Berliner time.. Bring me your best.

About 28 hours into my 9 oz of acid malt pitch my ph went from 5.3 to 3.4. The beer doesn't smell very inviting but I've definitely smelled worse while catching wild yeast at too warm of temps. I am really surprised my ph dropped this much this fast. It does have a tart flavor but doesn't come across as too sour.....at all. Especially considering the ph of most commercial sour beers is in the low 3 ph's. I'll try and check this again tomorow night and report back.

 

I started one of these on Sunday evening. Mashed my grain, then transferred to a better bottle so I could keep a better eye on it and dropped in a half pound of 2 row. I figured since I wasn't pitching yeast, I would be fine just putting the solid cap on the better bottle, and went to bed. I checked on it yesterday morning before leaving for work, and had about a half inch of krausen on top and the pressure had blown the cap off the better bottle. Not sure how long it was like that, but it couldn't have been too long, and I'm guessing it's probably fine. I just put the airlock in and put the cap back on. Didn't have a chance to pull a sample though, I'll probably do that tonight. I'm pretty excited to see how this turns out.

One question though that I wished I would have asked before I started on Sunday. How do you sparge for a beer like this with such a small grain bill? After collecting the first runnings, I still needed 4+ gallons of wort, and wasn't sure if batch sparging the rest of what I needed all at once would still be effective, or if I needed to try fly sparging, or some other option. So I tried my hand at fly sparging, and ended up missing my target by a few points.

 

Okay so that makes sense. Should I compensate for that and call it good when it's slightly less sour than I want?

 

@jono0101 I've also noticed lower efficiencies when doing small OG beers. Fly sparging is generally more efficient but I do it so rarely I've never dialed in a process. Also the lacto will ferment out sugars without creating alcohol, so I went for a higher OG to compensate (1.040).

Another thing I'm thinking about is adding some cane sugar to the boil to boost my gravity back up from whatever I lose to the lacto.

 

Beautiful color

 

I was thinking about doing this as well just to get the gravity back up a little. As it stands now, without taking into account what the lacto eats up, I am looking at a sub 3% ABV, and I was originally shooting for a finished product around 3.5%. I'll have to bump up the grain bill a bit for my next attempt.

 

Ive been wanting to do a Key Lime Pie beer and I think it would be perfect to use a Berliner for the base since its got that nice tartness to it. Zest a bunch of limes and add a little fresh vanilla bean for the meringue . What do you guy think?

 

what's your current volume and are you planning to boil down at all? That would boost your gravity a little

 

I'm at 5.5 gallons and only plan on doing a 15 minute boil. I suppose I could do a 60 minute boil.

 

That actually sounds pretty nice. Lime zest would really compliment a Berliner I think.

 

What are you doing w/ the seltzer water?

 

Yea, I should have just kept reading before replying. Makes sense.

How was Augusta?

 

Good tourney expect for Spieth not winning (cost me a pretty penny)

 

Day 3.
My sour wort is down to a ph of 3.2 at about 50 hours in. It's got a slightly offensive vomit aroma and has a almost saline like tartness. I'm skeptical about how this beer is gonna turn out now.