Sour Mash Berliner Weisse

I'm actually curious how this turns out. I've been doing a lot of research on pre-boil souring and berliner weisse.

From what I gather as long as you don't smell vomit/baby poop/etc you got a good lacto. If it smells pleasantly sour and tastes good at this point I think you have a good chance of making a good beer. Your method seems spot on, from what i've researched. Let me know how it turns out.

 

Not sure you needed to pitch lacto since it resides in the grain anyway. I use a sour wort method and toss in a handful of unmilled grain for lacto. Commercial lacto is said to be far less tart.

 

I made my first using the sour wort method/handful unmilled malted grain. Let sour at 110º for a couple of days. Super-sour to my taste – think concentrated, unsweetened lemonade. (Do like the fruity notes.) Perhaps too sour, but I really have never tried any version of this except what I just made so I don't really know how close to style it is. After its bottled and conditioned I might be able to make a better judgement.

 

I did something similar last summer on one of our weekends when it didn't get below 100 and still have a few bottles sitting around. Three day sour mash and used german ale yeast. The natural lacto created a lemon bomb for me. I added ~5% rye malt to the mix (50% pilsner, 45% wheat) to give it a little spice. It turned out quite nice! Lemony and spicy berliner.

I'm not sure that I'll do this method again in the future. I think my next attempt will be a sour wort instead of mash or trying to build a starter from commercial lacto packs (so I can make this year round) but I really like the tartness in my beer so I'm hesitant to shy away from souring myself.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

 

Had excellent results using the kettle souring method when brewing a Gose about a month ago. I mashed a simple wheat/pilsner grain bill for 90 minutes at 149F and then transferred to my boil kettle per usual. Rather than boiling I waited until the wort had dropped down to 122F, which, from what I've read, is the optimal temperature for lactobacillus. I then put 6 oz of unmilled grain into a hop bag (mixture of pilsner and wheat) and pitched it into the wort. I covered the wort in a layer of plastic wrap, put the lid on and sealed the cracks with foil, made a small hole to insert a gas line from my CO2 tank/regulator and flushed the headspace with CO2 - left the line in so I could flush the headspace every couple hours - the introduction of oxygen during this anaerobic fermentation can potentially cause those unwanted vomit/stomach bile/rotten cheese/stinky feet aroma and flavor and it is not pleasant. I also wrapped the kettle in a large heated blanket my wife has which has a 12 hour timer so I could leave it overnight. The next morning, after roughly 16 hours of time in the kettle, the pH had dropped significantly and the temperature was still at 114F (that heated blanket is no joke!). I then removed all the wrap, foil, etc. and kicked the burner on. Boiled for 15 minutes with an addition of Citra hops bittered to 5 IBU, coriander, and himalayan salt then chilled and knocked out as usual. Pitched a nice starter of Kolsch yeast and fermented low and the beer finished at 1.004 in only a weeks time. Kegged it this past Thursday and poured the first glass today - it is dry, tart, and slightly salty with a nice touch of coriander which helps bring about these amazing lemony/peachy/spritzy qualities. This is one of the best beers I've brewed and I'm pretty damn happy with my process.

 

I brewed a berliner using the sour wort method recently, with great results. I put my postings up HERE if you want to check it out. The title is Sour Mash, but down the road I decided to change it up and go with sour worting. It was a lot easier than I had originally thought.

 

I don't think that's actually the case, IIRC, the vomit smell is from oxygen getting to the wort, I'm pretty certain all lacto will give you that initial vomit smell (when exposed to oxygen) until the sugars are converted (or in this case until you boil to lock sourness), once it has some time to clean up the beer, then you get the nice pleasant lactic acid attributes.

I've done a sour-mash before with excellent results using 1-2lb. of unmilled barley for 24 hours, it was really slow to take, so I then added commerical lacto for another 48 hours (72 hours total) and did primary with German Ale Yeast and bottled with Brett. I really think the key was keeping temperature between 105-115'F and putting saran wrap on the top of the liquid so literally no contact with oxygen. If you keep it in a container, even with a lid, you'll need to purge with a layer of CO2

I also did a split batch of my berliner and did a Gose with 1/2 the batch (at 48 hours) and added salt & coriander then bottled with just the German yeast. The Berliner 1/2 I boiled (at 72 hours) and bottled with Brett. Both turned out great, recently the Berliner (10 months after bottling) just scored a 37.5 in a BJCP comp. And I've won multiple awards for the Gose.

Edit: I just read the rest of the thread, I basically did what @antlerwrestler19 described.

 

I've been thinking of doing a Gose. Is there any way you could share the recipe?

 

Look to add salt and coriander to the end of the boil... I'd add salt to taste, IMO.

Heavier on the wheat, than pils as well for the grist.

 

I would use basically the same recipe you'd use for a berliner, but do as @FATC1TY suggested and add the sea salt and coriander towards the end of the boil. I hear of some gose recipes doing a full 60 min boil with a small amount of German noble hop, and some that don't do a boil at all and no hop additions. All a matter of preference I guess..

2.0 lbs. German Pilsner malt
6.0 lbs. White Wheat malt
4 oz Acidulated Malt (for mash pH correction)
Separate 8 oz Acidulated Malt (added during 156° °F step-up to acidify sour mash - post sugar conversion)

Mash @ 149 °F for 90 min
Step up to 156 °F for 10 min
Mashout at 168 °F for 10 min

 

Thanks, I'll give it a try. My buddy just bought a trunk full of Westbrook Gose and I thought I would try to make one.

 

Nice. Enjoy that!