Author: Marshall Schott

I tasted my first Berliner Weisse about 4 years ago, it was a commercial bottle I picked up at an overly priced market I prefer to refrain from visiting for anything other than beer. It was great– dry, effervescent, slightly tart, endlessly quaffable. In the months that followed, I sampled a couple homemade versions of the style, some good, others not so much. I proceeded to research how homebrewers go about making Berliner Weisse…

Sour mash

Sour wort

Kettle sour

Sour with grains

Sour with a pure lactobacillus culture

Sour with yogurt

Sour with lactic acid

Short boil

Long boil

Pre-boil

Post-boil

No boil



For such a simple beer, the options were dizzying! Stories of massive failure from brewers who’d tried combos of these methods were balanced by a similar number who swore their versions were delicious. I was going to make a good Berliner, I just needed to settle on an approach. I found the idea of souring with naturally occurring lactobacillus sort of romantic, so using unmilled grain appealed me.

My first shot was a pathetic joke, a haphazard attempt that stemmed more out of convenience and curiosity than a desire to make something I’d actually want to drink. The only good that came from it was increased motivation to try again using better technique, as the fact the wort did sour was pretty badass and inspiring. I’m inclined to believe I developed a subconscious fear of creating a puke-y mess that caused me to continue to avoid attempting to make a Berliner Weisse, as a few times I’d get it all planned out then something else would come up. It wasn’t until after sitting through Derek Springer’s fantastic NHC presentation, Berliner and Beyond, during which he served a tasty example soured with grains, that I decided it was finally time to do this thing.

Except, as I’m wont to do, I didn’t necessarily follow his precise process. According to Derek, I was walking a path toward poo beer… more about this in a bit.

Part 1: Making The Wort

It was a warm Saturday afternoon, my wife was attending a relative’s Bingo birthday party, I had the kids. After a couple hours of trampoline jumping, hide-and-seek, breaking up unnecessary fights over meaningless things, and cleaning up half-eaten food, I reached out to see if some pals wanted to grab a beer. My buddy Matt, who happened to be home with one of his sons at the time, met me at the House of Pendragon Brewing Co. tasting room. Sweet relief!

One chalice down, I brought up my, ahem, future plan to make a kettle soured Berliner Weisse using unmilled grains. Matt’s one of my few buddies who makes this style relatively often and does so quite well. He began telling me of the different methods he’s tried then suggested we head back to my place and throw a batch together.

Okay!

We made the 1 minute trek back to my house, set the kiddos up with a movie, and quickly designed a full volume BIAB recipe.

Kettle Soured Berilner Weisse using Grains

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM OG FG ABV 5.5 gal 15 min (post-sour) ~3 2 1.028 SG 1.004 SG 2.5%

Fermentables

Name Amount % White Wheat Malt 3.5 lbs 50 Domestic 2-Row 3.5 lbs 50

Hops

Name Amt/IBU Time Use Form Alpha % Tettnanger ~3 IBU 15 min Boil Pellet 4.2

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Ferm Temp Safale US-05 American Ale Fermentis 86% 66°F

Our goal was to make this as quickly as possible, as we both had evening plans. I began collecting the water as Matt measured out and milled the grain.

Wanting to produce a bone dry a beer, we opted for a low 148˚F mash temp, which wasn’t terribly difficult to maintain on this 101˚F degree afternoon.

After an hour-long rest, we removed the bag and took some measurements– the temp had dropped to a hair above 146˚F and the SG was sitting right at 1.025, slightly lower than target thanks to my failure to adjust for an ingredient issue in BeerSmith.

Rather than bringing the wort to a boil like I’d normally do, we chilled it to 110˚F, which took about 90 seconds using my King Cobra IC, then moved the entire kettle into one of my ferm chambers set to maintain a temperature of 110˚F.

I put 8 oz of unmilled 2-row in a grain bag that’d been soaking in StarSan, tied a knot in the top, dropped it into the kettle, then laid a few sheets of plastic wrap over the surface of the wort to limit the introduction of oxygen. This is the part of my method that made Derek cringe, as he strongly advocates for pitching starters soured with grains to reduce the risk of “poo beer.” I was going rogue.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pre-innoculation wort pH reading, but based on my calculations, it was likely between 4.9-5.3. I expected the lacto from the grains to take between 36-48 hours to drop the wort to my target range of 3.3-3.4 pH, though I measured it at different points out of curiosity. I’m glad I did, as the pH dropped pretty drastically just 8 hours after inoculation.

Based on my starting pH assumption, I was surprised with how quickly the lacto seemed to be working, an assumed 2+ pH drop in less than half a day, and a sip revealed the wort was indeed tart. Thankfully, it also tasted pretty good, enough to assuage some of my anxieties. My notes state it had a flavor akin to plain yogurt with maybe a touch of granola. I let the wort continue souring for additional 14 hours before taking another measurement, again it had dropped more than I expected, another 0.13 pH.

Since I started making sour beer a couple years ago, I’ve been amazed at the impact a seemingly small difference in pH makes. At 3.38 pH, the wort had a noticeably more assertive tartness. Pleased with the acidity and concerned it might drop too low, which can negatively impact fermentation, I made the decision to stop the souring process and proceed.

