Berliner Weisse with WLP300?

[SeraW]

Hey all. When I was browsing tbe recipes here and elsewhere for Berliner recipes, I noticed that, once you go through all of the variety of souring techniques, that often times the Sacch yeast used was something clean like US-05 (or something Brett, but I'm not crazy about those.) Nothing against that strain, but if we're in Wheat Ale territory anyways, why not a Hef strain of yeast?

To that end, here's my current brew. Comments appreciated.

Batch size: 3 gal (fermenter)

2# Wheat Malt
.75# German Pils
.25# Acid Malt

Decoction mash. Main mash was 110 for about 60 minutes (overshot target of 107), 152 for 60. Total decoction boil was 30 minutes, resulting in BG 1.040.

Kettle Sour with WLP 677 L. delbruecki for 2 days to desired tartness at 110F

10 minute boil with .5oz Tettnanger. OG 1.041

Pitched 500mL starter of WLP300 Hefeweizen yeast at 70F. (Starter made from pre-soured wort skimmed off the kettle.)

 

[macesq]

How's this doing, SeraW? I'm about to prep a sacch starter for a berliner I have lacto working on, thinking of using hefe yeast. It's my understanding that Fritz Briem uses a hefe yeast, though I can't recall where I read that.

 

[SeraW]

Delicious! Fermented out in about a week at 66 (ramped to 70), bottled and carbed. An interesting mix of tartness, makes the whole thing taste a little pineapple like. I dig it, not quite as much banana as I was expecting, but an easy drinker with character.

 

[macesq]

Awesome! Sounds like what I was hoping for, I'm excited to see how mine turns out. Did you finish with Brett? That seems to be BW tradition, though I'm balking at possibility that lacto/hefe/brett winds up a mess.

 

[SeraW]

I'm not crazy about Brett flavors.. My cousin is head brewer at Square One in St. Louis, and his creation, Wohldbräu (part of our last name in there), was kettle soured with Lacto, then boiled, and pitched with US-05, due to his boss demanding no bugs in the equipment. So I copied that idea, but changed to WLP300. I felt like his was missing nothing by skipping Brett, so I didn't either.