Sour wort Berliner Weisse

I'd leave it at garage temp for 2 days. 100F to 120F would be fine for the lacto. I've never added a whole pound of grain after my sacc rest.
You can do a mash out, and add ice water or ice cubes to help drop the temp to around 100. Add your crushed grains (I use about a 2 cups. 1/4#?) and let it go 3 days by taste. Pumps won't need to run here. Just purge with CO2 if you can and let the laco ride until you're ready for a boil.

 

If you kettle sour, you shouldn't have to worry about that. If you bring it to boil or near boil after souring, this will kill all the lacto.

 

Process sounds good. I wouldn't worry much about trying to push out O2 from the kettle. (I collect my wort into a carboy, sour it from there, then rack to the kettle for a 10 min boil). I've never had any problems with my sour wort smelling like shit, or being ruined from O2 exposure. Always smells like creamed corn and has a lemony tartness pre-boil. Just keep it sealed, and only open it when you want to test the pH. This is important since you don't want the wort to get too sour. If you get into the low 3s then the sacch may have a hard time finishing the job in such a low pH wort. I shoot for 3.5. I use a cheap fermwrap which keeps the wort around 90-95F and that's enough to keep the lacto activity high. I wouldn't bother trying to keep it between 110-120 if you don't have to

 

The key is to chill as quickly as possible. As a commercial brewery that tried the method found out, heating to 210F and then letting the wort sit to whirlpool/settle creates DMS... a lot of DMS.

I started just heating to ~180F or so to pasteurize to reduce the risk of DMS. Results so far are good, with an even fresher-grainier flavor.

 

I don't think 5 IBUs really "do" anything. I have a rhubarb Berliner on now that didn't get a single pellet, still a great beer!

At 180F pasteurization is essentially instant.

For one of my HomebrewCon beers I took the opportunity to do a 30 min hop-stand post-quick souring (pre-100% Brett). Results were terrific!

 

i used the above method of @OldSock and it came out great.
i let mine sit about a week and it was just a bit too sour, so next time i'll probably do 3 or 4 days for a nice refreshing beer thats not overly sour.

 

Traditionally Berliner weisse doesn't have any hop aroma.

If you want hop aroma, I'd suggest dry hopping! Hops are anti-Lacto even without being isomerized. Dry hopping can even halt acidification!

The other option is to split the wort, boiling some with hops and fermenting with yeast, and leaving the rest unhopped to ferment with Lacto. Then blending to taste.

Skim to remove the hops? I don't, although I bag my hops. I do skim the foam as the wort comes to a boil, more out of habit than anything though. It'll all settle out.

 

certain strains of lacto are more hop intolerant than others. I used goodbellys to sour my first berliner and used some hops in the boil and it didnt sour. I did the exact same brew but with no hops and it completely soured in like 2 days. I highly recommend good bellys as a lacto source they are cheap and can be pitched directly into the fermenter. Also, the lacto strain in goodbellys are so hop intolerant that if you brew anything with hops it in it will not sour as a result so there is a lessened chance of contamination of your clean beers.

 

I actually just did my first Kettle sour on Friday. I brewed up a low OG (1.034) and pitched 1/2 carton of mango GoodBelly. I pre-acidified the wort before pitching, and I had it wrapped in a heating blanket to hold 110 for about 32 hours. After that, I let it free fall to ambient garage temperatures. Partially because I was done waking up every 2 hours to reset blanket (damn fire safety)

I taste tested and it is not souring as quick as I want, to be honest I hardly tasted any difference after 48 hours of lacto. Going to let it ride until tomorrow and taste again.

Like you, I was concerned with contaminating things. The kettle sour method seems to be pretty safe!

 

How much hops were in the wort? Reason being lacto plantarum (what's in goodbelly) is very hop averse. I've heard even 10 ibus can inhibit lactic fermentation with it. Could be your problem?

 

I didn't add any hops in. I heard that the strain was suuuuuper intolerant. I was just going to dry hop this beer a bit for aroma, not too worried about bitterness for the style.

It's kinda concerning though. :/

I decided to not check it today, but tomorrow.

 

Yeah that's weird, goodbelly usually does the trick. Maybe an old carton? If not, I don't know man, that's all I got

 

I kinda thought that possibility as well. We shall see! Maybe I just didn't pitch enough, or didn't shake adequately enough. I also did not stir or shake the kettle at all. I have no idea if this bacteria works its way from the bottom up, etc. It's all new to me! And the books I've read about it don't mention anything along the lines.

 

No need to stir or shake, in fact DO NOT do either! Oxygenating the wort prior to souring can create butyric acid, which leads to some serious off flavors that wont go away (blue cheese, vomit, baby diaper). I could see maybe shaking the goodbelly carton, but there still should have been plenty in there to get the job done.