Berliner Weiss, many ways

[Calder]

I pitch a Vial of Lacto in 2.5gal of wort (preboiled), which I keep at 80*F for 1-2 weeks. (it's pretty much the higher I can go at this time)

I pitch a vial of Brett in 2.5gal of wort (preboild), wich I keep at 75*F for the same 1-2 weeks.

Since it's a fairly low density wort (1030), pretty much all the sugars should be consumed after 2 weeks. Lactic acid on one side, Alcohol on the other side. Then I blend together and let it another week or two so the fermentation can continue/finish. Then bottle, and drink.

The Lactobacillus will only sour to a certain concentration. After that it goes into it's dormant phase. If you only sour half the batch and then blend, you end up diluting and getting only half the sourness (you dilute the lactic acid by 2X).

Depending on the Lactobacillus strain (and the make up of the beer), it may or may not continue souring. If it does continue souring, it will be very slow due to the presence of alcohol and possibly hops.

If you sour the whole lot first, and then ferment, with yeast, you will get more sourness quicker.

 

[Tiroux]

The Lactobacillus will only sour to a certain concentration. After that it goes into it's dormant phase. If you only sour half the batch and then blend, you end up diluting and getting only half the sourness (you dilute the lactic acid by 2X).

Depending on the Lactobacillus strain (and the make up of the beer), it may or may not continue souring. If it does continue souring, it will be very slow due to the presence of alcohol and possibly hops.

If you sour the whole lot first, and then ferment, with yeast, you will get more sourness quicker.

Ok, that's good to know. The more I'm thinking, the more I think I won't put any hops.

It might not be very sour, but the brett would give a pretty nice aroma too, so... I will see. There's a guy here who won several gold medals for his BW with this method. It's a test batch, we'll see!

 

[adam62cb]

I did option 1C, no boil, 1/2 oz stale hops thrown into the mash. I racked and bottled after about a month, and it was very sour. I then made another batch dumped it onto the yeast cake. I threw in two cans of Raspberry puree after two weeks. It made a very very light beer almost translucently pink... high carbonation. My wife says it tastes like a wine cooler crossed with sweet tarts.

 

[GatorBeer]

I've done about 5 batches using 5a. I kept the first few in a fridge with a light to keep it at ~100-110F. This sours it VERY quickly. I'm talking 2 days and it's really sharply acidic. I also did it at room temp and it took ~4 days. You'll get weird creamed corn/garbage flavors, especially if you keep it hot, this is a good sign.

I throw my wort in a home depot bucket, put a layer of saran wrap on the liquid to minimize O2 and taste it daily. Quick 15 minute boil, a few hops, ferment with sacc (i've done a kolsch yeast, 001, and dregs from Sierra Nevada/Russian River BRUX) and you're bottled in a week, drinking in 10 days.

Mine are always equal parts pilsner and wheat malt. Sometimes leaning more towards wheat. Low ABV ~3%. I've added fruit successfully too (~1 pineapple chopped in 2 gallons).

 

[Tinga]

I plan on doing a berliner here soon. my plan is to make a four gallon batch and then use us-05 or something. then do a 1 gallon 2 day sour mash and simply add it to the other batch. so in total it will be a 5 gallon batch.

something like
3 lbs wheat
3 lbs pilsner
1 lb munich

mash hop 1 oz hallertau

let it ferment out for 6 months i think.

 

[Tiroux]

Okay, i looked around a lot, and I had great informations from Neva Parker at White Labs, so I'm set now.

3 lb pilsen malt
3 lb wheat malt

No hops (lactobacillus dont like hops)

150*F mash

20m boil

Pitch a 1L starter of Brettanomyces Claussenii in 2.5g of wort

Pitch a 1L starter of lactobacillus (anaerobic starter) in 2.5g of non-oxygenated wort.

After 1-2 weeks (depending on the temperature i can hold), i blend the two halves in a secondary vessel until gravity stabilizes. I guess something around a month or so.

Bottle with priming sugar to get 3.0-3.5vol of CO2, them wait 3-4 weeks for brett to do their job, them drink!

I'll maybe repitch wort on the lees when I transfert to secondary.

 

[TopherM]

I just did a quicky Berlinner Weiss last weekend with Aciduated Malt. One hour mash for the normal grains, then an additional one hour mash with aciduated malt at 7% of the grist.

2 liter starter with German Ale yeast.

This process was recommended to me by a pro brewer who makes a very good Berlinner Weiss that he turns around in 2 weeks. He gave me the process, but wouldn't give me the proportions, so I researched a little and came up with some educated guesses. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but the lactic acid should definitely tart the beer. I'm going to rack onto raspberries on Friday.

