First Sour beer

[srob18]

I'm making a Berliner Weisse and have a few questions from more experienced brewers of sour type beers.

1) im debating adding Orange Zest, thoughts? I was thinking perhaps throwing it in with primary fermentation to give it more of a sour orange character. Any advice would be appreciated...

2) how long should I leave the beer alone, I'm expecting anywhere from 3-8 month in the primary before either racking to a secondary or bottling. Any suggestions on this would be great too.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Calder]

If you sour the wort before pitching yeast, you can be drinking the beer in 6 weeks. Read through some threads on Berliners.

 

[signpost]

Yeah, which method are you using for souring?

I did a sour mash Berlinerweisse and the short boil killed off the lacto, so then I just had a regular fermentation after that. It was ready to drink pretty darn quick.

If you pitch lacto into the fermenter, you might have to be more careful about waiting to bottle. But I've never done it that way, so I can't tell you much about how to deal with that.

 

[srob18]

Since this was my first time I used some help from one of the guys at my LHBS.

He had me Mash at 145 for 2-3 hours then boil for 90 min, i added US-05 and put straight 2-row in the primary for the Lacto. He said it works great for him, i couldn't wrap my head around it.

Grains were :

3.5 Wheat
2.5 Pilsen
4oz 2-Row(added with yeast straight in for fermentation)

 

[signpost]

Yeah, that should work fine. I would think that if the US-05 takes off quickly, it might not let the lacto work to make it very sour. Or the lacto could go to town and make it really sour.

Somebody else will have to chime in to address how soon you can bottle. I don't know how long lacto continues to work (if at all) after the sacch yeast is finished.

You could maybe ask the guy at your LHBS how quickly he bottles.

 

[srob18]

Well the US-05 has taken off quite nicely i already have a blow off attached(gulp). I'll be very interested to see how it turns out. I'll have to look up and see if Lacto will work after the US-05 is done.

Thanks for the help!