Berliner time.. Bring me your best.

I believe it's good at this point. Smell is not awful, taste is not very tart for 1 week, but it's there and not awful. I figured nothing was "off" as it stands.?
Should I make the move of purchasing another wine thief since this one has been used in a sour wort with a pellicle? This isn't a big deal, but curious if good cleaning and sanitizing would be enough.

 

Here is how mine looked after day 5 of souring at around 95 ºF. Was almost afraid to even taste it, but surprisingly, it tasted awesome - lemony and tart. I've used the same turkey baster/wine thief for other brews since I used it on this and haven't had a problem. Just be sure to soak it in the typical star san mixture for a while. The glass fermenter though.. I'm probably dedicating completely to sour/funky beers from here on out.

 

This is such an awesome thread, I've been considering a BW for a while and will take a lot of this into consideration.

@FATC1TY where in Georgia are you located? I'm home brewing in Atlanta area and would trade brews. Or with any other local home brewers.

 

It may be my next weekend project, your's sounded perfect for this heat.

 

First Berliner tonight - sour worting. Just pitched the lacto at 110 and parking the BB in the garage with a sleeping bag. I may be in over my head, but what the hell! This weekend should be interesting.

 

I think you'll be impressed with how well it turns out! One thing I like about this style, is brew day is split into two separate smaller sessions. I did a 10 min boil on mine with small hop additions, chilled, and pitched the yeast. Took a little over an hour to do, so I was able to do the boil on a week night after work, and still had time to do other stuff.

 

My exact process. Super easy and it seems like it worked as stated. My hydrometer may need recalibrating, or I need a lesson from a more knowledgeable brewer here, but before the boil my wort went from 1.036 to 1.012.

Have it fermenting now with WLP 644.

Still a little worried to use my siphon tubing and auto siphon on a non-sour beer... I may get over it.. I may buy a few new pieces for clean beers.

 

I would if I were you.. I just took a permanent marker and marked my plastic tubing and siphon, as well as the glass carboy that I used. I don't think it's worth the risk!

 

Do tell more about this split batch gose / berliner. What process are you going to implement? I`ve got 6 gallons of berliner almost done fermenting now, and would love to turn 3 of those into a gose if at all possible. I assumed the salt and coriander would need to be addded to the boil thought.

 

Anyone used lacto and brett only? No sacch?

 

So, I checked the gravity of my brew and it was still 1.012 after a couple weeks. Does WLP 644 act like Brett (is it considered sacch now?) and take forever to finish (never used 644 or Brett before)? Is the pH (3.6) affecting the ability of the yeast?

 

wlp644 definitely takes its time in my experience. I wouldn't ever give it less than 3 weeks regardless of OG

 

A relative noob reporting on my 1st Berliner:
Used the sour wort method described by @FATC1TY. Wort was 1.038 before pitching the grains. Loved the taste after 5 days - cheap pH strip read 3.3. Boiled, pitched and didn't check gravity again until after fermenting for 10 days at 68 with US-05. I pitched one packet for 5 gals. FG was 1.010, stable after 3 days - higher than I expected. I have no idea what the ABV might be. Bottle conditioned with table sugar (to 3.1 vol CO2) and pitched another 5g rehydrated yeast at bottling for good measure. Opened one after 5 days to check the carb and it is great! Nice initial head - this pic is several minutes later. Planning on chilling the rest now - 2 days later. Looking forward to drinking these in the sun!

 

Resurrecting an oldie...

I've been doing some research on sour beers. I've made it most of the way through this thread and there's a lot of good info here. I'm hoping to do either a Berliner Weiss or a Gose in the near future....maybe even split a batch and do both, but we'll see.

Based on what I've read, I think the easiest souring method for me will be to buy four or five 1-gallon glass jugs and use the sour wort method. I don't have a good way to purge oxygen out of any current vessel, so I figure I can just fill these jugs to the rim with wort and keep them O2-free that way.

My question is about temperature. I don't have a good means to maintain a temperature of around 110 degrees. Once summer rolls around I'll have a 90-100 degree attic that I can set these in, but at the moment I'll have to improvise. I think the best I'll be able to muster is possibly a hot water bath that I'll have to keep rotating, but that will be far from perfect. I understand that souring will take longer to achieve at a lower temperature, but are there any other downsides or risks to taking this long?

 

The high temp not only makes the souring happen faster, it also discourages bugs other than lactobacillus from prospering in your wort. I do a sour wort method (at about 115F), inoculating with bugs from grains. But if I couldn't keep the temp high (and exclude O2), I think I'd be more likely to use a pure lacto pitch from a yeast manufacturer.

 

I'm no expert, but I've done a few quick sours. I think sour worting in glass makes sense if you don't mind the lacto in the cold side of your brewery. If you want to boil after souring then you might as well just sour it in the kettle. Check into Lacto Plantarum via Omega Yeast Labs. According to them purging with co2 is not necessary nor is heating, and I've seen a few tests showing it to be one of the the most if not the most acid producing homebrew commercial cultures.

 

I bought a ferm wrap for my carboy for $20, and it holds it at around 90F. It's been great for sour worting and I just use the bugs from 0.5 lb of grain. I've also sour worted around 80 with grain and got good results so I think you'll be ok. Taste it's progress and if you have access to CO2 or even seltzer water that is a good way of eliminating oxygen exposure.

 

If I pitch lacto, will I need to have a dedicated fermenter for sours? I've read varying opinions on this matter.

 

I use a dedicated keg for souring. I would do that even if I were pitching pure lacto instead of inoculating with grains. Note that I'm souring pre-boil. If I were souring in the fermenter, I'd have a dedicated carboy or conical.