Saving a botched Berliner Weisse.

[mitchard]

I brewed a Berliner Weisse awhile back, but got the process for pitching the primary strain and the lacto backwards. Rather than letting the Wyeast 5335 lacto hit the wort first, I pitched the US-05 and let it do its thing. During primary, I realized I got the process backwards, but was still waiting on the lacto to get to my LHBS. I went ahead and racked to secondary, then pitched the lacto anyways to see what would happen. Adventures in brewing, I guess.

As expected after reading around, no souring has occurred. General consensus is that it will sour very little, if at all.

What are my options now? I could dump it and do it the right way of course, but i'd rather attempt to save the batch. It was also recommended that a sour blend could be pitched along with some maltodextrin.

If I were to go the sour blend route, how much maltodextrin should I add for a ~5 gallon batch? I've used it in boil before, but never as an additional to secondary. Just dump in in?

Any other suggestions are welcome!

 

[wilserbrewer]

How does it taste now....I would just change the name / class of the beer to an American Wheat and drink it

 

[burninator]

1. Add lactic acid at bottling time, to taste.
2. Brew another batch, sour beyond what you might normally allow, and blend at bottling time.

Any options I'm missing?

If you're thinking about option 2, then I might just do what @wilserbrewer suggests -- drink the beer as is, and brew it again the right way.

 

[tagz]

I may be wrong but l believe lacto can work as a secondary pitch, it just takes a lot longer and won't sour as much. How long has it been sitting with the lacto?

 

[BigPerm]

As expected after reading around, no souring has occurred. General consensus is that it will sour very little, if at all.

What are my options now? I could dump it and do it the right way of course, but i'd rather attempt to save the batch. It was also recommended that a sour blend could be pitched along with some maltodextrin.

If you pitch a souring blend and maltodextrin, you're adding a lot more than just lactobacillus. It will sour this way, but you won't see anything drinkable for 6 months, minimum. What's your gravity now? If it's high enough, the lacto may still have some food in there.

Assuming your gravity is pretty low, if I were you, I would cut your losses and brew another batch. Don't dump this one though. You could add lactic acid as others have suggested, or dry hop with something fruity (ie amarillo) and some citrus peel and have a nice summer wheat beer. Or do both!

 

[eric19312]

2. Brew another batch, sour beyond what you might normally allow, and blend at bottling time.

+1 This is a good suggestion.

 

[mitchard]

If you pitch a souring blend and maltodextrin, you're adding a lot more than just lactobacillus. It will sour this way, but you won't see anything drinkable for 6 months, minimum. What's your gravity now? If it's high enough, the lacto may still have some food in there.

Assuming your gravity is pretty low, if I were you, I would cut your losses and brew another batch. Don't dump this one though. You could add lactic acid as others have suggested, or dry hop with something fruity (ie amarillo) and some citrus peel and have a nice summer wheat beer. Or do both!

I don't remember my exacts, but the gravity is pretty low. I doubt there is much food left at all. Primary probably ate most of that up. I'm not worried about a longer wait or anything if I were to add the sour blend. I'm not stressed on carboys or anything, so dedicating this one to a longer schedule isn't an issue for me. Plus i'm always down to experiment a bit. My main concern would be having enough in there for the bugs to munch on.

If I were to go the route of just turning it into a normal wheat beer, would there be any steps to follow to kill off any remaining lacto? I keg for the most part now, and wouldn't want to infect my clean stuff of course. I can bottle if need be without any real issues, but I'm just kind of curious at this point.