 

[weirdboy]

I did a sour mash over this past weekend. It smelled bad after an overnight ~105F rest, and after ~2 days of that it smelled truly horrific. There were people walking by across the street holding their noses when I did the boil. Taste was fine, though. Nice level of lactic acid in there, I thought. I split roughly 4:3 into two fermenters. I had originally wanted to pitch with regular ol' saccharomyces, but then I got to thinking about how I would like a bit more complexity in there, so I pitched one with WLP665 (Sour Mix 1) and the other I dumped the dregs from a bottles of Russian River Supplication and Fantome Saison Printemps. So, maybe it won't be quite like a Berliner Weiss.

Also, due to the smell, my original plan of keeping them in the house to stay warm sort of fell through, because I'd like to stay married. So, they've been in the garage in the 60's instead.


So I guess that puts me in 5b.

 

[bknifefight]

Flushing the mash tun head with CO2 helps with the smell. It still smells but not bad, more of a cooked corn smell. I managed to have mine in the basement for 36 hours and the wife didn't complain. You could smell it upstairs and when you came into the house.

 

[Tiroux]

I just did a quicky Berlinner Weiss last weekend with Aciduated Malt. One hour mash for the normal grains, then an additional one hour mash with aciduated malt at 7% of the grist.

2 liter starter with German Ale yeast.

This process was recommended to me by a pro brewer who makes a very good Berlinner Weiss that he turns around in 2 weeks. He gave me the process, but wouldn't give me the proportions, so I researched a little and came up with some educated guesses. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but the lactic acid should definitely tart the beer. I'm going to rack onto raspberries on Friday.

Well, 7% Acid malt seems to be a normal amount to balance pH to a desirable range. So, unless you are starting with a already acidic water, it wouldn't give any sour/acidic beer. And Saccharomyces doesn't like low pH environment. It more seems like a Light Weizen / German Wheat Ale, than a Berliner Weisse.

My guess would be a nice smooth and light beer, but nothing near a sour or acidulated beer. I'm still really interested to hear about the results. Please let us know!

 

[Tiroux]

I did a sour mash over this past weekend. It smelled bad after an overnight ~105F rest, and after ~2 days of that it smelled truly horrific. There were people walking by across the street holding their noses when I did the boil. Taste was fine, though. Nice level of lactic acid in there, I thought. I split roughly 4:3 into two fermenters. I had originally wanted to pitch with regular ol' saccharomyces, but then I got to thinking about how I would like a bit more complexity in there, so I pitched one with WLP665 (Sour Mix 1) and the other I dumped the dregs from a bottles of Russian River Supplication and Fantome Saison Printemps. So, maybe it won't be quite like a Berliner Weiss.

Also, due to the smell, my original plan of keeping them in the house to stay warm sort of fell through, because I'd like to stay married. So, they've been in the garage in the 60's instead.


So I guess that puts me in 5b.

That looks nice! I decided to go with Brettanomyces instead of Saccharomyces to add complexity, after I read a lot about Brett primary fermentation (that can be different to a secondary brett fermentation).

I just pitch a WLP665 into a 1060 50/50 wheat/Pilsen wort. But I've been told that you have to wait 12-18 months before even thinking to rack it off to secondary, because every bacteria/yeast have to wait and take its turn.

 

[weirdboy]

That looks nice! I decided to go with Brettanomyces instead of Saccharomyces to add complexity, after I read a lot about Brett primary fermentation (that can be different to a secondary brett fermentation).

I just pitch a WLP665 into a 1060 50/50 wheat/Pilsen wort. But I've been told that you have to wait 12-18 months before even thinking to rack it off to secondary, because every bacteria/yeast have to wait and take its turn.

My club made a sour Belgian quad that was aged in a cabernet barrel a couple of years ago. We brewed it somewhere around this time of year I think, let it ferment with a clean sacc strain before dumping everyone's individual batches (some people had trouble and their stalled around 1.030ish) into the barrel and pitching souring stuff. One of the things we pitched was a 2L starter made with WLP665, along with some dregs from a few bottles of Consecration, and maybe something else I cannot remember. After about 3-4 months, you could get a tart aroma, but not much tartness in the actual beer. After 6-8 months it had developed a nice tartness that I would describe as primarily lactic, and a reasonable level of complexity. After another 4-6 months (maybe 10-12 months total) it had developed into a richly complex flavor and aroma. We have been pulling the occasional keg or two from it and topping off with fresh batches of wort (sometimes fermented with sacc, sometimes not) since around the 6 month mark. It has done very well in competition and won a gold medal in category 16 in the last comp we submitted it to, which had over 40 entries in that category.

