Berliner time.. Bring me your best.

http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2014/01/wild-yeast-wrangling-how-i-wild-ferment.html

I suggest you read the link above and use a wild culture to make your beer, it will turn out tart and generally fruity early on and will evolve in the bottle to more funk forward with age

For a b-weiss I dont think high temps are necessary to get it sour. I think the reason ppl have trouble with the commercial cultures is that they only ferment glucose, which is a relatively minor sugar in wort

 

Either way I suggest using a house wild culture that you step up with the approach in the link. It will produce a nicely sour beer that should meet your expectations. the one issue with using that culture and then boiling is you'll lose some ABV, as the culture will without a doubt contain yeast.

for a gose, I really like to add cherries to the wort, the salt really seems to bring out the fruit flavor a lot. Come to think of it the last gose I made used the dregs from JP calabaza blanca and turned out fantastic, so if you have access to a relatively fresh bottle of that beer you might consider using it as your culture

 

Most of the homebrewers I know have the most success with a sour mash rather than souuring after the fact.

 

Plus you don't have to dedicate any extra equipment to the cause. The only thing bugs will get on are your mash tun and boil kettle. That's hot side brewing anyway.

 

Also, most Berliner recipes are like a light wheat beer recipe. 50% wheat 50% German pils +- 30% either way to get you to a 1.038-40 beer. You'll get to play around and see what you like best. I soured my first and only Berliner as a full sour mash. I let it sour for 3 days and wish I only let it go for two. It's the best damn cider I've ever made. No apples harmed in the process.

 

I am a fan of the sour wort method. I have tried using pure lacto culture and was not happy with the results.

Here is what works well for me. Collect ~5.5 gal of wort in a sanitized bucket, toss in 1/2 lb of crushed grain when the temp gets around 115. I used a Fermwram and blanket to hold it at 110 degrees for 4 days until it hit the sourness I wanted. 15 min boil, ~3 IBU of Hallertau, chill to 68, pitch US-05. It's fermented out in about a week. Lots of bready wheat and slightly lactic aroma, sharply tart and almost like fizzy lemonade. It is absolutely crushable.

Some people like to finish it for a couple weeks with Brett to add a bit more complexity. We just recently pressed the Berliner on tangerines, mango, pineapple, kiwi, blackberries, and raspberries. My next batch is going on raspberries for a few weeks.

 

Sometimes I wonder if some of the things we do should still be called beer.

 

Can you bee more specific on what is your Berliner is ? grist and yeast ?

 

Is that a sour wheat beer ?

 

I am considering doing a beer similar to a Berliner Weisse, I say similar because the slurry I will be pitching will contain Pedio alongside the Lacto, Brett, and Sacch.

I was interesting in doing this with no boil or a minimal boil (I want to try to knock this out by doing a long mash during the day or over night so I can do this during the week) but I am worried about DMS forming as I am using Pils malt for about 60% of the grist. I read accounts that are all over the place, ranging from people getting no DMS to others getting it to the point where the batch gets dumped. Any advice on how to avoid DMS in a beer like this, or how big of a concern is even is?

 

I'm not a great source since I am by no means a seasoned expert in this field, but my understanding is you don't want to boil at all (decoction portion aside) to preclude any DMS formation. Here is a piece did which covers some basics of it in the second half:
http://byo.com/component/k2/item/2958-pre-boil-hopping

 

I have been researching and reading about Berliners for what seems like forever as it is one of my favorite styles. I keep coming across so much conflicting information, especially in regard to DMS. A lot of what I have read goes completely against what we have all been taught about DMS and especially DMS in regard to Pils malt. Boil that saison for 90 minutes or it's going to be awful!

In a no boil situation, you have precursors to DMS formation (SMM) that do not get a chance to become DMS because you aren't heating the wort to high enough temps.

People seem to have mixed results with the short boil, but I personally have had zero DMS issues. You can see my method outlined above. I honestly have not found any sound reasoning behind why some are having DMS issues and some are not. The most common explanation seems to be that due to the small amount of grain and low gravity of the wort, there isn't as much SMM as there would be in a bigger beer. Between the short, hard boil and a vigorous fermentation, any DMS should be driven off or it may just be getting covered up by the bready lactic aroma and sharp tartness .... so it is present but may not cause concern. Perhaps those that are extremely sensitive to DMS would be able to notice its presence. For what it's worth, I have seen many people say that they've entered Berliners using this method into comps and have never had the presence of DMS noted on their score sheets.

Others are doing the sour wort or sour mash method with a full 60+ minute boil to alleviate DMS concerns, but I'm just not convinced that this is necessary.

 

Thanks for the info guys!

So it seems as if going with no boil may not be an issue, I'll give it a shot.

I put together the grainbill on a whim while at my LHBS and didnt take into consideration the hit my efficiency would take with no boil. Luckily this will be a low abv beer anyway which I was aiming on the higher side for the style and I will be adding fruit puree to it for some more fermentables. Worth a shot.

 

When I saw the title, @stakem is the first person I thought of.