Sour Mash Berliner question

[MidTNJasonF]

I am going to do a berliner weisse shortly with:

50% Pilsner malt
40% Malted wheat
10% acidulated malt.

I will be doing a sour mash of 24 to 48 hours. I want a fairly tart/sour beer when finished. My question is what percentage of the grist should I sour mash?

I have read suggestions that range from 10% of the grist to 100%. I certainly could do 100% but is that overkill?

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

I am going to bump this thread, cuz I have pretty much the same question. Someone's gotta know, right?

 

[mbauer013]

I do 100%, not because of the level of sour, but because it is just eaiser to mash it all, then add boilng water to raise the tem to sparge temp and sparge. A mash for a berliner isn't very big in the first place and taking time to heat two seperate charges of water is more "overkill" to me than just sour mashing the whole thing.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

That's what I'm thinking too. Mash, cool to ~120º, pitch lacto/uncrushed grain and hold the whole thing for a couple few days before sparging and doing a short boil.

 

[MidTNJasonF]

I went ahead with the 100% sour mash. It did not turn out well at all. I was encouraged by the light crisp taste and nice tart level of sourness but it has a fairly nasty off putting aroma. I had hoped it would boil off but it did not. I then hoped it would clean up during fermentation but it did not. It is not completely undrinkable but it is close.

Since it was so cheap to make I will probably just dump it and try again but actually do a lacto starter and fermentation on it before pitching Brett to finish it up.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

How did you inoculate the mash with lacto?

 

[MidTNJasonF]

couple handfuls of raw unmilled pilsner grain.