will have a kolsch that I made with the ECY21 I got from you. I'm really happy with how the beer came out.

RJSkypala said:

Thanks, Ed. I had a couple of their JP dreg beers, most recently a JP IPA that was really excellent, it was not really sour though because I believe it was turned around rather fresh. I am more interested in how sour this blend gets with 6-8 months of aging.

That berliner I brought to the meeting was made with 50/50 pils/wheat, mash hops, no boil. I built up a starter of WL lacto in apple juice and pitched that and let it sit go for 2 days, at which point I added a starter of brett c. I'm sure I added dregs too somewhere in the 6 months it sat before bottling.

BTW, at this Friday's meeting I will have a kolsch that I made with the ECY21 I got from you. I'm really happy with how the beer came out.

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Yea I think youre right about quick turnaround with those beers they did. Let me know how it works out with the JP dregs Im planning a similar experiment shortly, just got a 500ml flask and a bottle of Bam Biere just trying to figure out a good time to open it.

Thats interesting, I know you said you used Brett in it but there was no sacch at all? I may try to replicate it as I have ~20lbs of Pilsner left.

Unfortunately I cant make the meeting this Friday, I'm glad to hear the ECY21 worked for you. Let Jimmy know you used my washed ECY21 on it bc he used one of my jars and got a pretty nasty infection so I was second guessing my sanitation a little bit.

I emailed Ron at JP a while back, and he suggested that there won't be enough lacto in the dregs for a lacto forward beer. You may want to pitch the lacto first, and then the JP dregs.