Berliner Weiss souring

[Bigsandiebrew]

I was reading Zymurgy and there was a Berliner Weiss recipe that see seemed to be soured by just leaving it out for a 12-24 hours. The technique wasn't explained Ina nymore depth and I was wondering if ipany one could give me some more details about how this would be done?

 

[pickles]

There are a few methods for making a Berliner Weiss. One is to mash your grains then add a handful of unmashed grain and let it sit for a few days at ~100F. The ideas is that the lacto on the unmashed grain will inoculate the mash. The longer you wait the more sour it will get. Once you achieve the sourness level your like, you drain the wort and pasteurize at 160F then ferment. No boiling is required.

 

[Bigsandiebrew]

So I know to keep ibus below 10 so when would you add hops, before or after souring? 1/2oz of a 5% alpha acid hop.

 

[pickles]

In the scenario I used the mash was soured so hops would go after. A lot of Berliners don't have hops though.

 

[Roundhouse]

I've never brewed a Berliner Weisse so forgive my ignorance if this sounds stupid. Instead of letting it naturally sour, why not just substitute a large percentage of the basemalt with sour malt (acid malt)?

How does the lower than the standard beer ph level affect yeast performance during fermentation?

 

[TopherM]

My club came up with this method as part of a presentation, and one guy won a BJCP gold medal on his first ever Berliner using this method:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/ber...ml#post6123428

 

[Natdavis777]

Some important points when making a Berliner is lack of o2 and high temps. When doing the sour mash, you want to purge all the o2 out with co2 to avoid other cultures growing with lacto, such as acetobactor. Lacto thrives in 90-125F ish range, the higher on the spectrum the better. This also helps keeping other bacteria at bay that cannot thrive in those temps.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I mash my BW in at 149, let it do a full conversion rest (I let it go 90 minutes) then drop it to 110 with my immersion chiller. At that point, I drop the pH to 4.5 with lactic acid (keeps the bad bugs at bay preventing the vomit-like flavors) but allows the lactobacillus to go crazy. I pitch a half pound or so of crushed Pils malt, cover it with saran wrap to keep O2 out (but if you can purge with CO2 even better), and let it sit for 4 days. My cooler MLT keeps it fairly stable, but I'll check the temp periodically, and if it's dropping below 100 I'll add a small infusion of boiling water to bring it back up to 110. After 4 days, I lauter, sparge, and boil. I know some folks advocate a 15 minute boil, but I tried that once and got a DMS bomb, so I do a 90 minute boil, but only hop the last 15 minutes with a small noble hop addition for 5ish IBUs and a touch of hop flavor. And then pitch Wyeast 1007 and it's good to go (not sure why, but that strain seems to work best with this style, don't recall who but someone did some experiments and it seemed to handle the acidity better).

I know a lot of folks do the either just straight addition of acid, or using Sauermalz/acidulated malt, but if you ask me you might as well just brew a beer to 1.010 OG or so, and skip fermenting it, and just add 5% ethanol and call it beer. Same principle. Perhaps a more extreme example, but the point is you'll be missing all the other compounds that come from the lactic fermentation (and whatever other fermentation) and it may not taste right.

I know traditionally that Berliner Weisse isn't boiled, and that a small decoction is done, and that decoction is hopped to provide the few IBUs that it does have. However, that's a more of a crap shoot, and it'll also have the same complications as other sours, requiring separate plastic equipment to prevent cross contamination. If you boil it, you kill the bugs, and there's no problem. Makes for a fast turnaround sour for folks who don't want to let something age for a year or more.

 

[nopride]

There are a lot of good suggestions in here. I have recently brewed my first, and am about ready to carb it up. Even though it's not done, it tastes good so far - so I'll share what I did.

I threw the hops in the mash. After the mash was finished, it was drained to the kettle just to cool it to 110 with the immersion chiller (no boil). I racked to a better bottle, pitched a vial of lacto, and covered it with a ton of blankets. Once it tasted sour enough, I pitched the yeast. I don't have my notes on me, but it was around 4-5 days.