Sour Mash Berliner Weisse - Vomit Smell

[jasonclick]

So I was listening to Basic Brewing Radio and they were talking about making a sour mash berliner weisse. Since I love Berliner Weisse's I figured i would take a shot. Anyway I did the 3 days of sour mashing. After about a few days the mash started to smell like vomit. I went ahead and finished out the mash and did the boil... did 45 minutes rather than 15 to try and get rid of the smell. I didn't help much but figured i would drive on. I put it in the fermenter.

It fermented for a few weeks at 62 F. I give it a taste and most of the vomit taste was gone but still had a hint of vomit smell. I raised the fermentation temp to 70 F.

I just checked again yesterday. The fermentation is complete. It doesn't have the vomit taste any longer but still has a little of the smell. Is there anything i can do to get rid of this? Add anything or do anything different? Or should I just dump it?

 

[Warthaug]

That seems odd - while a vomit smell is not unusual during the sour mash, it usually dissipates by the time your wort reaches a boil - in my experience, the heat of sparging is often enough to get rid of it.

What was your souring temp? If it was too low (below ~37C/98F) you may have had some enteric bacterial growth alongside the lacto. Enterics may produce some nasty vomit aromas, and its conceivable that they are less volatile than the ones made by lacto.

My advice would be to let it age - the yeast may finish off whatever made the aroma.

Bryan

 

[Phunhog]

I had the same problem except mine smelled like vomit even during the boil. It was bad!! I pitched some German Ale yeast and it feremented normally but still smelled/tasted a bit like vomit. Enough that there was no way I was going to drink it. Decided to rack back into a carboy and pitched some brett. I read somewhere that brett can clean up the "vomit" aroma and produce something drinkable.

 

[jasonclick]

I was souring between 105 and 115.

Did the Brett work?

 

[Phunhog]

I was souring between 105 and 115.

Did the Brett work?

Don't know yet. It has been in the carboy with the Brett for about 3 months now and the pellicle is still hanging in there. I figure I will give it another month or two.

 

[acerola]

Is the brett cleaned the vomit aroma eventually?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Won't help you here, so I'd hope the Brett does the job. But the trick I learned when doing a sour mash was to drop the pH down to about 4.4-4.5 with lactic acid first. That way the pH is low enough to inhibit most of the enteric bugs that create the rancid and vomit stuff, but lets the lactic bugs you want go to town uninhibited. Mine still gets a pretty parmesan cheesy aroma during the sour mash, but after sparging and boiling it's gone, and I end up with a super clean lactic sourness.

 

[Weezy]

It's enterobacter bacteria that causes it. Its a common risk when sour mashing as the bacteria is likely present. The oxygen in the headspace promotes it. Purging the headspace with co2 and draping the top of the wort with plastic wrap can help a lot. The safest approach is to get the pH low enough to inhibit the bacteria as was mentioned, pasteurize the wort first, and sour from a controlled lacto culture at the appropriate temp. You could also try to grow a lacto culture on a starter from grain.

The Brett, with time, should clear it. I had it slightly affect/infect a sour wort I did last year. After 6 months on Brett B, it was gone (I didn't taste it before that).

 

[ferventbrewer]

Any update on the Brett cleaning up the vomit smell? I have done the same thing and it smells absolutely awful. The taste is so harshly sour I don't expect to be able to drink it. Should I still try Brett or just dump it?

 

[jasonclick]

i ended up dumping my batch

 

[signpost]

I'm honestly not a fan of a super "clean" Berlinerweisse. They strike me as being too simplistic and one-dimensional. I like my own sour mash Berliner better than the cleaner commercial versions I've tried. I think of mine as being more rustic.

I would love to find some documentation on the old traditional methods to see what or how much they did back in the day to limit the funkier flavors and aromas and what their expectations were of the style.

 

[Qhrumphf]

If you want good, accurate, well researched historical info on Berliner Weisse from a reputable source, have a gander though here (I've read nowhere near everything on his site so who knows what you'll find): http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/Berliner Weisse

Most will agree a little Brett funk is traditional. But the bad sour mash stuff is not. And from where I'm sitting, "I like funky sour mash flavors" comes across as "I prefer my beer to be cloudy" or the like. As in, someone who cannot properly execute a beer technically and is instead rationalizing and justifying it to themselves, and really not fooling anyone. No offense intended, mind you, because I have a hard time believing you want a beer to taste like vomit or rotting cheese, but the traditional "funk" in Berliners is more akin to Lambic than enteric nasty sour mash.

 

[mabrungard]

Sour mashing is a tough situation to control since its difficult to keep oxygen completely out of the tun during that process. A far better method is to kettle sour your wort in a sealed vessel. For those of you producing 5 gallon batches, souring your wort in a sealed corny keg is a very effective and sure method. It keeps the oxygen out completely and you don't have to worry too much about venting the keg since lactic bacteria don't produce much gas. Just vent the keg every day to release any accumulated gas.

