Hudginsclan
Member
Well, this is a strange one. I'm brewing (or trying to brew) a Berliner Weisse. Here's my recipe:
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.007
Color: 2.25 ºSRM
Alcohol: 4.39%
Bitterness: 4.9
Boil: 20 min
Final Volume: 11.0 gal
efficiency: 84%
7.0 lb Rahr White Wheat
7.0 lb Rahr Pilsner
1.0 ld Weyermann Acidulated Malt
1.0 oz Saaz (3.0% AA; 20 min)
1.0 oz Saaz (3.0% AA; 10 min)
1.0 oz Dried Woodruff (Brewer's Garden; 10 min)
Brewed this up on Sunday (5/8/11). Used a single-stage mash with 60 min @ 154ºF, and mash-out 10 min @ 170ºF. OG came out high for style, but that's not really surprising because I was a little heavy on the grains, and my efficiency was high. No biggie.
Now, a BW needs to be sour, of course. I'm looking for a nice refreshing session beer for this summer, so I wanted to achieve the sourness without months and months of aging. I considered a sour mash--I did an Oud Bruin that way a while back with reasonable results. However, the sourness I got with the sour mash was not particularly "clean", if you will, and I was looking for a nice clean lactic sourness for this light summer brew.
After reading a lot of threads on a lot of brew-boards, I came to the conclusion that: (1) there are about as many tricks for souring beers as there are people brewing them; and (2) I wanted to try a full-wort sour.
My plan was simple--mash, boil, cool to ca. 80ºF, pitch a package of Wyeast 5335 (Lactobacillus) into the wort, mix thoroughly and drain off into two fermentation buckets. Wait a couple of days 'til it starts to get nice and sour, then pitch a package of Wyeast 3333 (German Wheat) into each fermenter and let the yeast go to town. My rational was that the boil would knock down all the naturally-occurring bugs in the wort, and then I would be able inoculate the wort with just the bugs I wanted and give them couple of days to do their stuff before before the yeast came in to break up the party. Seems pretty simple; what could possibly go wrong? Well...
Day 1: Fermenters sitting at ca. 70ºF for about 24 hours. I wanted to check how things were going because I wasn't really sure how fast a full-wort sour would progress. From what I could gather, I expected that the progress would be slower than a sour mash, but I wasn't sure about that and my sour mash went nuts in 24 hours. I didn't want things to get out of hand. I was also concerned that I had not purged the fermenters with CO2 and I could just imagine some nasty aerobic bacteria picked up from the air having a party in there and beating up my poor lactobacillus.
Opened up the fermenter. No off-smells, no appearance of any activity (i.e. pellicle). Took a sample. Nothing. Just tasted mildly sweet like wort. No sour.
OK, I know what's going on. The wort's too cool. The lacto bugs like it nice and toasty. So, I put a space heater (with a thermostat, mind you) in a closet with the two fermenters. I also flushed the head space of the fermenters with CO2. Closed up, the closet warmed to a nice 85ºF.
Day 2. The wort has now been inoculated for ca. 48 hr, the last 24 hr of which it has been held at around 85º.
Again, opened up the fermenter. No off-smells, no appearance of any activity. Again, took a sample. No sour (or any other odd flavor); just nice sweet wort.
All right, at this point I'm just figuring I've got lazy lactobacillus and I'm not going to take it any more. I decided to throw caution to the wind and toss a couple of ounces of pilsener malt I have on hand into each fermenter and let the wild bugs do their thing. Hey--it worked for the sour mash, right? I again flushed the head space of the buckets with CO2 to suppress the aerobic microbes as much as possible. I also turned the heat up so that the closet settled at a little over 90ºF.
Day 3. Now ca. 72 hr post boil. The wort has been inoculated with the Wyeast Lacto at the start, and then, again, with malt a day ago. The fermenters have been at 85-90ºF for two days.
Cracked open the fermenter this evening and took another sample. Guess what? No sign of activity and no trace of sourness in the wort.
So...I'm kind of at a loss. I can't seem to MAKE this wort sour. I could just go ahead and pitch the yeast, but its going to be a mighty dull BW (i.e. NOT a BW) without the sour. Have I got super-wort here that is invulnerable to infection? Should I be calling the CDC to submit this "wonder-liquor" for scientific study?
