Fruit in Berliner Weisse

[budigley]

I'm brewing a sudo Berliner Weisse with cranberry and peach, I know traditionally you just as a flowered syrup to the glass while you drink it but I want to brew it with fruit.

My question is aside from adding fruit to my secondary which is my original plan, could I add juice? And will the sugar in the juice bump my ABV?

 

[Double_D]

My question is aside from adding fruit to my secondary which is my original plan, could I add juice? And will the sugar in the juice bump my ABV?

It sounds like you pretty much have it under control. You could add juice. It will add volume though. You will get a bump in gravity from either juice or fruit additions. I've had trouble exactly calculating the gravity addition...I'm sure someone will chime in with a good way to figure that out.

How are you planning on souring? I haven't gotten around to kettle souring but have made a sour "starter" with 30% of the fermentables that I added after the main mash was finished.

 

[budigley]

Thanks for the reply, i kettle soured with lactobacillus for three days. It soured right up.

 

[Double_D]

Nice. Did you have trouble keeping your kettle above 90F? Mine was a little cheesy. Any tips for kettle souring?

 

[secondbase]

Juice will be fine as long as there aren't any preservatives in it. I would also ony add juice if it was 100% juice and nothing else, honestly.

There's a table in American Sour Beers that talks about calculating the abv bump with your added fruit additions. That's a fantastic read for anyone looking to get into sours or bulk up their funky fermentation knowledge.

 

[budigley]

I read that for my particular strain of lacto it thrives around 75 degrees, I have a gas stove with a pilot light so putting it over where the pilot is kept it around 75-80 and it came out fine

 

[markusreadus]

I have been trying to make a Raspberry Berliner Weisse over the last 5 weeks. I've been documenting my adventure here. The kettle souring went very well, and produced a very clean sour taste. I added frozen raspberries, without boiling them (thought that would rid the nice aromas). The result is a lot of acetone - smells of nail polish remover. This is most definitely not a welcome addition to the beer, and it was fine before I added the raspberries. I'd be real cautious about adding fruit without briefly boiling them. I'm not sure what the deal with fruit juice is, but perhaps a short boil of that is no bad idea either. Preservatives can be a problem, I think that might kill your yeast (so carbonation could be tricky if you bottle condition).

 

[markusreadus]

... by the way, you can use un-mashed grain to do the souring (cheaper than buying a culture?). Apparently grain has lactobacillus on it already. It's got other bacteria on it too, so you need to ensure the souring conditions favour Lactobacillus. I kept it at 47C, which is good for lacto and not for some other bugs. Just chuck some - handfull, or 500g - of unmashed grain into wort after mashing, and once the mash has cooled to sub 50C; hotter than that will kill the lacto. Use some clingfilm to cover the wort whilst it sours. There are bacteria that make acetone, but require oxygen to do so. Lacto can work without oxygen.