I've made some kettle soured, dry-hopped, 4% berliner weiss batches that have turned out quickly, taste great, and are very cheep.
Would you mind sharing the recipe and process?
Here's one beersmith recipe. pardon the poor formatting of the "notes", it is a reported bug in beersmith cloud web page rendering
http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1087630?&doid=57d04623f33e8
Here's a readable copy/paste:
7 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1
6 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2
1.00 oz Tettnang [3.9%] - Boil 15 min Hops 3
1 pkgs Raw Lactobacillus starter (Propagated from grain #Kettle sour) Yeast 4
2 pkgs Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 5
3/21/16, mashed 11 gal filtered softened tap water with 13lb grain, stovetop, 148F.
pH at and of mash was 5.6/7 despite 7mL Lactic acid.
Collected 9gal at 1.045 by refractometer, which seems too high.
Collected to 110F and pitched lacto starter, covered and sealed with plastic wrap, purged with co2, and set in temperature chamber at 110f on 3/21/16 9:30pm.
3/22 5pm 20hrs, pH 3.4/5, not tart enough
3/23 5pm, 44 hrs, pH 3.3, better
3/24 5pm, 68 hrs, pH 3.3-, just going to go ahead and boil it.
Boiled just under 9 gal, diluted to 11 gal total in two fermenters, oxygenated and pitched a full packet of in each, put in temp chamber at 65F.
3/24: 1.035 ESTIMATED.
4/1:
1.0065
4/2:
1.0065, kegged 4/3
Kegged 5gal straight, dry hopped 2 gal each w/ .6oz mosaic and simcoe, 2L with .2oz el Dorado on 4/3.
5/10: all gone
The procedure for the lacto starter was:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7585233&postcount=5
(more info:
https://www.fivebladesbrewing.com/lactobacillus-starter-guide/ )
1) put 2 cups raw uncrushed malt in container (beaker)
2) add starter wort (1.030ish)
3) add Lactic or phosphoric acid to bring down to pH 4.5
4) top with water (and/or CO2) to remove almost all head space)
5) use an airlock or saran wrap + rubberband to prevent oxygen exposure
6) hold at 110F for 2-3 days
7) pitch to 110F wort (boiled then cooled) through a strainer
Tasting notes:
Split the experimental 5gal portion between simcoe, mosaic, and el dorado, at the pellet dry-hop rate of .2oz/gal (1oz/5gal) for 1 week. All were good. I did some testing and blending pre-keg and ended up deciding to blend the mosaic and simcoe, skip the el dorado in future (it was good, but not great).
My initial impression is that the dry hop did very well in balancing out the lactic acid, with the overall flavor perception being much smoother and more balanced than the straight berliner weisse.
I brought a growler if it to friend's house last night and got 100% positive results from everyone who sampled it, including:
-one who doesn't like beer (she's already a fan of my hard lemonade)
-one who "likes" beer about 25% of the time (I can never pin down a style pattern for her, but she doesn't like IPAs or BMC -- yet the aromatic hops worked well in this for her, Tinseth IBU was very low,6ish)
-2 people who tend to like craft beer
-2 people who brew