Oxygen free means you have a much better chance of avoiding nasty flavors and odors in your beer. By the way, do acidify your wort to around 4.5 pH to help the wort have a headstart on supressing the spoiling organisms. The lactic bacteria will take over from there.

 

[signpost]

If you want good, accurate, well researched historical info on Berliner Weisse from a reputable source, have a gander though here (I've read nowhere near everything on his site so who knows what you'll find): http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/search/label/Berliner Weisse

Most will agree a little Brett funk is traditional. But the bad sour mash stuff is not. And from where I'm sitting, "I like funky sour mash flavors" comes across as "I prefer my beer to be cloudy" or the like. As in, someone who cannot properly execute a beer technically and is instead rationalizing and justifying it to themselves, and really not fooling anyone. No offense intended, mind you, because I have a hard time believing you want a beer to taste like vomit or rotting cheese, but the traditional "funk" in Berliners is more akin to Lambic than enteric nasty sour mash.

Thanks for the link. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in. I just skimmed through a bit and saw some interesting info.

And you are completely right that my post sounds like justification for liking my own beer. But I'd like to redeem myself a bit. My Berliner is one that I entered in my first ever BJCP competition and it got a 37. That obviously isn't the best score in the world, but I was pretty happy with it. And the judge that gave the lower of the 2 scores (a BJCP certified judge) basically said it was a really good beer, but leaned a bit towards a Lambic in style because of the bit of funkiness along with the lactic sourness. I have a hard time believing that the authentic origin of Berlinerweisse would have been as 'clean' as people seem to expect it to be today. But that's just me.

Anyway, with my defensiveness out of the way, I just really haven't enjoyed the one-dimensional character (or lack of character) that I've experienced in some commercial versions of Berliners. And everywhere I look I read people recommending using a pure lacto culture, eliminating exposure to oxygen, kettle souring, souring in primary, or any number of other techniques to get a 'clean' lacto fermentation.

That just doesn't make sense to me, in terms of what might be the most historically authentic way to brew the style. I completely understand the possibility of having things turn out really badly with a sour mash. And I completely understand people wanting to avoid that possibility and being OK with a final product that isn't necessarily an authentic reproduction of how the style would have been brewed a hundred and fifty years ago or more.

But that's just not me. I love the rustic method of adding a handful of un-mashed grain into the mash and letting it sour naturally. And I've even wondered if that is an adulterated version of how things might have been. If I understand correctly, it seems like the lactobacillus naturally present on the grain wouldn't necessarily be denatured by regular mashing temps, and just cooling a regular mash to somewhere around 100-120 F and letting it sit without even adding anything might have been how the style was originally brewed.

This, of course, is speculation. And it may turn out a beer that I love and the rest of the world hates.

Anyway, just my two cents.

:beard:

 

[Qhrumphf]

Thanks for the link. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in. I just skimmed through a bit and saw some interesting info.

And you are completely right that my post sounds like justification for liking my own beer. But I'd like to redeem myself a bit. My Berliner is one that I entered in my first ever BJCP competition and it got a 37. That obviously isn't the best score in the world, but I was pretty happy with it. And the judge that gave the lower of the 2 scores (a BJCP certified judge) basically said it was a really good beer, but leaned a bit towards a Lambic in style because of the bit of funkiness along with the lactic sourness. I have a hard time believing that the authentic origin of Berlinerweisse would have been as 'clean' as people seem to expect it to be today. But that's just me.

Anyway, with my defensiveness out of the way, I just really haven't enjoyed the one-dimensional character (or lack of character) that I've experienced in some commercial versions of Berliners. And everywhere I look I read people recommending using a pure lacto culture, eliminating exposure to oxygen, kettle souring, souring in primary, or any number of other techniques to get a 'clean' lacto fermentation.

That just doesn't make sense to me, in terms of what might be the most historically authentic way to brew the style. I completely understand the possibility of having things turn out really badly with a sour mash. And I completely understand people wanting to avoid that possibility and being OK with a final product that isn't necessarily an authentic reproduction of how the style would have been brewed a hundred and fifty years ago or more.

But that's just not me. I love the rustic method of adding a handful of un-mashed grain into the mash and letting it sour naturally. And I've even wondered if that is an adulterated version of how things might have been. If I understand correctly, it seems like the lactobacillus naturally present on the grain wouldn't necessarily be denatured by regular mashing temps, and just cooling a regular mash to somewhere around 100-120 F and letting it sit without even adding anything might have been how the style was originally brewed.

This, of course, is speculation. And it may turn out a beer that I love and the rest of the world hates.

Anyway, just my two cents.

:beard:

In defense of the BJCP, the guidelines aren't meant to represent historical beer, but provide an admittedly arbitrary standard based upon how it usually is found today. Expecting something else is misunderstanding the point of the guidelines.

That said the style is traditionally not boiled, and Brett is an allowable part even in the guidelines, and either the judge was bad, or you may have served too old and Brett may have been allowed to dominate when it should only be a subtle note.