Berliner Weisse

[vykuza]

A method I've seen for this involves souring the wort with lacto only for about 7-8 hours, then boiling it out and fermenting for a couple weeks. They did it on an episode of Brew Dogs in Season 1. I think they had a pretty sizeable amount of lacto on board though with the souring fermentation. I'll see if I can dig up more info

I've posted in this threat on this before - I do a turbo sour by pitching a wyeast or white labs lacto culture in the mash and keeping it around 40c for 24-48 hours with a good esky mash tun or some other method. Works really well, and you can tailor the sourness to your liking by tasting the mash. Quick boil to kill the lacto then just ferment with something neutral to finish the beer.

I like this method as it still lets other wild bugs have a quick go at your mash for a bit of depth, you don't need to wait long to drink it, and you can pinpoint your sourness levels to a T.

 

[fattox]

That's how I would do it personally, just for that ability to have it quicker over the summer months when it's great after a day's labour

 

[AJ80]

I've posted in this threat on this before - I do a turbo sour by pitching a wyeast or white labs lacto culture in the mash and keeping it around 40c for 24-48 hours with a good esky mash tun or some other method. Works really well, and you can tailor the sourness to your liking by tasting the mash. Quick boil to kill the lacto then just ferment with something neutral to finish the beer.

I like this method as it still lets other wild bugs have a quick go at your mash for a bit of depth, you don't need to wait long to drink it, and you can pinpoint your sourness levels to a T.

Have my first crack at this style souring right now - used about .5kg of uncracked malt to add the lacto to the wort (have lautered) and using a temp controller on my OTS element to keep it at 40C. Smells interesting to say the least, an interesting mix of sweet yoghurt and sick, but still nice. Will give it a quick boil tomorrow night as that'll be 48 hours worth of souring. Looking forward to this one!

 

[waggastew]

Just mashing this baby right now. Based on recipe from here: http://www.thepourreport.com/berliner-weisse-recipe-and-brewday/

SBW-1
Berliner Weisse

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 12.0
Total Grain (kg): 2.100
Total Hops (g): 11.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.037 (°P): 9.3
Final Gravity (FG): 1.009 (°P): 2.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 3.64 %
Colour (SRM): 2.9 (EBC): 5.7
Bitterness (IBU): 5.1 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
1.200 kg Pilsner (57.14%)
0.700 kg Wheat Malt (33.33%)
0.50 kg Acidulated Malt (9.52%)

Hop Bill
----------------
11.0 g Hersbrucker Pellet (2.8% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
100g Pilsener malt, uncrushed
150g Acid matl, crushed

Mash at 65degC for 60min with pre-boiled water. Cool mash to 55degC, add 100g of pilsener malt to innoculate and remaining 150g acid malt. Cover mash bed with aluminium foil, purge CO2 and seal pot with gladwrap. Rest wrapped in ferment fridge for 48hrs at 52degC. Sparge etc and boil as normal.

Ferment with WY1007 German Ale at 19degC

Plan on making up some hibiscus syrup to try 'mit schuss'

 

[AJ80]

What an amazing transformation - 48 hours in and my shed smells like freshly baked sour dough bread. Can't wait to get tucked into this one!

 

[vykuza]

Nice one! Keep an eye on it, and keep tasting, as you want to stop it when it tastes as good as you think it's going to get.

 

[AJ80]

Cheers mate, ended up boiling last night. Smelt great, just what I was hoping for. Will report back once bottled.

 

[OneEye]

I've chucked a handful of I crushed wheat at mine before. The trick I used was to purge the kettle of oxygen with CO2. (Blew it down the sight glass)
In the presence of oxygen the lacto will cause butyric acid to form (the bile/vomit compound). Let it sour for 3 days, tasting it as it went, when it hit the right level of sourness you boil it, like Nick has said, for a half hour or so. Kill the bugs and finish it off with a yeast of your choosing. No need for a separate 'wild' fermenter.
I've also used yoghurt! You know the lactobacillus stuff? Worked a treat!

