Help to salvage a Berliner Weisse that is too mild

[Stakem]

Berliner Weisse is one of my favorite styles of beer. For my first batch of it, I did a sour mash that came out pretty darn good.

To further my experience with the style I brewed 10 gallons (70% pils/30% wheat ~4 ibus and 2.8% target abv) and split the wort into 2 carboys. One of them got a stepped up starter of lacto for a week prior to pitching some clean german ale yeast the other carboy got a packet of the wyeast pc 3191 Berliner blend.

Fast forward 5 or 6 months to today.

The 3191 carboy has a small pellicle, great. I took samples from both carboys and I am completely under whelmed. For a style that is already light, it seemingly tastes watered down without the tartness you look for.

The 3191 carboy smells perfect. It's lemony, grainy and has a minor Brett influence. The taste however has none of that character other than a light grainy flavor. It is not tart at all.

The lacto carboy I was expecting to be a little more tart considering the amount of lacto pitched and it's head start it got prior to pitching the ale yeast. It too is a failure with no tartness.

I have already planned to brew 10 more gallons to pitch on top of each carboys yeast cake assuming additional batches would increase in tartness. However is there anything that can be done to salvage the current batches?

I've considered adding some form of sugar (maybe fruit like acidic grapes) to give the bugs something different to eat. I've wondered if maybe carbonating the batch would increase the "perceived" tartness with some bubbly to it. I want to stay away from just adding lactic acid at bottling but I guess that might be a last resort.

 

[Gritsak]

Here are some suggestions i received when i had a similar problem:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/best-way-sour-my-unsour-berliner-weisse-193749/

I ended up adding about 4lbs of rhubarb total. It definitely helped, but it still wasn't as sour as i would have liked. I kegged the beer about a month or so ago and am letting it sit until spring. Most people report that sourness increases once it has been bottled (or kegged) for a couple months, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Stakem]

Thanks for the link, I read about adding rhubarb before but I'm not sure if that was the same thread. I'm not positive if that's the route I want to take but I appreciate the suggestion.

I also have read a lot about people saying to be patient and give it time. In my case (since it's already 5+ months old) I'm wondering if the difference is in the priming sugar at bottle time.

I was considering kegging it and force carbonating but maybe instead I'll keg with priming sugar and let it sit for a few more months.

 

[ryane]

Gritsak - how long did you let the rhubarb sit, and how did you process it?

When I did it with rhubarb, I let the beer sit quite a while and it became extremely turbid (suggesting bacterial growth) before dropping bright about 2mos later, tasting it then it was extremely sour

 

[kopher]

The 3191 carboy smells perfect. It's lemony, grainy and has a minor Brett influence. The taste however has none of that character other than a light grainy flavor. It is not tart at all.

I had the exact same situation--used the recipe from NB and was very disappointed. Split the batch into three parts: put two gallons into secondary with sour cherries (combination of juice and dried, both were very tart) and after 3-4 weeks it's red and already way better. Also threw in some oak chips, we'll see how that goes.

Another 2 gallons I left plain in the hopes that something good happens...might try rhubarb if it's still watery in another month or two.

The last gallon I left in the primary and dumped a couple gallons of unfermented mead and though I considered pitching more yeast during the week or so that it took to start back up, it's been fermenting nicely with a huge pellicle for at least a couple weeks now. Haven't tasted yet, but it smells like it should turn into a nice mild / slightly tart mead.

 

[Gritsak]

Gritsak - how long did you let the rhubarb sit, and how did you process it?

When I did it with rhubarb, I let the beer sit quite a while and it became extremely turbid (suggesting bacterial growth) before dropping bright about 2mos later, tasting it then it was extremely sour

The only rhubarb i could get find at the time was frozen, and it was already cut into small sections. I heated them to 160 degrees and let it steep, then added to the carboy.

It sat for about 1.5months on 2lbs of rhubarb..i noticed a difference, but wanted more so and added another 2lbs and a huge starter of lacto i made a month before and didn't use. That sat for an additional month. About a month ago the rhubarb dropped out of suspension and i noticed what looked like a bit of mold on the surface. This is what prompted me to rack everything to the keg.

 

[ChrisKennedy]

How hot has the beer been sitting?

I think you really want this beer sitting at 80+ during aging.

I don't know that pitching on top of the cake will do anything to help the sour level in the next beer. What I would do if you want to reuse the cake is take a small portion of it and pitch it at 80F or so. Bacteria will typically grow faster than yeast, it doesn't necessarily work faster than yeast. So your current yeast cake may not be overrun with bacteria yet, and throwing more beer on top may just result in the brett working even faster and still not giving the lacto a chance to do anything before it is too lazy to keep working.

I don't know how repitching works with this beer, but I do want to know. If you are making 10 gallons, split it up with around 100-250ml of the slurry goes into one carboy and the rest goes into the other and see if one becomes more sour than the other, or more or less bretty, or whatever. And don't aerate. Ferment above 75F, and age it above 80F. If you have a pH meter, track the pH of the beer.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Add an ounce or two of lactic acid. Works like a champ.

If you want to brew a BW and really get it sour naturally, you need to use a high % of acid malt in the grist and/or do a extended acid rest at 95-110*F. The lactic bacteria, no matter how much you add, simply won't get it sour enough on its own.

 

[ChrisKennedy]

Add an ounce or two of lactic acid. Works like a champ.

If you want to brew a BW and really get it sour naturally, you need to use a high % of acid malt in the grist and/or do a extended acid rest at 95-110*F. The lactic bacteria, no matter how much you add, simply won't get it sour enough on its own.

That's not true. If you treat it right, commercial lacto will take the pH down into the low 3's.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Add lactic acid to taste. The brett in that berliner blend should round out the sharpness over time.

 

[dwarven_stout]

That's not true. If you treat it right, commercial lacto will take the pH down into the low 3's.

Dregs can, but sourness problems with WLP/Wyeast cultures are perennial.

 

[ChrisKennedy]

Yes, it isn't easy to treat commercial lacto.

But I have consistently gotten it down into the low 3's. WL Lactobacillus, not dregs.


I have always gone with big starters made warm, pitched into warm wort with small amount of yeast. Then kept the beer warm. Takes about 2-3mo to get down there, but it gets down there.

Right now I am trying the other way, I pitched a single packet of lacto into warm wort and have kept it in the 80s/90s for the last 3 days. And it is going slowwwww. It is down to 4.5pH. I am going to pitch yeast at 4.0 and see where it goes from there. I am doing two things with this. Seeing how viable it is to not make a lacto starter and just letting it grow in the wort, and seeing if the beer can handle not having any yeast in it for 4-5 days.

 

[dwarven_stout]

That sounds like a project that I'd like to hear results from. Be sure to PM or post what you get!

I've been doing the big lacto pitch, followed by yeast after the wort shows fermentation, and dregs a couple days before bottling. My success rate so far has been poor (or at least lower than I hoped).

Also, do you do no-boil mashing, decoction, or something else?

 

[ChrisKennedy]

Every berliner I have done has been decocted no boil, but I don't think I am going to do that anymore. I am really focusing hard on commercial viability of all my processes with any beer I do at home, and a double decocted no boil berliner with a large lacto pitch is not particularly practical to do 30bbls of.

This recent beer (which isn't a berliner) was a completely standard process, normal mash, full boil, and just lacto pitched.