After brewing a less than mediocre Berliner Weisse using WLP677, I am about to attempt another using the sour-mash method. I plan on doing my mash (50% German wheat, 50% German pilsner) to collect 5 gallons of approximately 1035 wort or so. I’ll probably do a yeast starter of (US-05?) with nutrient on this day also. I understand oxygen is your worst enemy when it comes to sour mashing, so I plan on collecting the wort into a corny keg. Then, I plan to put one pound of US 2-row (in a muslin bag) in the corny to sour the wort. In my corny I can purge the O2 out really well. I have a dual-stage fermentation chamber I recently built I believe I could keep close to 100 degrees (haven’t tried it on the heat side yet) to put the corny in. I’ll then monitor the pH ensuring it doesn’t drop below 3.5, about 3 days? Then proceeding to boil to keep in <10 IBUs, pitch yeast starter, and let it ride. Thoughts?
Looks pretty good. I did one similar recently, except soured my wort in a carboy. I kept it around 85-90 degrees for 3 days, turned out nice, scored 38 in competition. I don't know why you're making a starter for US-05 though? And the muslin bag isn't unnecessary, but won't hurt either. Also, what you're planning on doing is sour wort method, not sour mash. Good luck!
Pretty much what I do. But I keep the kegged wort at about 115F. Two heat wraps, with a single controller. Pics here... http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...-1-16-1-18-edition.248056/page-2#post-3189570
You do not want to do a starter if using a dry yeast. Yeast nutrient would be fine but not entirely necessary. I've used US-05 for three batches of berliner without any yeast nutirent or rehydrating, and they all came out great.
IBU greater than 10 will start to inhibit the lacto, so you do want to keep the IBUs on the low end, preferably around 5.
Yes, the plan is to sour the wort for 3 or so days (shooting for pH of about 3.5) then proceed to boil
Ha, I read right over that part. Is it still early enough to claim that it's still too early and I haven't woken up yet?