 

[mje1980]

I've posted in this threat on this before - I do a turbo sour by pitching a wyeast or white labs lacto culture in the mash and keeping it around 40c for 24-48 hours with a good esky mash tun or some other method. Works really well, and you can tailor the sourness to your liking by tasting the mash. Quick boil to kill the lacto then just ferment with something neutral to finish the beer.

I like this method as it still lets other wild bugs have a quick go at your mash for a bit of depth, you don't need to wait long to drink it, and you can pinpoint your sourness levels to a T.

Hi nick, did you mash as normal, then let the mash drop down to 40c then pitch ?. This sounds awesome. Quick boil, say 30 mins?.

 

[doon]

I did one in my bm. Mashed as normal then then let it drop in temp and held it at around 40 for three days with a hop bag full of uncracked grain thrown in.

Boiled for 15 or so mins and cubed. Yet to ferment but had a nice sourness to it

 

[mje1980]

Cheers mate. Keen to try one out.

 

[vykuza]

Hi nick, did you mash as normal, then let the mash drop down to 40c then pitch ?. This sounds awesome. Quick boil, say 30 mins?.

That's right. Mashed thick, added cold water to hit 40c+ then pitched the lacto. Wait 24-48 hours, mash out with some hot water (it should really flow just fine, you'll find the mash very thin now), sparge and 15 minute boil just to make sure the lacto (and whatever else is still swimming in there) is dead and get a couple of IBUs in the wort.

Keeping IBUs ultra low isn't a problem with this method either, as you don't need to protect the lacto from it. So.. hoppyweisse? WHO KNOWS?!

I sense another experiment coming....

 

[timmyf]

Just mashing a Berliner Weisse in at the moment. Recipe is:
50% Pils
50% Wheat
50gm homegrown Hersbrucker flowers (~6ibu)
5ml lactic acid

Mash at 50 for 30, 66 for 60 and 78 for 15.

I'm using WLP630 so I want to do a boil so I've got a sterile wort for the yeast to play in.

My question is for those who've done short boils with this style, did you get DMS?
I'm a bit worried that with only a 15-20 min boil i'm going to end up with a heap of DMS given a 50% pils grist. I might just play it safe this time and do the usual 90 min boil but I'm interested in what others have seen.

Cheers,
TIm

 

[AJ80]

Mine will be bottled tomorrow, but haven't detected any DMS so far (has been hard not to keep plundering the fermenter!!) and only did a 30 min boil. Grist was 50/50 JW pils and JW wheat.

 

[vykuza]

I've been doing a double batch of berliner weisse over the past few days, and decided to take a few pictures along the way.

The malt bill is 50/50 Weyermann Pils and Wheat malts, 3.5kg of each for a 46L batch.

Here's what I was working with; my trusty Techni-ice mash tun!



with trusty BeerBelly False Bottom



Mashed in very thin this time to see if there was a difference. This was about 40L, with grain added and stirred, leaving 10L for a batch sparge at the very end.



At this time, I mashed for 60 minutes, opened the lid of the fermenter and walked away for a few hours.

Once the mash hit 45ish degrees (I think it was 47), I poured in a vial of Lactobacillus Delbrueckii, gave it a quick stir, closed the lid and waited for some magic to happen.

24 hours later, it smelled like a bucket of sick on a hot day, and looked like this:



Note on the top-right there's some growth going on. Mmmm. At this stage it smells so bad, you would be mad wanting to drink it. Tastes ok though, just like sweet wort.

48 hours later (72 hours in the mash tun), I'm ready to boil. It now smells very very sweet, no sign of the vom smell, sourish and vaguely tropical. Reminds me of the smell of a mango weiss bar. (how fitting!)

The biggest difference is the appearance. Look at that lacto growth.



