WILBiER Weisse - Berliner style ale - brew day

The Brew

All the rage right now in the homebrewing world is a concept called "sour worting". The general idea is to quick sour a beer by pitching a Lactobacillis bacteria into unboiled wort to pre acidify it. One of the more creative approaches to this is to use an alternative source (those other then the standard homebrew yeast producers) of this souring bacteria. The Facebook group "Milk the Funk" (MTF) is a treasure trove of information on this topic and was the inspiration for this brew.

The Berliner Weisse style of beer is a historical style from Germany, more specifically as the name implies, the city of Berlin. It is typically a very sour, sessionable wheat beer. Traditional serving includes adding a sweet syrup at serving time to cut the acidity, however, many now are just drinking it as a straight sour.

Recipe base is from the MTF wiki recipe page for this style.

The Recipe

Grain/Sugars:
 4.75 lbs. Pilsner (DE) [66%]
 2.50 lbs. Wheat (CA) [34%]

Hops:
 0.50 oz. East Kent Goldings

Yeast:
 Lactobacillus Plantarum - Goodbelly JuiceDrink Mango - 1 carton
WLP644 Saccharomyces "Bruxellensis" Trois - 2nd generation repitch

Extras:
 1.0 oz 88% Lactic Acid

Brewday

4/15/2016 Step 1: Wort production and souring phase
The initial wort production was completely standard. With such a small amount of grains and some

time limits I went BIAB. Heated up 6.1 gallons of tap water to 151 F. Doughed in the grains and watched it settle right in at 148 F mash temp. Put the cover on, wrapped the pot in blankets and let it do it's converting. After about 50 minutes pulled and drained the bag, collecting about 5.75 gallons of 1.036 wort. Chilled that down to 100 F as per the MTF recipe (this still seems really hot to me). Added some lactic acid to pre-acidify the wort prior to pitching the lacto bacteria. Rack the wort onto the entire carton of the Goodbelly JuiceDrink. Moved the carboy down to the warmest part of the basement and left it for 3 days. *Unfortunately my PH meter is not working so i don't have measurements.



4/18/2016 Step 2: Pasteurization and saccharomyces fermentation
After the 3 days allowing the lacto to chew on the wort, it had a hint of sour, but not over the top as I was expecting. Schedules being what they are, I had no other opportunity to finish this later, so it was what it was. Transferred the wort back to the kettle. Added in half an ounce of old EKG hops and brought lit the fire. Held temp around 180 for 5 minutes and killed the flame.
Chilled it down and pitched the second generation WLP644 yeast.


After a week in primary on the clean yeast, initial tastings have been very reminiscent of lemonade, not super sour, but a good tart flavor. Regardless, it should be a really easy drinking session-able ale for summer.