 

[Tiroux]

My club made a sour Belgian quad that was aged in a cabernet barrel a couple of years ago. We brewed it somewhere around this time of year I think, let it ferment with a clean sacc strain before dumping everyone's individual batches (some people had trouble and their stalled around 1.030ish) into the barrel and pitching souring stuff. One of the things we pitched was a 2L starter made with WLP665, along with some dregs from a few bottles of Consecration, and maybe something else I cannot remember. After about 3-4 months, you could get a tart aroma, but not much tartness in the actual beer. After 6-8 months it had developed a nice tartness that I would describe as primarily lactic, and a reasonable level of complexity. After another 4-6 months (maybe 10-12 months total) it had developed into a richly complex flavor and aroma. We have been pulling the occasional keg or two from it and topping off with fresh batches of wort (sometimes fermented with sacc, sometimes not) since around the 6 month mark. It has done very well in competition and won a gold medal in category 16 in the last comp we submitted it to, which had over 40 entries in that category.

That confirms what I said.. and it's great news! I pitched it as a primary fermentation, so we'll see what is gonna do. Now afters fews days, it's bubbling like crazy, I had to install a blowoff tube in the middle of the night. I think it's the Sacch attacking the very fermentable wort.

 

[tennesseean_87]

Well, 7% Acid malt seems to be a normal amount to balance pH to a desirable range. So, unless you are starting with a already acidic water, it wouldn't give any sour/acidic beer. And Saccharomyces doesn't like low pH environment. It more seems like a Light Weizen / German Wheat Ale, than a Berliner Weisse.

My guess would be a nice smooth and light beer, but nothing near a sour or acidulated beer. I'm still really interested to hear about the results. Please let us know!

According to the water primer, 2-3% is for PH ballance, and you should be able to taste 7% I would think you'd need more for a soured beer, though.

 

[aknox]

A little while back a friend and I split a Berliner and fermented it 2 different ways. He pitched a vial of WLP Lacto for 48 hrs warm then Sacc, I tossed a handful of Pilsner malt into primary and kept it warm for 48 hours then picthed sacc.

His has no sourness whatsoever, just turned out strange. Mine is sharply acidic, almost too sour, at one point it had an aroma that was a little off putting. So I pitched a little bit of Brett Trois and it cleaned up the aroma brilliantly. Its a VERY sour berliner weisse but is pretty refreshing. Grain to glass ~4 months.

Next time I will do a Lacto start from grains and not throw the grains into primary.

i made a starter with a cup of crushed grains and 100 degree water. i let it sit with a heating pad for a week and it had the sour apple smell. when i pitched it into my primary, i used a strainer and did not really get any of the yeast cake separated from the grains into the carboy, only the liquid from the starter. it did not take off in 48 hours so i added some wyeast lacto. my main question here is how do you get the yeast cake into the carboy without getting any grain in? i was told not to get any grains in when i pitched and i also didn't stir the mason jar. i think i should have to stir up the yeast on the bottom.

 

[adamjackson]

Followed 1C for mine. Fermentation at 70 for 3 months and 2 weeks...this was TOO long. It's too sour to drink more than a glass at a time. That lacto really took off.

 

[Tiroux]

Followed 1C for mine. Fermentation at 70 for 3 months and 2 weeks...this was TOO long. It's too sour to drink more than a glass at a time. That lacto really took off.

Serve it with a little drop of raspberry syrup in the glass maube

 

[adamjackson]

Serve it with a little drop of raspberry syrup in the glass maube

last 6 months, secondary received rhubarb and strawberry additions so maybe they're too blame for this intense sour bomb?

 

[Tiroux]

last 6 months, secondary received rhubarb and strawberry additions so maybe they're too blame for this intense sour bomb?

Oh, maybe.. If lacto was dominant, it ate the fruits sugars, I guess. Or the fruits brang another source of contamination. If your abv was low, it might be possible.

 

[gregoreckbrews]

I just brewed a Berliner Weisse using method 2a:
2a - Normal mash + single fermentation, but pitching lactobacillus few days before pitching saccharomyces

My experience so far:
5 Gallons
Grain Bill: 3.5lbs Pilsner, 3.5lbs Wheat OG=1.036
~5 IBUs from Tinseth equation: 1oz Tettnang @ 7.5mins
(Was going to do a 15min boil, but scared of DMS concerns others had posted. Went with a 45min boil.)