Anyone ever find themselves UNABLE to sour wort?
Cheers!
Doug
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.007
Color: 2.25 ºSRM
Alcohol: 4.39%
Bitterness: 4.9
Boil: 20 min
Final Volume: 11.0 gal
efficiency: 84%
7.0 lb Rahr White Wheat
7.0 lb Rahr Pilsner
1.0 ld Weyermann Acidulated Malt
1.0 oz Saaz (3.0% AA; 20 min)
1.0 oz Saaz (3.0% AA; 10 min)
1.0 oz Dried Woodruff (Brewer's Garden; 10 min)
Brewed this up on Sunday (5/8/11). Used a single-stage mash with 60 min @ 154ºF, and mash-out 10 min @ 170ºF. OG came out high for style, but that's not really surprising because I was a little heavy on the grains, and my efficiency was high. No biggie.
Now, a BW needs to be sour, of course. I'm looking for a nice refreshing session beer for this summer, so I wanted to achieve the sourness without months and months of aging. I considered a sour mash--I did an Oud Bruin that way a while back with reasonable results. However, the sourness I got with the sour mash was not particularly "clean", if you will, and I was looking for a nice clean lactic sourness for this light summer brew.
After reading a lot of threads on a lot of brew-boards, I came to the conclusion that: (1) there are about as many tricks for souring beers as there are people brewing them; and (2) I wanted to try a full-wort sour.
My plan was simple--mash, boil, cool to ca. 80ºF, pitch a package of Wyeast 5335 (Lactobacillus) into the wort, mix thoroughly and drain off into two fermentation buckets. Wait a couple of days 'til it starts to get nice and sour, then pitch a package of Wyeast 3333 (German Wheat) into each fermenter and let the yeast go to town. My rational was that the boil would knock down all the naturally-occurring bugs in the wort, and then I would be able inoculate the wort with just the bugs I wanted and give them couple of days to do their stuff before before the yeast came in to break up the party. Seems pretty simple; what could possibly go wrong? Well...
Day 1: Fermenters sitting at ca. 70ºF for about 24 hours. I wanted to check how things were going because I wasn't really sure how fast a full-wort sour would progress. From what I could gather, I expected that the progress would be slower than a sour mash, but I wasn't sure about that and my sour mash went nuts in 24 hours. I didn't want things to get out of hand. I was also concerned that I had not purged the fermenters with CO2 and I could just imagine some nasty aerobic bacteria picked up from the air having a party in there and beating up my poor lactobacillus.
Opened up the fermenter. No off-smells, no appearance of any activity (i.e. pellicle). Took a sample. Nothing. Just tasted mildly sweet like wort. No sour.
OK, I know what's going on. The wort's too cool. The lacto bugs like it nice and toasty. So, I put a space heater (with a thermostat, mind you) in a closet with the two fermenters. I also flushed the head space of the fermenters with CO2. Closed up, the closet warmed to a nice 85ºF.
Day 2. The wort has now been inoculated for ca. 48 hr, the last 24 hr of which it has been held at around 85º.
Again, opened up the fermenter. No off-smells, no appearance of any activity. Again, took a sample. No sour (or any other odd flavor); just nice sweet wort.
All right, at this point I'm just figuring I've got lazy lactobacillus and I'm not going to take it any more. I decided to throw caution to the wind and toss a couple of ounces of pilsener malt I have on hand into each fermenter and let the wild bugs do their thing. Hey--it worked for the sour mash, right? I again flushed the head space of the buckets with CO2 to suppress the aerobic microbes as much as possible. I also turned the heat up so that the closet settled at a little over 90ºF.
Day 3. Now ca. 72 hr post boil. The wort has been inoculated with the Wyeast Lacto at the start, and then, again, with malt a day ago. The fermenters have been at 85-90ºF for two days.
Cracked open the fermenter this evening and took another sample. Guess what? No sign of activity and no trace of sourness in the wort.
So...I'm kind of at a loss. I can't seem to MAKE this wort sour. I could just go ahead and pitch the yeast, but its going to be a mighty dull BW (i.e. NOT a BW) without the sour. Have I got super-wort here that is invulnerable to infection? Should I be calling the CDC to submit this "wonder-liquor" for scientific study?
Anyone ever find themselves UNABLE to sour wort?
Cheers!
Doug
