Berlinner Weisse - 5 ways

[Crawfordid]

Hi Guys I haven't brewed for a wee while due to a new addition to the family but finally got an opportunity to get the mash tun out this week. After much research I decided to do a Berlinner weisse. There seems to be a million different ways to brew one and various techniques on souring.

I went with one of the methods recommended by sourblog which I've detailed below. The plan is to transfer to secondary after 7 days and split it into one gallon batches
1 - unmodified
2 - lemon and lime peel
3 - orange peel
4 - "candy apple" flavouring addition
5 - Coca Cola mixture (botanical recipe)

These may taste amazing or maybe a disaster but we will see what happens.

Recipe:

Malt:
1.7 kg Wheat malt
1.7 kg Pilsner malt

Hops:
Hallertaur Herschbrucker
2.1% AA 15g - IBU ~4 @60mins

Yeast:
Wyeast lactobacillus 5335
Sarafa US - 05

Stats:
IBU 4
S.G 1.035
Estimated ABV 3.5%

Method:

Single infusion mash at 65 degrees centigrade. Fly sparge to collect about 23litres, gravity reading before boil of 1.039. Wort then boiled for 15 minutes to sanitise the pH lowered to 4.5 using 4 tsp of lactic acid.

1 litre Starter (from sourblog website) made of lactobacillus pitched and wort fermented at 35 degrees centigrade until pH 3.6 which took about 50 hours.

Wort then reboiled for 1 hour with hops added at start of boil. Was actually only left with 17.5 litres after boil with a gravity of 1.044. Using a dilution calculator I added 4.5 litres of water to get S.G of 1.035. Chilled to 20 degrees and Sarafa US-05 pitched and fermented at 20 degrees. I will leave like this for 7 days before splitting into 1 gal batchs for the secondary and then adding all my various adjuncts as above. Fingers crossed will let you guys know how it turns out!

 

[Hoddy]

Love a Berlinner wiesse. Be very interested to hear how the variations turn out. Good luck!

 

[Pope]

That sounds really interesting...let us know how it goes

 

[strange-steve]

I do enjoy a weisse myself on occasion. Just curious, why do you add lactic acid and a lacto culture? Why not just add the lactobacillus on its own after the sparge for a couple of days then boil and ferment?

 

[Crawfordid]

I do enjoy a weisse myself on occasion. Just curious, why do you add lactic acid and a lacto culture? Why not just add the lactobacillus on its own after the sparge for a couple of days then boil and ferment?

It was an optional step really, a few websites/ authors recommend dropping the ph to 4.5 directly after the first boil to decrease the risk of other bugs growing by creating an unfavourable environment for them to grow. Particularly since you don't have any of the protective oils from hops in the wort. It probably wasn't required looking back at it but didn't think it would harm the beer. Will see how it turns out!

 

[darkbright]

Might have a go at this in the new year.

 

[IainM]

Yeah, looks really interesting. I'm yet to venture Into sours, though I do like a Beline Weisse. I'm keen to hear how yours pans out.

 

[Crawfordid]

So I haven't posted in a while so thought I would update you on how this turned out

1) actually tastes pretty much bang on for a plain Berliner happy with that
2) lemon and lime wasn't great tastes too much like lemon sink cleaner
3) again a bit too much like orange cleaner
4) apple one was really interesting probably the favourite of the 5 - very 'fake' sort of flavour but nice
5) disaster forgot how much sugar was in the Coca Cola syrup and it just kind of blew up and was undrinkable

I've actually made another Berliner since this which was beautiful, same sort of recipe and procedure except added 1kg or raspberry purée and real raspberries at end of boil then 1kg of rhubarb and rhubarb purée in secondary and was really tasty! Highly recommend that combination!

 

[Saisonator]

Judging by number 5, I guess you won't be going the Irn-Bru route next