Berliner Weisse brew day

[DC]

Hi all, after a recent post regarding brewing lambic/sour beers I decided to brew a Berliner Weisse using a recipe kindly supplied by Seymour.

JJ BERLINER WEISSE
Adapted from a Ratebeer recipe by JoeMcPhee, with some of my tweaks in parentheses

6 US gallons = 5 imperial gallons = 22.7 liters

GRAINS:
50% = 4 lbs = 1.8 kg, Maris Otter malt
50% = 4 lbs = 1.8 kg, Wheat malt
(I often include some acid/aciduated malt, but it's optional)

HOPS:
0.25 oz = 7.1 g, Admiral (although any noble-ish hop will do)

YEAST: Nottingham (although just about any clean, high-attenuating yeast will do, and you can always jump-start it with a sour blend or probiotic pill)

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Crush malt and combine. Remove 0.5 lbs/227g from total bill, set aside.
2. Dough-in at 120°F/49°C and do a protein rest for 30 minutes.
3. Stir hops into the mash, raise temperature to 154°F/68°C for 60 minutes.
4. Mash-out at 172°F/78°C for 10 minutes.
5. Sparge to collect 6 US gallons/5 imperial gallons/22.7 liters of wort.
6. Cool the wort and split the batch (this is a no-boil recipe) into a 4.5 US gallon batch and a 1.5 US gallon batch.
7. Pitch your yeast pack into the 4.5 US gallon batch and ferment normally.
8. To the 1.5 US gallon batch add the grain you set aside at the beginning and allow to sour outside, the hotter the better. Let it go for at least 3-4 days, we got good results after 6 days of souring. This batch will look disgusting, a thick white film will cover the surface and it will smell and taste extremely sour.
9. Pour this batch through cheesecloth or strainer into the larger batch, stir.
10. After 1-2 days rack to secondary for one week.
11. Prime for high level of carbonation and bottle/keg.

STATS:
OG : 1.031
FG : 1.006

ABV : 3.2%

I decided to go with 2kg of Golden Promise and 2kg of Wheat Malt as the wheat malt came in 4 x 500g bags.

Usual grain shot

Strike water heating up

Mashtun warming up

Doughed in


Hops added to the mashtun

Topped up ready for 1st runnings

1st running’s

Money shot, was looking for around 1.030 but it’s more like 1.024/1.026 decided to add 0.5kg of sugar to boost the abv a touch.

Going to wait overnight for wort to cool before adding yeast to the 3.5 gallons and the remaining malt to the 1.5 gallon to sour.

Cheers DC

[seymour]

Sweet! I can't wait to hear what you think of it. Good, bad, or otherwise, I can take it.

Cheers!

[DC]

Hi all, Just thought I would post a quick update on the Berliner Weisse brew, the sour portion of the brew was put into my brewing fridge and kept warm but unfortunately the fridge wasnt keeping the beer warm enough and nothing seemed to be happening either fermetation wise or gunk wise. So I decided to move it to the spare room along side the 3.5gallons with a heating belt on and swap the heating belt to the sour 1.5 gallons as the main 3.5 gallons was going like a train. After about a day with the heating belt the sour portion is fermenting really well with what I am assuming is natural yeast from the raw malt but there doesnt seem to be much souring or any signs of gunk on top of the beer. Will just let these 2 batches run their courses and strain the sour part back into the main beer as Seymours recipe dictates and see what the resulting brew comes out like

Cheers DC

[DC]

Hi all, checked on the Berliner Weisse after work and was greeted by this sight in the sour mash part of the brew.



I am assuming that's what Seymour meant by a white film on top of the brew? It looks like its gone mouldy

Cheers DC

[seymour]

You assume correctly. Looks like a "beautiful" pellicle to me, well done! As off-putting as it looks and smells, that is really quite an accomplishment, you should be proud. Here's a picture of a similar recipe, if it helps put your mind at ease:
http://beerandcoding.com/adventures-in- ... tin-funky/


For more pictures and explanations, just do a Google word search on "pellicle." You may recall my thread about a Figgy Pudding Porter I dumped because of this growth, before I knew what a pellicle was, and it remains my biggest regret in brewing.

Looks like you're crafting a really cool, funky Berliner Weiss. Keep in mind, if it's too profoundly sour, don't despair, that's why they often blend it with fruit juice at bars in Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Weisse

Face it, mate, even if you hate how it tastes, you're reaching a whole new plateau as a brewer.

Cheers,
-Seymour

[DC]

Hi all, Just a further update on the Berliner Weisse after 6 days the sour portion of the beer was holding up its end of the bargain extremely well

1.5 Gallon Batch Soured it looks well funky SWMBO wasnt impressed when I asked her to help strain it into the main batch


3.5 Gallon Batch fermenting really well


All mixed in and another few days fermenting and then its going into a secondary prior to bottling


Built up the courage to have a taste and it wasnt anywhere near as bad as it looked/smelt so it might actually turn out to be a decent beer

Cheers DC

[DC]

Hi all, the time has come to transfer the Berliner Weisse to my secondary FV, it shouldnt be too long now before I am able to bottle this experimental brew around a week or so.

Main batch going sour


Going to into the secondary

All done

Gravity down to 1.010


Cheers DC

[seymour]

Nice work, it's moving right along. Won't be long now. Thanks for all the good pictures.

[DC]

Hi all, Just bottled this beer up this afternoon and man is it good ! Even before being bottle conditioned it tastes Fantastic ! Only wish I heard of the beer a few years back ! Been missing out on the tremendous beer !



Cheers DC

[seymour]

Bump.

So, how'd it turn out after bottle conditioning? Any left? What were your thoughts overall?

[DC]

Hi Seymour, Judging by the fact that i only have 2 bottles left of about 40 then I would say the Berliner Weisse has been a resounding Success ! I can't believe how well it turned out considering how bad the sour portion looked after a week I gave a few bottles to people at work and it got mixed reactions ! Your right about it being drank when it's young ! The last 6 bottles or so were very sour ! Mixed them with grenadine fruit syrup to take the edge off ! Will be making this again in the summer ! Was thinking if maybe adding chocolate malt next time and maybe making a dark version !

Cheers DC

[super_simian]

Just a quick side note; if you are keen to have a more stable bottled beer (i.e. one which doesn't become sourer over time) or are worried about contaminating your plastics, you can boil the sour portion before blending, leaving it soured but killing off the bacteria. It's how I did my recent sour fruit beer and it's worked 100%.

[DC]

Hi Guys, Just wanted to resurect this post as I am thinking its about time I made another Berliner Weisse seeing as the first attempt went so well

Cheers DC

[steambrew]

I have been looking to brew a wheat beer for some time, I have collected some good recipes I have just added this one could it be put into kegs as if I brew any more I will have problems store ing all the bottles but it does look good

[Jocky]

DC, what a great brew day thread. Been thinking about sour beer having had quite a bit from the excellent Kernel brewery recently, and then I noticed you'd bumped this thread.

I've actually been looking at a bunch of ways to make sour beer, and I feel like yours is probably one of the simplest and best ways - mainly because you end up with an organic product that will continue to evolve and will have a nice dry finish. As simian has mentioned you could have boiled the sour wort to kill the bacteria, but I don't think you will get that dry finish as the bacteria won't finish fermenting what the yeast has left behind.

I'm thinking that after my pale ale brew I'm planning for Friday I might just use more grain than I need, not sparge and leave the unsparged grain wrapped up with a brew belt around it until Tuesday when I can sparge it and ferment those runnings into a sour.