Kettle soured berliner weisse tastes like saison?

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Kent88

Sometimes I have to remind myself
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I did a simple kettle souring of 1 gallon of berliner weisse made from 12oz of each Pils Malt and Red Wheat (OG 1.035). After a brief boil I pitched wyeast 5335 Lacto into the kettle, wrapped the kettle in a towel, and kept it in the "cool" oven with a measuring cup of water I'd microwave to boiling a few times a day through the weekend. The pH was below the beer test strip range. After another brief boil I cooled, transferred, and added some US05, kept the temps below 70F, and today (~16 days later) was bottling day (FG ~1.004).

I tried a sample and it tasted kind of like a rhubarb saison I made with Wyeast Belgian Saison yeast before it went into secondary on some more rhubarb. The grain bill for that saison was primarily Pils malt with some Red Wheat.

I haven't had a lot of examples of either style, is this (the taste similarities) acceptable at this stage?
 
You need to make sure it is sour before boiling. Once boiled, you have set the sour level in the beer.

Your strips are probably inaccurate, and in any case probably don't go below about 4.5. You need to be down around 3.2 to get decent souring.

When I do Berliners, I sour them in the fermenter, and taste them before adding the yeast. For a quick turnaround, it needs to be sour before adding the yeast.
 
The pH strips do not go below 4.8(ish).

Was hoping to not expose plastic tubing, siphons, etc. to Lacto, which is why I kettle soured and boiled before transferring it to a proper fermenter.

I had not added yeast to the wort before the lacto was pitched. I did taste a little when I was boiling to kill the lacto, but with this being my first homebrewed berliner weisse I didn't have anything to think back to and compare it with.

IMHO it doesn't taste bad (I try not to judge it until it is carb'd and cooled, though), I was just wondering if anyone could say that it is or is not on par with what it should be like at this point.

I'm thinking I'll allow it to kettle sour 3 or 4 days next time. I was pleasantly surprised that no mold had grown and that it tasted pretty clean when I sampled some after kettle souring.
 
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