Berliner Weisse

So my future father-in-law always talks about himbeer and berliner weisse when I talk about brewing and with xmas coming up I figured I'd order him the himbeer and brew a batch of berliner weisse.

I'm not so familiar with sours and a lot of recipes call for a bacteria starter or allowing part of the wort to sour.

When I read...let 1.5gal of the 6gal sour for 3-5 days are we talking just open air in a bucket?

If I use a yeast like this wyeast-labs-berliner-weiss-blend-3191pc does it negate the need for the souring as the bacteria is in the packet?

Do you make a bacteria starter same as a yeast starter only pitching a batch of bacteria vs yeast?

check out some of the threads at the bottom of this page

I recently made a BW and it took 3rd place in a local home brewing comp.

I used WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii and WLP011 European Ale. I pitched the Lacto (no starter) and waited 3 days to pitch the yeast starter. The wyeast blend already contains both so nothing else would be needed.

You can also skip the lacto and just add some lactic acid to taste before bottling. I will prob go with the lactic acid route next time. That way I don't need to worry about contaminating my equipment with lacto, and I can get the tartness just the way I like it.

is there that much fear of your equip permantely being affected? wont a nice bath in starsan clean up everything enough afterwards to use for different brews or do you basically need a carboy/bottling bucket/lines dedicated to sours?

BSBrewer said:

is there that much fear of your equip permantely being affected? wont a nice bath in starsan clean up everything enough afterwards to use for different brews or do you basically need a carboy/bottling bucket/lines dedicated to sours?

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You don't have to have a second set, especially if you are just using lacto (the commercial strains are very wimpy when it comes to hops). However if you start playing with Brett I'd suggest having a second set of plastic (tubing, auto siphon, bottling wand, bottling spigot etc...) better to spend $20 now than dump a couple batches down the line.

Lactic acid can work, but it is never quite the same as the real deal. That said, if you are adding the syrup it won’t matter much.

My technique is to add hops to the mash, decoct, and skip the boil (although I heatclose to a boil to sanitize). I like to pitch lacto plus US-05 at the same time I've tasted some off beers resulting from beers getting too sour before the yeast is added. I had fine results with the Wyeast blend, but it didn’t get as sour as I like the style. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/07/cabernet-berliner-weiss.html

Good luck

In theory you should be ok with a good cleaning. Glass and stainless would be easily sanitized. The main worry is with things like hose and other plastic equipment that could harbor this stuff in scratches or pitting.