Berliner time.. Bring me your best.

Ah. It was 0.25oz of low alpha acid % - according to beersmith it's only at 4.8 IBUS. I pitched the grain in the wort days ago. I mashed like I normally would, transferred the wort to a carboy, let it drop to about 100° and then pitched the grain. That soured for 3 days before I actually boiled it.

 

Hey guys so my berliner has been fermenting for 8 days now and I just brought it upstairs from my basement to bottle. My og was 1.041 and it's at 1.010. As I was sanitizing my bottles I noticed that my airlock was bubbling about every 10 seconds, now I'm thinking that it's not done fermenting and I may have to bottle another day. What do you guys think? My hydrometer readings were the same 2 days in a row , is it bubbling from the agitation of moving it, the higher temperature upstairs or is it simply not done fermenting. I think I'm just going to bottle another day as I don't want to have an explosive bottle situation on my hands.
Cheers!

 

Mine was bubbling right up until I kegged. It was the strangest acting beer I've made.

 

When did you add the lactic acid? Going to brew another Berliner this week since the last one went down hill. I'm thinking of just adding a little acid malt to the end of the mash, sparge and collect 5.5 gallons then cool to 110 and throw in the uncrushed grain (I'm not going to use the white labs this time). Going to change up the process a little and see if I get better results.

 

Cool. I'm going to try something similar with the addition of acid malt. Hopefully this batch doesn't get contaminated like the last batch.

 

So yeah, I had to dump my berliner batch, due to the vile smell that I got even after boiling and pitching a kolsch yeast. Smelled like vomit and rotten garbage. I was really bummed since I've never had to dump a batch before. I think I'll be sticking to my tried and true way of doing a huge starter for a pure lacto del strain and then pitching it one week before the saccro.

 

Any ideas on what would cause a beer to turn grey? I mean straight up grey its the craziest shit ive seen brewing

 

picture?

 

Yeah it was the screwed up batch. We just dumped it cause we are cleaning every for another run at it tomorrow but going to do it a little different. I should have to a picture. It was a weird light grey. Looked crazy.

 

Just wanted to update my Berliners. I had done a 10 gallon batch that I split with half peach and half blueberry. They both turned out phenomenal. A nice amount of tartness, tons of fruit, a bit of wheat malt on the finish, and endlessly drinkable. Just brewed up another 10 gallon batch yesterday...hoping for similar results.

And a quick summary of the process I used... Make a lacto starter a week from brew day, kept the flask on a yogurt maker to keep it at temp. Brew the beer on brew day, (no hops, short boil), cool to 95 degrees then add lacto. Keep the carboys under my bathroom fan heater for 5-7 days, then drop to room temp and pitch 1007. Let it finish then add 1-1.25 lbs of fruit per gallon and let it condition for a few weeks with the fruit sampling along the way. Very happy with the results that this yielded.

 

This is how I've had great results also, lacto starter, pure lacto pitch for a week, then finish with kolsch yeast. Never thought of using blueberry but peaches has always been successful.

 

The blueberry gave it an awesome pinkish purple appearance with purple head. I enjoyed evil twin's justin blabaer so I gave it a try. Next time I'm going to experiment with wine soaked oak spirals.

 

For the lacto starter, are you just pitching some grain to starter wort on a stir plate? (just wrote this and then I'm thinking doh, lacto doesn't like oxygen right?

Your fruit versions sound awesome.

 

I actually used Wyeast 5335 which is a lacto packet. I was kind of afraid of using grain after my failed sour mash attempt, but I may try it next time around since with the starter. And no, I didn't utilize the stir plate, I used my wife's yogurt maker which conveniently fits a 2L flask and keeps it at 95 degrees.

 

Alright we did another batch of Berliner last Wed.

4.25lb pilsner
2.75lb pale wheat
.5lb 2 row (uncrushed)

mashed in and collected 5.5gallons, cooled to 90 and transferred to carboy (did not sour in the kettle this time because of the bad turn out last time) purged sanitized carboy with co2 and added .5lb of uncrushed 2 row then purged the head space again. After 5 days the ph has dropped to 3.4 and taste tart and clean. Going to boil for 20min today with a .5oz of Hallertau at 10min cool and pitch wlp001.

I think this may turn out a little stronger than I would have liked probably around 4.3% instead of around 3.5-3.8% . I am glad this way worked a lot better than souring it directly in the kettle because that did not go well at all.

 

so I just finished boiling and the pre boil gravity before we pitched the grain for the lacto was 1.048 - after the boil the og was 1.024 wich seems off to me. Lactic acid affects the reading but does it affect it up or down? It taste fine not really picking up any off flavors but still not sure why the gravity dropped so much. My buddy said he noticed activity in the airlock for the first time in 5 days this morning so I'm wondering if maybe yeast on the grain caused fermentation. Have you ever had your gravity drop that many points over the 5-7 days you let it sour?