I made about a 1L lacto starter (Wyeast 5335). After cooling the boiled wort to 100F, I pitched the entire starter. The fermenter was placed in plastic bin of water. The water in the bin was maintained at about 90F with a submersible aquarium heater. After about 30 hours, I started to see regular airlock activity. I took a small sample this morning (40 hours after pitching). It was slightly sour. Tasted like unfermented wort with a mild tartness. I will continue to sample until it reaches desired sourness. Probably another day or two based on the reports I have read from others using this method.

Last night, I made a 1L yeast starter (WLP 011-European Ale). My plan is to cool the beer down to 65 or so once the lacto has sufficiently soured it, and then I will pitch the yeast.

 

[TopherM]

I just did a quicky Berlinner Weiss last weekend with Aciduated Malt. One hour mash for the normal grains, then an additional one hour mash with aciduated malt at 7% of the grist.

2 liter starter with German Ale yeast.

This process was recommended to me by a pro brewer who makes a very good Berlinner Weiss that he turns around in 2 weeks. He gave me the process, but wouldn't give me the proportions, so I researched a little and came up with some educated guesses. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but the lactic acid should definitely tart the beer. I'm going to rack onto raspberries on Friday.

I racked my Berliner Weiss yesterday, and carbed and cooled a little bit with a carb cap to taste how much sour/tart taste I got using the method above.

Although it certainly wasn't anything like an aged Berlinner Weiss with bugs or even a sour mash, I did get a very distinct tart aftertaste. I don't think I would use this method to create just a plain Berliner Weiss to drink as-is, but I also racked mine onto raspberry puree last night, and think this is going to make a great base tart beer that will take fruit additions very well.

For a two week turnaround for the base tart weiss, I think mine turned out pretty well. I'll report back after the raspberries ferment out in another week or two.

 

[terrapinj]

brewed up my 1st attempt at a Berliner Weiße this weekend with the 5a Sour Mash technique

4# Pils
4# Ger Wheat Malt

OG was 1.043 so a bit high for the style but still should be an easy drinker

mashed on Thurs night and cooled to 115° then added 1/2# of uncrushed Acid Malt, purged with CO2 and sealed up my 10gal cooler
I only needed to add boiling water twice, thankfully if I had to open it up much more SWMBO would have nixed the idea of brewing that style again. smell wasn't as bad as I was expecting but still pretty gnarly, thankfully only smelled when opened up.

I ended up doing a 60min boil because of DMS concerns and then aerated and pitched some US-05. the temps were a bit lower after chilling and I haven't seen activity yet but hoping it's going strong today when I get home from work.

the prepitch wort had a nice tartness to it - really looking forward to this one.

 

[Tiroux]

What is that DMS story about..?

 

[terrapinj]

DiMethyl Sulfide

http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/04/10/dimethyl-sulfides-dms-in-home-brewed-beer/

most people recommend a 90min boil when using pilsner malt - i've seen several accounts of people doing 15-20min boils after a sour mash but also encountered a few issues where people had DMS after doing a short boil after a sour mash

 

[Tiroux]

Oh that's good to know. I'll go eith a longer mash then.

 

[mmurray]

1C - No Boil - No Chill and fermented at room temp for 4 months. OG was 1.032

To explain the No Chill part: I go straight from the mash tun at mash temps into the fermenter. Then bring the carboy inside with sanitized foil over the opening and let is cool to room temp for 24 hours and then pitch the Yeast.

The beer was light, tart and nearly lemony... Great summer beer!

I Currently have 2 more batches going around 5 months now with a little higher gravity 1.042 and in 1 batch I added 1 lb of cherries. No results on those yet.

 

[lewybrewing]

I documented mine as much as I could over 3 months. http://www.lewybrewing.com/2012/03/delbruck-berliner-weisse.html I loved the way it turned out and I'm planning on brewing one again this weekend.

 

[GatorBeer]

Something to add: I've found that when using 5a, I like a longer souring at lower temperatures as opposed to a quick sour at ~110F. I don't get the garbage/creamed corn flavors that carry over to the beer when I soured for 5-6 days at 75F.

 

[Tiroux]

Something to add: I've found that when using 5a, I like a longer souring at lower temperatures as opposed to a quick sour at ~110F. I don't get the garbage/creamed corn flavors that carry over to the beer when I soured for 5-6 days at 75F.

That is a very interesting imput. My room temp is at 75F so it would be really great. I will use Lacto. Delbruckii for me berliner weisse, but I might try a sour mash for some other beer. Thanks!

 

[terrapinj]

Something to add: I've found that when using 5a, I like a longer souring at lower temperatures as opposed to a quick sour at ~110F. I don't get the garbage/creamed corn flavors that carry over to the beer when I soured for 5-6 days at 75F.

how long did you boil for after the sour mash?