My First Berliner Weisse

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dantheman13

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Hey all, I thought this might be of some interest. I recently brewed my first Berliner Weisse. I didn't boil, and allowed a vial of WLP677 Lactobacillus to sour the wort for a week at around 95 degrees F. Attached is a video of my process and my fermentation results!




I would appreciate any feedback, thanks!
 
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very cool -- thanks! am looking forward to a follow-up. how long are you planning on letting the lacto and sach do their thing?
 
very cool -- thanks! am looking forward to a follow-up. how long are you planning on letting the lacto and sach do their thing?

Thanks! I will probably let it go in the fermenter at least another month, and then bottle. After bottled, I will probably age it another 2 months before actually trying it. I added some Jolly Pumpkin bottle dregs to it last weekend, but I don't think there is a lot of sugar left over for the Brett to do much, at least in the short term. Cheers!
 
I'm brewing my first BW this Sunday. Also going to do the no boil method.

I've got a home made lacto starter going in the garage (85F) and just finished my starter with WLP630 (BW). Planning to pitch the lacto for 72 hours at 85F and then pitch the BW starter.
 
I'm brewing my first BW this Sunday. Also going to do the no boil method.

I've got a home made lacto starter going in the garage (85F) and just finished my starter with WLP630 (BW). Planning to pitch the lacto for 72 hours at 85F and then pitch the BW starter.

Interesting. That is the thing about BW and sours in general, there seems to be a lot of preferences and options on how to culture and inoculate. This is the most fun I have had in homebrewing yet!
 
I added some Jolly Pumpkin bottle dregs to it last weekend, but I don't think there is a lot of sugar left over for the Brett to do much, at least in the short term. Cheers!

Whoa -- getting pretty adventurous there, eh?

There's something so alluring about sours... sort of brings back a little of the art and alchemy that has since been replaced by the scientific method, no? :)
 
Whoa -- getting pretty adventurous there, eh?

There's something so alluring about sours... sort of brings back a little of the art and alchemy that has since been replaced by the scientific method, no? :)

Lol, indeed. I find that even a little Brett character in a sour beer adds an extra dimension that I enjoy. Sour beers seem like they can be hit and miss though. It's a lot of time for something that can be hard to achieve. Berliner Weisse is supposed to be the easiest sour to brew though. I've read that a lot of people have success with this style of beer. :)
 
I have had a few sour mashed Berliner Weisses and while they do often get a pretty sharp sourness there is always something missing in my opinion. I really like brett in a berliner, the one I made two years ago using the Wyeast blend is one of the best berliners I have ever tasted. You can get a sour beer with a sour mash but there is a complexity you get from a fully biologically produced sour that cannot be replicated, in my experience.
 
Cool! I have read that some people don't get good results with sour mashes. Not sure what goes wrong there for some but not for others.

The threat is getting enterobacter infection, which if the pH is low enough will not be an issue. I personally don't like dealing with this potential though so I make a starter with a WL culture kept at 98 or so degrees on a stir plate and pitch that simultaneously with my sacc yeast. I do no boil mashes though as they reportedly leave a little wild lacto alive to help round out flavors. I also go from fermenter to bottle within a week as they seem to really sour up faster once in the bottle...the only hard part is figuring out carbing sugar as that young of a beer still has plenty of CO2 in solution.
 
The threat is getting enterobacter infection, which if the pH is low enough will not be an issue. I personally don't like dealing with this potential though so I make a starter with a WL culture kept at 98 or so degrees on a stir plate and pitch that simultaneously with my sacc yeast. I do no boil mashes though as they reportedly leave a little wild lacto alive to help round out flavors. I also go from fermenter to bottle within a week as they seem to really sour up faster once in the bottle...the only hard part is figuring out carbing sugar as that young of a beer still has plenty of CO2 in solution.

Interesting information on the enterobacter, thanks. I'm not sure how anything can live in the wort if it is brought to a boil even for a few seconds. Do you mean that you just run the mash directly into the kettle and cool without bringing it to a boil first?
 
FYI, I did a tasting a while ago. This beer turned out really good. I got a lot of really positive feedback from brewers/homebrewers/experienced craft beer palettes in my area.

The one problem with the beer was that it was slightly undercarbed for the style. I used Coopers carb drops, which I've used on a lot of beers and have never had a problem prior. I think it was because the beer sat in the fermenter for around 8 months before I bottled, and maybe didn't have enough yeast in solution. I tried gently tipping the boxes of bottles upside down during the carbonation process, which has worked for other beers that didn't want to carbonate, but that didn't work. The beer definitely doesn't have any noticeable residual sweetness.

Anyway, here is the tasting video.

 
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Thanks for posting the follow up...so often people don't.

I went a different route on my last BW, I did a no boil and then did a lacto starter that was pitched at the same time with my yeast (I can't remember the ratio). I bottled it at one week. So on the opposite end of the spectrum, I did not know how much residual CO2 was in the beer as I bottled it so early and ended up not adding enough carbing sugar so I too ended up with it being undercarbed. Oh well, I will toss it into a competition and see how they like it.
 
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