I brewed a berliner weisse about 4 months ago and I need some advice. I did a sour mash 72 hours with wyeast lacto. had it in the mash tun with tin foil on top because I didn't have co2. Boiled with hops afterwards. Last week I added my fruit that I mashed and boiled and pitched nottingham yeast that I put through the starter. The beer still smells sick like a vomit smell. I'm worried about dumping it. Any advice on saving the beer. Some people have told me just keep aging it. I am debating brewing another beer and blending it. Any advice on what kind of beer to blend it with. Right now I'm just thinking any kind of simple wheat beer would do. Thanks!
I'll defer to anyone who has experience in this area, because I've never done a sour mash, but here are my thoughts. First, the logic of a sour mash is that there are a lot of bugs on the grain, some of which can add a desirable tart flavor to the beer. But other bugs might contribute off-flavors, including compounds that smell like vomit. These "bad" bugs can't handle low pH, so once the wort is acidic enough, only the "good" bugs will be doing anything, and you should be all set. Since the good bugs produce acid, it's just a matter of getting them going before the bad bugs have contributed too much. So there are various approaches. The approach you took was to pitch a lot of "good" bugs in the hopes that they would lower the pH quickly. (Other approaches include adding acid at the beginning, or simply taking your chances.) The vomit smell that you report suggests that your approach wasn't entirely successful in this instance. So it seems that what you've got on your hands is beer that has at least some significant off-flavors that were presumably generated during the sour mash. Second, I don't quite follow your procedure. I assume your schedule looked something like this: Day 1: Perform mash, pitch lacto, cover with foil. Day 4: Add runnings to kettle, boil with hops, chill, pitch Nottingham yeast. Day 120 (or so): Add fruit (boiled?). If I have any of that wrong, please describe your process in more detail. Third, the logic of blending is that one beer might make up for another beer's shortcomings. A classic example would be if a beer turns out too sour, but otherwise tastes good. You could blend that beer with a less-sour beer and maybe dial in something very tasty. The same principle would apply if you weren't happy about the level of hops, or the level of roastiness in a stout, or the amount of coffee or vanilla or whatever. So if you've got a stout with twice as much coffee flavor as you would ideally like, it's a simple matter to blend it with a stout that has less coffee in it. But most people think it's a bad idea to try to blend with something that has an outright bad flavor. Sure, you could theoretically dilute the flavor to a point where it is not noticeable, but that would take a lot of good beer with no guaranteed results (throwing good beer after bad, in a sense). And at that point, what would the bad beer really be contributing? I think the exception to this rule would be a very minor off-flavor in an otherwise enjoyable beer. But a noticeable vomit character would not really fit that exception, as far as I am concerned. [Edited to add: Where I am going with this is that maybe this beer isn't worth saving, but you should taste it and see what you think.]
Thank you for the input minderbener. My schedule is as you described except I pitched english ale yeast both after chilling on day 4 and when I added fruit. I am hoping that with a lot of good yeast cells eating away at the sugars I added, it will overcome those bad bugs in there. Just checked this morning (9 days after adding fruit/yeast) and it's still fermenting. Of course, this is super risky and can definitely not work. I was thinking since I've invested so much time and work into this (my first berliner), maybe I could find another way to save it. One friend told me using straight lactobaccilis from wyeast is not a smart way to sour mash. Do you think that is the reason bad bugs got to work? The horrible offensive smell was there during sour mashing, and made the house STINK for about 4 days. Even coats on the other side of the room had the stench on them. I was told it's supposed to stink, but this was just unbearable haha. Perhaps I should have gotten my sour yeast cells off of 2 row grains (other bacteria besides the lacto)?
Sounds like your mash went bad from the get go. The smell and taste won't go away if it's as potent as you said. Once you boil it, whatever will flee, will boil off. No reason to use the wyeast pack in the mash. Your grain already had lacto on it to begin with, and merely keeping it hot for extended periods of time will allow the natural lacto to grow and sour the mash alone. Adding the wyeast pack didn't cause it. What caused it was your sour mash though. It wasn't sealed up, or purged well enough and got a bit too funky. Sour mashing/sour wort will have a smell to it, but it shouldn't overly offensive. Maybe a little sourdough, slight lactic funky cheese aroma. Past that, you've probably got something else going on.
Berliners are cheap beers to make. I'd dump the first batch and try again. Concentrate on maintaining your temps and purging the headspace in your mash tun with co2. Cover the mash with sanitized Saran Wrap. The foil was practically useless. More oxygen = more butyric acid = more vomit. Make sure your mash tun is clean and bug free prior to your mash. As mentioned above, save the money and don't pitch Wyeast lacto. It's easier and cheaper to develop lacto yourself. Add some grain to the top of your mash once it has cooled to below 120*.
