Extract Kettle Sour Berliner Weisse

Lacto starter Souring

I’ve always liked Berliner Weisse, but never brewed one. And I’ve been wanting to experiment with kettle souring.

The procedure I’m following comes from this great presentation by Derek Springer: Berliner and Beyond: Sour Mashing and Its Applications

In short:

Make a starter for your lacto
Get your wort under 4.5 pH as soon as possible to deter unwanted microbes
Hold at a happy temperature for your lacto strain
Minimize oxygen exposure by covering with plastic wrap
Finally, boil, chill, and pitch yeast as normal to finish the beer

Recipe

My recipe inspiration was Josh Weikert’s “Scared Sour” Berliner Weisse, a simple grain bill of 57% pils, 43% wheat, and a light dose of hops added after kettle souring.

I typically brew all grain, but I’ve curious to try some quick and easy extract brews. So from Josh’s recipe I subbed in equivalent proportion of wheat and pils DME. No steeping grains even!

Briess Bavarian Wheat DME is 65% Malted Wheat / 35% Malted Barley so I took that into account in my recipe planning.

Batch size:    5.5 gallons
Target OG:     1.033
Estimated FG:  1.005

Grain Bill
3lb Briess Bavarian Wheat DME
1.25lb Briess Pilsen Light DME

Bring to a boil and then chill to 87 °F

Add 1 tablespoon 88% lactic acid (to pre-acidify wort)
Kettle sour to taste with a ~700ml starter of Omega Lacto Blend then 15 minute boil

When desired sourness is reached, boil again for 15 minutes

Hop additions:
0.5 oz Hallertau Hersbrucker @ 15 minutes
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace @ 15 minutes

Yeast:
Re-hydrated pack of Safale US-05

Notes

11/21/19 - I made a ~700ml lacto starter the day before, fermented in a mason jar in an 80* water bath with the lid just sitting on top.

11/22/19 - Initial boil and chill to 87* were quick and uneventful. OG 1.033. I pitched the lacto starter and held it at 87.5 °F for about 2.5 days days with my sous vide cooker. I don’t have a pH meter, so I just went by taste to decide when it was ready.

11/25/19 - Tasting very sour! Boiled, added hops, chilled. Pitched re-hydrated S-05. Fermenting at room temp ~67 °F

12/31/19 - FG 1.013 and 2.6% abv. I was expecting 3.7% if the beer got to 1.005.

I’ve been waiting for a while hoping this would ferment out a bit more, but I think this is all it’s going to do. I’m disappointed at the high FG. Partly the fault of going all extract maybe. Or maybe the yeast just couldn’t deal with the low pH conditions.

Initial tasting, it has kind of an unpleasant grainy aftertaste. I hope that’ll dissipate as it has some time to condition.

2/16/20 - Tasting update: This ended up being pleasant. The weird aftertaste is gone. It’s a refreshing sessionable sour now. I think I’m getting a little unwanted sweetness from the higher FG, which is not ideal. But overall I’m liking it.

I think this would be a good blending beer to give a light tartness to something like a saison. I love tart saisons but I haven’t tried making one yet. Maybe I’ll try it with my upcoming Saison Vinifera.

Finished beer

Changes for next time

Next time I’ll try going all grain with this. I’m hoping I can get it to dry out a lot more if I go all grain and mash low, around 147 *F.

Or maybe just skip kettle souring and go with a more traditional fermentation with lacto and brett like The Mad Fermentationist’s no boil berliner.