Acid Malt (AG) Berliner Weisse

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If anyone has used this to brew, did they have a problem with conversion if they mashed it for the entire mash? If not then please let me know. I am going to try a fake Berliner Weisse so that I can have something on tap while I allow my real Berliner Weisse do its thing on the Lacto. My thinking is

10 gallon batch

10 lbs Pale Malt (Edit: Decrease to 9lbs)
3 lbs Wheat Malt
1 lbs Acidulated Malt (Edit: Increase to 3lbs)

1oz of hops for 15min of boil

Chill and use a neutral ale yeast

Ferment at 65* for a week, chill for another week and keg and carb to 3 vols.
 
Here I am again...

Although acidulated malt will convert just fine, one lb is not going to give you much, if any, sourness. Even 3 lbs is not going to come close to the sour/tartness of Berliner. Now if you want to use the acid malt along with some lactic acid, you can make a fair emulation of Berliner. You can add the lactic acid to a secondary or at bottling/kegging time.

Not my way to do it, but it will work as a decent fake.
 
Yeah, I am just looking for something that has a nice tart flavor that can tide me over till I am ready to start drinking the real one. I heard that 10-15% would give a healthy sour, that is why it is this way. I don't want to completely overdo it, but I am looking for a decent sourness. Weyerman wrote the following:

Berliner Weisse from Weyermann Acidulated Malt
Question Hello, I have a couple of questions regarding usage of your acidulated malt.

I am planning on making a Berliner Weisse style beer at our brewpub. I am considering replacing the lactobacillus fermentation with acidulated malt...is this feasable? I am not too familiar with the product. I have read that usage should not exceed 10% of the malt bill. The Berliner Weisse typically has a pH of 3.2-3.4.

My question is, would using acidulated malt to achieve the flavor profile of a Berliner Weisse negatively affect the fermentation of the beer, and how much would I need to use in order to achieve that nice sour, acidic bite that is present in the beera?

I appreciate your time and any suggestions that you might have on the matter. Keep up the good work...I find all of your products to be superb!
Answer Weyermann Acidulated Malt is perfect to adjust the pH level in mash or wort. There is a simple formula to calculate the dosage of Acidulated Malt: You have to use 1% of Acidulated malt to reduce the pH by 0.1. (Example: 3% Acidulated malt reduce the pH leve in mash by 0.3).

The exact effect depends of course on the special conditions in the mash or wort (buffering capacity …) and on the composition of the brew water.

Weyermann Acidulated Malt is produced by using lactic acid, which is generated by on grain natural occurring lactic bacteria. Therefore Acidulated Malt is also a wonderful possibility to produce beer styles with a typical “sourish” character like “Berliner Weisse”.

To reach the “sourish” character 8% of Acidulated malt are a perfect rate. In my recipe there are also recommendations for Fermentis Yeast strains for an authentic aroma and flavour profile.

Malt bill for "Berliner Weisse"

40% Weyermann Pilsner Malt
45% Weyermann Wheat Malt Pale
7 % Weyermann Carahell®
8 % Weyermann Acidulated Malt
Click to expand...

Which leads me to believe that 10% should be enough, but the math works out to 20%. Thoughts?
 
;) yep that I will. I will start with a median between their answer and my math, so 15%. Might go 20% if I get a hair, but otherwise the idea will be about 15%.
 
So I just changed the possible recipe and will most likely brew this tomorrow morning, so any input would be nice.
 
So I just mashed this in at 155*. After 15minutes, I added in the acid malt (as I hear it lowers the ph and that means the saccharification might get fudged up) and made sure it was still hanging at 155*. I will be doing a one hour rest and then a sparge and a fifteen minute boil.

9lbs American Two Row
3lbs White Wheat
3lbs Acid Malt

Rice hulls too! That is a 60-20-20 percentage on the malts, so hopefully the acid malt comes through as a healthy amount of sour.
 
So I didn't boil this, just got it high enough that it killed anything growing. Sparged 10 gallons at 1.036, added my oz of cascade about 15min before I began chilling, so somewhat FWH. I kept tasting it to see if I could get the zing of lactic acid, but alas the sugar made it soft like.

In the fermenter as we speak. what is that, hour and a half. She-it man! Best 10gallons I have ever made :mug:
 
It is a pretty classic sig and about time to change it I guess...:D

Not using any Lacto bugs. Just the acidulated malt to get the lactic acid.
 
