Berliner Weisse

I pitched recently pitched white labs 677 lacto strain with US-05. This lacto does not seem to get all that sour by several reports. Perhaps I should not have pitched them both or held off on the US-05 until things got more sour. My only other BW also was a dual pitch, using Wyeast 5335 and US-05, and it was more sour. I believe both companies now have additional strains that are reputed to be faster souring strains.

 

Both Wyeast and White Labs have Lactobacillus brevis available right now and I would highly recommend using this if you want to inoculate with a pure lacto culture. I would let the lacto get a good head start and then pitch a clean ale yeast or Brett trois (or a blend of both, which is what I have been doing) to complete fermentation.

Monitor pH very closely throughout each and every step if you want to be able to repeat the recipe with a greater degree of consistency.

 

Using a 100% lacto may or may not make a sour beer, it may not even make beer! The problem is that saying "would a 100% lacto be more sour?" is that Lacto is a genus that covers a massive range of different strains.

Relevant from @OldSock website: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/06/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html
He used White Labs’ 677 strain, follow-up tasting notes are here: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/05/100-lactobacillus-berliner-weisse.html but note that it wasn't sour enough!

In the comments, there are a few good reviews for Wyeast 5223 (Lactobacillus Brevis), and mixed reviews for Wyeast 5335.

 

I had better luck with L. brevis (big starter pitched hot 24 hours before Saccharomyces), but it still isn't quite sour enough for my tastes! Hoping it picks up a bit in the bottle.

 

I would recommend kettle souring as the best way for ensuring a sour beer. Prepare your wort as you normally would. Chill it to 90-100F in the kettle and pitch a healthy starter of Lactobacillus (a home brew pitch stepped up into 1.040 DME for 24-48 hours). You should get plenty of souring in 24-48 hours. Then re-boil to kill the Lacto, chill, send to the fermenter, and pitch yeast. The advantages of kettle souring are that it is a rather foolproof way of souring and you don't pass bugs on to the cold side of your setup. Here at Omega Yeast Labs, we will have a product out in about a month containing a blend of three Lactobacillus strains -- brevis, delbruekii, and plantarum. The Lactobacillus plantarum strain was isolated in collaboration with Marz Community Brewing in Chicago from a grain-inoculated starter. It works quickly at lower temperatures compared to the other lacto strains (70-90). The purpose of the blend will be that you can kettle sour effectively anywhere between 70F and 110F. We just did the re-boil on a kettle soured beer using just the plantarum strain. We pitched a 1L starter (which was initially pitched with 100mL of Lacto culture) into 5 gallons of wort 100F. At 17 hours post-pitching, we were at pH 3.52. At 37 hours post-pitching, we were at pH 3.45. The temperature of the wort had dropped to around 75F before re-boiling. After the re-boil, the pH settled at 3.42. To me, kettle souring beats the uncertainty of long term souring and the unpredictable results and trouble that goes along with sour mashing.

 

There have been numerous threads on Berliner Weisse (bw)... not BW (Barleywine) : ) . As others have already disclosed, there are new (mo betta/mo sour bw Lacto strains out there...use one of those ...but don't try to morph it into a more sour Gueze...or not : )

 

Use some Pediococcus. That'll get it sour enough.