A bit more of a close up


I then drained the mash tun to a bucket and transferred to the urn for a boil. It left nice ropey strands of lacto and whatever else was growing in there around the edges of the fermenter. Wort is beige coloured.

I sparged with 10L of water to get the last of the goods out and boiled for 15 minutes with a handful of old Spalt I had lying around - probably 10g.

Into the fermenter for a slow chill and tomorrow I'll pitch some BRY-97. The wort tastes sour, wheaty and sweet, quite complex!

Here's the drained mash tun


It gets rinsed out, then blasted with a strong hot water sodium percarbonate soak for 24 hours filled to the brim, followed by a starsan spray before going back in to storage.

Here's the wort draining to the fermenter - yes it's cloudy, but I find it clears well once fermented.



I hope this helps anyone who wants to try this method. It is quite simple, it just involves time up front, rather than waiting months for it to sour in the fermenter, and somewhere out of the way you can ride out the vom smell for the first 24-48 hours.

Happy brewing!

 

[fattox]

The interesting method I found out about for a Berliner was from Beersuit? - Anthony from Toowoomba Homebrewers. It's taken from Jess Caudill of Wyeast. Basically what he does is a normal recipe, then he sours it with lacto for a full week in the fermenter at higher temps, then after that he pitched 1007 - German Ale yeast. Let that ride out to where you want it, then he added Brett at bottling. Personally, I'd just do a long brett age in the fermenter and keg it, should show a similar result and I'm sure that's what Ant was telling me the last time we talked about them. He does a mean BW too. But yeah. End of the day, it ages on brett for a few months, then goes into keg.

 

[mje1980]

About to do my first. Planning to do nicks method. I biab so going to leave bag in. Being a small beer, and I have a 50 litre kettle I think I'll do my first double batch biab at the same time. Pretty excited

 

[Blind Dog]

I've posted in this threat on this before - I do a turbo sour by pitching a wyeast or white labs lacto culture in the mash and keeping it around 40c for 24-48 hours with a good esky mash tun or some other method. Works really well, and you can tailor the sourness to your liking by tasting the mash. Quick boil to kill the lacto then just ferment with something neutral to finish the beer.

I like this method as it still lets other wild bugs have a quick go at your mash for a bit of depth, you don't need to wait long to drink it, and you can pinpoint your sourness levels to a T.

[SIZE=10.5pt]Nick (or anyone else)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Is there any reason why I can’t just mash and boil as normal and then ferment with a lacto culture and neutral ale yeast? Jamil Z is a fan apparently[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Just reluctant to grab more gear like a decent esky, or have lacto in the BM (which I know is paranoid, but paranoia is healthy and fun)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Apologies if its been discussed before[/SIZE]

 

[seamad]

I've got a query too..
My system is a RIMS, so it would mean running the pump to keep the mash at temp. Is there any reason why I couldn't mash as normal, transfer to kettle then cool to 40ish and add WY5335 for a couple of days then just boil for @20 min before final fermenting ?
cheers

 

[tiprya]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Nick (or anyone else)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Is there any reason why I can’t just mash and boil as normal and then ferment with a lacto culture and neutral ale yeast? Jamil Z is a fan apparently[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Just reluctant to grab more gear like a decent esky, or have lacto in the BM (which I know is paranoid, but paranoia is healthy and fun)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Apologies if its been discussed before[/SIZE]

This is the 'real' way to make a berliner weisse - sour mashing is a shortcut. I have put lacto in my BM and it turned out fine (well the beer turned putrid but the BM is unaffected).

I've got a query too..
My system is a RIMS, so it would mean running the pump to keep the mash at temp. Is there any reason why I couldn't mash as normal, transfer to kettle then cool to 40ish and add WY5335 for a couple of days then just boil for @20 min before final fermenting ?
cheers

That will work as well. You can briefly boil the runnings if you want to ensure it is only innoculated with lacto. Not sure what is preferable though.