Did you even read the thread? I posted that already. But according to their math that every 1% lowers the mash ph by .1, means that if I add 8% from a start of 5.2ph I would be looking at 4.4ph and I wanted 3.2-3.8ph. I went 20% for a healthy dose of twang and if worst comes to worst, I can always blend it with a version with 8% for a middle of the road berlinner wiesse.

I liked the wort flavor, so I am not too worried.
 
Interesting idea. Have you ever tasted the acid malt? (I eat a bit of any grain I've never tasted before). It is definitely lactic acid and really strong on the grain. I add a few oz to my wits.
Interested to see how this turns out however.
 
I wsa not happy at all when I tasted the malt by itself. Super duper sour. However, I like me some lemonade and so I figure that if it is sour, I can always add those little syrups or blend a softer beer into it. I know it is kinda cheating doing it this way, but I need something sour fast and can wait for my lacto soured berliner to come around.
 
Just tested this beer, though it is only a day.

1.024 @ 1.45%abv. It is still not as sour as I thought it would be, I will test the ph on Friday. Most likely I will move it into a warmer location at the end of the day here so that I can warm up that yeast and get rid of any diacetyl (which I have a problem with because of such a cool ferment (61-63)). I am happy though, it does have that sour in it. I will be making 15 gallons of sour Monday or Tuesday next week I think, so that will be made with Lactobacillus.
 
Matt Up North said:
Did you even read the thread? I posted that already. But according to their math that every 1% lowers the mash ph by .1, means that if I add 8% from a start of 5.2ph I would be looking at 4.4ph and I wanted 3.2-3.8ph. I went 20% for a healthy dose of twang and if worst comes to worst, I can always blend it with a version with 8% for a middle of the road berlinner wiesse.

I liked the wort flavor, so I am not too worried.
Click to expand...

No, I jumped over here from our chat on the Brewfest thread

I think the sourness is going to take some time to develop with that method.
 
MUN,
Just a guess but the ~3.2 pH sounds like it is for the finished beer...not the mash. Typical (non-sour) beer usually has a pH in the low 4s even though the mash pH is ideally in the lower 5s. In other words, I'm not sure you should be shooting for 3.2 pH in the mash...but I've never intentionally made a sour and I'm just guessing.
 
I agree and disagree. I think that the mash ph somewhat lends itself to what the beer ph is, or if anything it might be a bit higher in the finished product. The hops lower the ph for sure, since this has none I didn't have any other way that I could think of that I could get the final beer ph down aside from mashing with the acidulated malt. Again though, this is a test and even if it doesn't work, I am totally going to drink this beer :mug:

If this is good though, I am going to promote the bejesus out of it!

Also, I think that we have to take the carbonic acid bite into consideration as well. At 4vols there should be a good amount of that. Might help out in the end, who knows.
 
I think that the mash ph somewhat lends itself to what the beer ph is, or if anything it might be a bit higher in the finished product.
Click to expand...
Yes, I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't shoot for a lower mash pH than a non-soured beer. I was just thinking that 3.2 seems way low for the mash. Whatever your mash pH is...the final beer will be significantly lower pH than the mash (the yeast do this early on in the fermentation...that's one reason a fast start is often considered a good thing because the pH quickly drops to a pH that is unfriendly for most bugs).
 
Yep, I think we are agreeing with different words :D I actually mashed this for about 15minutes before adding the acid malt because I didn't want to lower the ph too much before conversion was finished. I realize 15minutes isn't very long, but I have heard that a 30minute mash can convert most the sugars and so I just played devils advocate and tossed them in at 15. I was anxious I will admit. I had no problem though and got my full wort OG (1.080 starting, 1.036 after fully sparged.) so apparently my though process was somewhat correct.

If the acid malt lowers the ph, I assume it is in the wort, so that means that once fully mashed the ph should be around 3.5ph let's say. Then I sparge and take that ph of wort, but also add on top of it some 8 gallons of water in order to get my 10gallons of wort. It seems to me that the ph will go up from there to the fours again and maybe once fermentation is finished we can settle in the 3's. Does this sound ludicrous or about right?
 
Moved this to 70-75* till friday to finish out and get rid of Diacetyl. It is most likely finished fermenting by now and I will try and keg it up by Monday or Tuesday.
 
