Berliner Weisse

The recipes calling for boiling presume you sour the mash or wort for a period before the boil, then ferment with a clean yeast. The no-boil recipes might be more difficult to get just right, as you would be fermenting with all of the lacto and whatever other bugs are in there.

Either way could work, but don't confuse or try to mix and match the techniques. Choose one after reading up on both, and follow the procedure you choose from start to finish.

 

I'm not sure this is right. It's perfectly possible to boil the wort and then pitch lacto bugs, and I don't see why this kind of mix and matching would be problematic. I did this (though I only boiled for about a minute), and the beer was fine.

@corm44, if you go to @OldSock's recipe page, you'll see several Berliner weisse recipes in the "German Style Beers" section. Each recipe should have links at the bottom to tasting notes.

 

I just had great success recently with a Berliner. I did a 50/50 pilsner to wheat grain bill and mashed at 120f for 24 hours, which got it nice and tart. I placed cellophane on top of the mash to keep as much o2 off the mash, preventing growth of unwanted bacteria. It smells like a dead body decaying, but turned out great, ha! After 24 hours I then mashed up to 150f for an hour and sparged. I pitched white labs Berliner blend. I hit all my target numbers and its drinking great! I split up the 10 gallon batch and have 5 pounds of blackberries with 2oz of med toast oak cubes that I had in apple brandy for a year all sitting in the secondary(5gal). Sorry for the long winded post, but as for the boil, I just brought it up to a hot break to pasteurize it and chilled immediately, so no 60 min boil for mine.

 

Doing one soon. Will do my normal mash , cool to 125ish pitch some grain and let it sit 4-5 days on the heating pad. After that boil for 10 minutes with some fruity hops thinking mosaic or Galaxy. Also intend to dry hop with a couple ounces. Good luck

 

A long thread, but all of your answers are here

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/berliner-time-bring-me-your-best.154633/

 

Generally sour mashes benefit from long boils to volatilize all of the other nasty aromatics they produce. If you are doing a traditional method (fermenting with a blend of Lacto, ale yeast, and Brett) I find a no-boil preserves some raw/doughy/grainy aromatics that really add some interest to a beer so light on malt.

 

This is what I did.

Basically I did an 8 gallon batch of Hefeweizen and racked off three gallons to water down to 5 gallons of no-boil Berliner...at least that was the plan. Ended up having to boil due to efficiency issues. I had made a starter using lacto from the grain husk, which did produce some tartness, but not what I was looking for so I added Cascade dregs.

I'm definitely going to brew a Berliner again this spring but I'm probably going to change some things this time.

 

What do you consider a long boil for a berliner? Are we talking 30 minutes since most berliner recipes I have seen only say 15 minutes or are we talking 90 minutes like you might do with a heavy pils malt grain bill?

 

I just did a boil on one of these 2 weeks ago, and my boil was only 10 min. I soured the wort for about 5 days, and then boiled. I figured a good, vigorous boil for 10 min should kill off anything wild that may have been in there. It's tasting great – a lot of clean lemon flavors.

People will also do a 'no boil' berliner, but I think if you plan on bottling that could pose a risk of gushers..

 

I've been learning a lot about the different ways they brewed it in Berlin. It was more diverse than I expected.

The three breweries still making Berliner Weisse in West Berlin in the late 1970's all hopped and boiled their beers differently.

 

I'm by no means an expert on sour mashes, but I'd boil for at least 90 minutes. Especially if the sour mash itself doesn't smell great.