Berliner Weisse

[Junket]

As I brought my sour wort to a boil, the greatest aroma began to rise. It was bright and fruity, similar to the aroma of white wine that has been added to a hot pan, but fuller. At that point, I wondered whether I was damaging the wort by boiling this great aroma off. When I neared the boiling point, I added 1 oz of 3% Hallertau. That great aroma went to shit. The hops clashed with the wort, and I again wondered whether I had damaged the wort. I hope that the hop aroma and flavor will mellow out during fermentation and meld with the preexisting flavors.

Anyone know whether boiling the sour wort will evaporate out those great sour flavor acids? Does Lacto produce alcohol, and wouldn't the boil evaporate this out too?

[Phil]

As I brought my sour wort to a boil, the greatest aroma began to rise. It was bright and fruity, similar to the aroma of white wine that has been added to a hot pan, but fuller. At that point, I wondered whether I was damaging the wort by boiling this great aroma off. When I neared the boiling point, I added 1 oz of 3% Hallertau. That great aroma went to shit. The hops clashed with the wort, and I again wondered whether I had damaged the wort. I hope that the hop aroma and flavor will mellow out during fermentation and meld with the preexisting flavors.

Anyone know whether boiling the sour wort will evaporate out those great sour flavor acids? Does Lacto produce alcohol, and wouldn't the boil evaporate this out too?

lacto doesn't make alcohol, otherwise yogurt would get you fucked up.

lactic acid boils at 122 C so it shouldn't evaporate in water

[brewinhard]

Junket-

I like your approach to this style of beer. After being underwhemlmed by the BCS version and using lacto bugs to get that sourness I believe the sourmash seems like the best approach. I will attempt one like you did as well sometime soon. I am not sure if that aroma will boil off, I would bet that some of it does. As far as addding the hops to the 15 min. boil, next time I do mine I would probably only add 1/2 oz of hops instead of one. The feedback I got was that the beer was a bit too bitter for a BW. Oh well, I was just following the recipe. Please keep me posted as to how your final product comes out. I bet your sour taste will be there but I am wondering about the sourness in the aroma?

I have read on the babble belt that some people do a no boil BW with excellent results. Kind of like when you said the wort smelled great and had cleared a bit with less sweet tastes, that was when they would add the ale yeast to complete fermentation. I would guesss that that way would leave some extra critters to continue the funkiness.

[Henning1966]

Well just mashed 3 lbs of 2 row in a gallon of water in a 2.5 gallon insulated water cooler. Rested at 150 for 45 mins took 2 hands full of grain tosed it on top and mixed it in . Checked the temp 120 going to leave it in there over night hoping it will stay around 100 in there.Plan to try and keep it in there a few days at around 100.

[Junket]

Update - I pitched the European Ale yeast last week and after a few days, saw no visible fermentation. Took a sample and was at 1.007, so the lacto must have taken care of so much sugar that the Ale yeast didn't show much activity. A white layer formed on the surface of the beer - strange, since I boiled all of the lacto for 15 minutes and it should be inactive. My sanitation was in order. Put the carboy in the fridge to settle some stuff out, and will probably keg next week.

Without actually tasting the finished product, my initial conclusion is that next time I might leave out the hops... everything tasted amazing until I added them. I might even try a simultaneous lacto starter/ale yeast starter pitch, rather than boiling the lacto to stop it, then pitching the yeast. The lacto was so hungry that I think it ate up almost all of the fermentables, and it might work fine if the ale yeast was pitched simultaneously. This beer does need SOME alcohol, doesn't it? Won't be able to judge this until I taste the sourness in the final product.

Will update you next week.

[brewinhard]

Interesting that the ale yeast didn't do much. Your lacto starter must've ripped through those available sugars esp. if the gravity was down to 1.007! I too would probably not add any or at leastd very little hops to the boil next time I make it. So you are thinking that a better way would be to pitch the lacto and ale yeast at the same time? Maybe give the lacto starter a day or two head start and then pitch the ale yeast afterwards? Thanks for the updates as I will be looking forward to see how it turns out. And yes, your BW should have around 3-4 percent ABV! Apparently lactobacillus does not produce alcohol huh? If so, then what are the sugars converted into?

[Phil]

Interesting that the ale yeast didn't do much. Your lacto starter must've ripped through those available sugars esp. if the gravity was down to 1.007! I too would probably not add any or at leastd very little hops to the boil next time I make it. So you are thinking that a better way would be to pitch the lacto and ale yeast at the same time? Maybe give the lacto starter a day or two head start and then pitch the ale yeast afterwards? Thanks for the updates as I will be looking forward to see how it turns out. And yes, your BW should have around 3-4 percent ABV! Apparently lactobacillus does not produce alcohol huh? If so, then what are the sugars converted into?

lactic acid

[mediumsk]

Interesting that the ale yeast didn't do much. Your lacto starter must've ripped through those available sugars esp. if the gravity was down to 1.007! I too would probably not add any or at leastd very little hops to the boil next time I make it. So you are thinking that a better way would be to pitch the lacto and ale yeast at the same time? Maybe give the lacto starter a day or two head start and then pitch the ale yeast afterwards? Thanks for the updates as I will be looking forward to see how it turns out. And yes, your BW should have around 3-4 percent ABV! Apparently lactobacillus does not produce alcohol huh? If so, then what are the sugars converted into?

lactic acid

and co2!

i think getting the timing right for pitching your yeast and inoculating is really tricky and will vary on a brewer by brewer basis depending on gravity, wort composition, ferm temp and batch size, (lactobacillus pitching rate calculator, anyone?)
I'm a big advocate for sour mashing because you can control the variables more, you can always sour the exact same ratio of grist at the same temperature for the same amount of time, cuts out alot of guess work.
If you do extract than i would just pitch the two together and blend lactic acid in to achieve the level of sourness you want at bottling or kegging. Food grade lactic acid is only going to taste harsh if it doesn't have some of the other lactic fermentations by products to round it out.

just my 2 cents