Checked this guy and we are sitting pretty at 1.007 @ 3.9%abv and I checked the acid at 3.9ph. It tastes like an apple from the acid. Interesting. Also rather yeasty, but that will go away when it is clear. I will hopefully have this cleared by Sunday and kegged Monday although I might just wait till next Friday to keg since Monday is going to be buuuuusy!
 
I just tasted this one again to make sure that I really liked it in the way that I thought I might and it is nice and tart. It doesn't have the complexity of a lacto culture but it is interesting and I see some serious potential with this style. I checked all the numbers to make sure that it was totally finshed and the above numbers are correct, maybe a touch more abv. I like that. I will be kegging this up very soon, maybe Sunday. Then it is straight into the fridge for some crisp and delicious beer!
 
I just kegged this up and it is going to now hang out for a week before heading into the fridge. A lot of apple smell and flavor. Almost like a cider. Intriguing for sure. Also, I think that there might be a hint of sulphurous smell, though with US-05 I don't expect it. I will look into my process to see if I can figure it out.

I like how it is light, crisp and refreshing with the addition of the acidulated malt. It might become a lazy mans cider type beverage :) All in all, I will report more when I have it sparkling and ready to drink.
 
How'd this turn out? I'd like to try this method. Would you add more acidulated? Use a different yeast? Any recommendations would be appreciated.
 
I basically made the same beer but used some Citra hops I had in the freezer. It's really hard to imagine the wort without the sweetness, but there is definitely a noticeable tang competing with the sugars. I'll update once fermentation slows down and I taste it.
 
how did the beer turnout burtonbaton?.... im planning on making a wit this weekend and doing 4.5%acidulated malt in the mash... just looking to get a very slight tarntness in the middle of each sip of the wit

i was also concerned about conversion since the pH would be lower than the ideal range..adding the acidulated malt 15min after dough in sounds like a good idea
 
A tart style like Berliner Weisse is ideally suited to a water with very low alkalinity. Since alkalinity would consume some of that nice acidity that you want in a BW, starting out the mash with very little is a good idea.

The mashing of a BW is best at the same pH as any other beer. Getting the room temp pH measurement down into the low 5 range is desirable. You would not want to acidify your starting wort to less than 5. All the yeast and bacteria action during the ferment will take it the rest of the way to the desirable sub-4 pH range.

Bru'n Water has a very handy set of calculators for getting your BW mash water into the proper range. The link to the program is in the signature line below.

Starting out with DI or RO water is a pretty good idea for brewing a BW. It has the low alkalinity this beer needs. I little CaCl to bump the calcium to at least 40 ppm is a good idea too.
 
hey sorry for the lack of follow up, I've moved and been on vacation since bottling and haven't tasted the final product yet (probably tonight). From the taste at bottling, I'd say it's pretty hard to over do it in terms of tartness just using acidulated malt. I also used some lemon, lime, and orange zest at the end of my boil. I'll report more after I taste the carbonated version. It's 85 already in Tucson, so it's definitely time to crack open a BW.
 
Well, my beer is the closest to a drain pour I've made in 20 batches. That being said I'm not sure it was the acidulated malt or the short boil that makes it so awful, and I am not experienced enough to know what went wrong except I went a little crazy on this one, so who knows. I think my biggest mistake was I used Burton Ale yeast (I was obsessed with it at the time, over it now), and the sulphur taste from the yeast is too strong in this weak of a beer. I've been trying it about once a month hoping for a miracle. There's also some strong phenol tones going on, and I think I had some issues with warm ferm temps. Also, I put citrus peels in after primary fermentation calmed down, not sure if it did anything, but certainly didn't help. I think I'm not going to try this again for a long time. I don't want to discourage anyone else from trying it, as I just tried too many things at once, and it went wrong.
 
Been a while, but I have to say that this is one of the most "lemonade like" refreshing beers. That said, it is best in small amounts because you don't want to have ten gallons that nobody will drink. Really the things to keep in mind are that you want dry, no extra flavors from some fancy yeast and low alcohol (for the traditional since you use lacto, this with acid malt can be bumped a bit). This isn't for everyone. I had a really good friend that couldn't drink it and the man drank a lot of beer.

Good luck if you try it.
 

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