Beer Forum

So I 'know' this guy and it has been decided he needs to brew a Berliner Weisse by the owners of the brewery. One one hand the guy is looking forward to the challenge, on the other he doesn't want to contaminate his brewhouse with lacto. He has been given the process to follow by his boss. Sour the mash in the kettle, boil, then ferment. The brewhouse is German built so he mashes into the kettle then moves it to lauter tun with a pump, he uses it for controlled step mash with wheat beers regularly.

He is thinking a lacto starter of 10-15 gallons a day or two before.
Traditional 50-50 split on grain bill.
Mash in 95 or so, and leave at temp for a day or two (measuring pH every 2-3 hrs after the first 12 hours, until it hits desired level).
Brief 15 minute boil with a hint of hops but older Saaz without much alpha left.
Ferment with neutral ale yeast but feed it sugar starting 3 day in as he has been told they want it higher than traditional ABV, but he doesn't want the extra body.
Lager for a few weeks, and carbonate the beejesus out of it.
Post brew run 150 water through the whole system, then 2 caustic cleaning cycles, acid after each run.

Feedback is welcome.

Geistbier wrote:So I 'know' this guy and it has been decided he needs to brew a Berliner Weisse by the owners of the brewery. One one hand the guy is looking forward to the challenge, on the other he doesn't want to contaminate his brewhouse with lacto. He has been given the process to follow by his boss. Sour the mash in the kettle, boil, then ferment. The brewhouse is German built so he mashes into the kettle then moves it to lauter tun with a pump, he uses it for controlled step mash with wheat beers regularly.

He is thinking a lacto starter of 10-15 gallons a day or two before.
Traditional 50-50 split on grain bill.
Mash in 95 or so, and leave at temp for a day or two (measuring pH every 2-3 hrs after the first 12 hours, until it hits desired level).
Brief 15 minute boil with a hint of hops but older Saaz without much alpha left.
Ferment with neutral ale yeast but feed it sugar starting 3 day in as he has been told they want it higher than traditional ABV, but he doesn't want the extra body.
Lager for a few weeks, and carbonate the beejesus out of it.
Post brew run 150 water through the whole system, then 2 caustic cleaning cycles, acid after each run.

Feedback is welcome.

1, he could bring the sour mash up in temp a little to speed things up. 110-120 is roughly the soft cap before you start killing off the lacto.
2, why rinse @ 150? I'd say any hot rinse before the caustic would be sufficient, rinse between the caustic & acid, & finish with a 200+ rinse. That would be what I'd do on my setup with that method, but without knowing his brewhouse, I could be totally off. I've done a couple of Berliner Weisse's & just cleaned my system as I would with any other batch. Quick rinse with 120-130 (whatever the water heater's kicking out), PBW, hot rinse, acid. Before I even skipped the acid step, but I found a little beer stone in my ball valves. I found extra strength StarSan wipes it out pretty easily.

Sounds about right to me. 95 is a great acid rest temp and most strains of lactobacillus grow best at 99 degrees. Your process sounds very well thought out. Good luck with that.

To clarify, I don't see anything wrong with the process you outlined, just the first thoughts that popped in my mind. In my sour mash cooler I'd lose about 20 degrees overnight & found that 110, ending around 90-92 was worked best. No references, just personal experience. Got me thinking about dusting that old cooler off soon. Thanks!

Agreed with above that right around 100-105 F might be better for lacto growth. Also be sure to get your mash up to a suitable saccharification conversion rest first to produce the sugars for the lacto to consume. A short rest at 150 should be sufficient for that. Sour mashes can go awry pretty quickly. You will have better luck if you can keep a blanket of CO2 on the mash while it is souring. This can help to minimize any aerobic bacteria (ie enterobacter) that can produce some nasty off-flavors/aromas like rancid cheese and vomit (butyric acid).

Geistbier wrote:So I 'know' this guy .

You're talking 'biblically', right?

spiderwrangler wrote:

Geistbier wrote:So I 'know' this guy .

You're talking 'biblically', right?

I thought he meant, "So, I have this ... friend"

Thanks for the feedback, I'll keep the responses in mind particularly, the blanket of CO2 is very helpful and I can probably manage it without much work.