Part 2: Making The Beer

Similar to souring methods, there seems to be an endless number of approaches to dealing with kettle soured wort once target pH is reached. While I’ve tasted some fantastic no-boil examples, I wanted to decrease my chances of something going awry by killing off any potential microbes that might cause problems. I started by removing the plastic wrap and grain bag from the wort then moved the kettle to my burner. Given the lower than expected SG, I opted for a 15 minute boil rather than my planned 5 minute in an attempt to boil off a touch more and increase the OG. As soon as a boil was reached, I added a whopping 5 grams of Tettnanger hops, an arguably unnecessary step that I did just because.

I also dropped my immersion chiller into the wort to get it sanitized and, out of habit, added 4 grams of Irish Moss. Once complete, I chilled to a few degrees above my groundwater temp, racked to a 6 gallon PET carboy, and placed it in my fermentation chamber controlled to 66°F to finish chilling. The soured and briefly boiled wort reached my target fermentation temp within 4 hours, at which point I pitched a rehydrated sachet of US-05 American Ale Yeast. I chose this strain out of sheer convenience– it was available and I didn’t feel like making a starter. That said, I was interested to taste how such a clean strain played with a wort soured with grain.

It took awhile for signs of active fermentation to arrive, I chalked this up to the lower pH of the wort and didn’t worry too much. Things were looking okay about 48 hours post-pitch, though not at all typical of what I’ve seen when fermenting “clean” beer with US-05. Either way, it was good to see something happening.

I returned from a weekend away to discover the krausen had fallen, which meant it was time to check things out. At 1.004 FG, my goal of dryness was reached, while the sample I tasted left me even more excited for the finished product!

I took a final measurement post-fermentation and found the finished beer had dropped to 3.2 pH, which I believe is quite respectable.

Despite the fact Berliner Weisse is known for being a cloudier style, I wanted to see how my normal fining process would effect this beer and added gelatin 18 hours into the cold crash. The following day, I racked the cold beer to a keg.

After 24 hours on 40 psi of CO2, I reduced the pressure to 16 psi, a bit higher than my typical serving pressure because I wanted this beer to be highly effervescent. Just a few hours later, I poured my first full serving. It was…

…glorious! Finally, I soured wort using only grains and it didn’t taste like sweaty gooch! No, it was actually really good.

| Tasting Notes |

I suck at describing beer in any objective manner, I suppose this is largely a function of my conviction that perception is hugely subjective. Anyway, here’s what I got:

Appearance:

Very light in color with noticeable haze, though not totally opaque, it became more clear as it sat in the cold keezer; stark white cap of foam that felt like pillowy whipped cream on my lips; retention was markedly better than I expected given the low OG and acidity.

Aroma:

Clean fermentation, no phenols or esters, with subtle wet hay and a touch of plain yogurt and Cheerios; no noticeable DMS or diacetyl; no hop aroma; little if any yeast character; clean and obviously sour.

Flavor:

Slight graininess that’s quite pleasing; interesting earthy flavor I figure may have come from whatever else was on the grains used to inoculate the wort, perhaps a wild yeast, but not at all overwhelming or negative; very clean lactic character was more pronounced than anything provided by the US-05.

Mouthfeel:

Very dry and crisp with an almost champagne-like carbonation; surprisingly creamy mouthfeel despite lower body; moderate to assertive tartness that wasn’t quite enough to cause serious puckering; no noted astringency.

| The Verdict |

I love this beer. Not because it’s the best one ever made, it’s certainly not, but it is pretty damn tasty. Rather, I love how incredibly easy it is to make. I spent about 1.5 hours making the wort then another 30 minutes getting it ready a couple days later. I absolutely plan to play around more with kettle souring using grains and look forward to trying different yeasts, making higher OG beers, adding certain fruits, and dry hopping. As popular as kettle souring has become, it seems to me to still be in its infancy, which means us homebrewers have the rare opportunity to try novel ideas and potentially blaze new trails. Jalapeno kettle soured Red Ale with cantaloupe, anyone? Remember, much of what was thought of as terrible by brewers centuries ago is lauded by modern beer drinkers today. While utilizing grain to sour wort definitely has its risks, the positive experiences of homebrewers continue to add up, leaving me convinced it’s a valid method. If you’re the adventurous type, I highly recommend trying this out for yourself!

Follow Brülosophy on:

| Read More |

18 Ideas to Help Simplify Your Brew Day

7 Considerations for Making Better Homebrew

List of completed exBEERiments

How-to: Harvest yeast from starters

How-to: Make a lager in less than a month

| Good Deals |

10% Off Chapman Equipment ThermoBarrels using code: THINKBEERDRINKBEER03

Brand New 5 gallon ball lock kegs discounted to $75 at Adventures in Homebrewing

ThermoWorks Super-Fast Pocket Thermometer On Sale for $19 – $10 discount

Sale and Clearance Items at MoreBeer.com

If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support Us page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

Advertisements

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email



Like this: Like Loading...