BeerBorg

So I brought some of my Berliner over to my friends last night...they gave me money for ingredients to brew another batch haha.
That's the last thing I ever expected to happen, even tried to say no no, but they insisted. Alright, far be it from me to not accept a gift of free ingredients.

Just happy the beer went over so well, it's incredibly sour and that's what we really enjoy in berliners. I have to wonder if the intense sourness is masking any potential mistakes, I know the beer isn't where I want it to be yet, but man this is motivating. I'm really looking forward to perfecting this style, going to brew the exact same way except changing the yeast.

Just excited and wanted to tell you guys lol. Best beer I ever made hands down.

Also it was the first all grain beer I've made, did BIAB in a 5 gallon pot on the stove, worked like a charm. I had to top off about a gallon but still ended up with an OG of 1.042 and a super sour beer. I sparged the grain bag as well so I'm sure that helped get the OG up there.

That's a great endorsement from your friends.

This is one of the next styles I'm going to get into brewing. There's a thread here on this beer right?
I remember seeing one but my search foo is not strong today.

Inkleg wrote:That's a great endorsement from your friends.

This is one of the next styles I'm going to get into brewing. There's a thread here on this beer right?
I remember seeing one but my search foo is not strong today.

Yeah I asked some questions about it here and there. It was super easy to make.

3 lbs White Wheat
3 lbs pilsen
handful unmilled pilsen

.5 Tettnanger or however you spell it hops for 15 minutes

Mash @ 145F for 45 minutes

When mash is done cool to ~120F. I left the mash in while doing this because we are going to keep the wort warm for 5 days and it will help hold the temp better. Once the mash is 120F, throw in the unmilled grains and cover the top of the mash with saran wrap. I used foil since I was out of saran wrap, seemed to work fine.

Keep it under a heat lamp for 5 days to try and keep temp around 110-120F. This promotes lacto growth more rapidly, and helps inhibit bad bugs you don't want. Keeping oxygen out is important according to the articles I've read, but I used foil on top instead of saran wrap and checked on the wort by tasting it every couple days with no averse affects. At first I was a little weary about tasting it, looks pretty nasty after all it is a bacteria culture growing, but after I tasted it the apprehension was gone. It also smelled really funky, but the taste was that classic lacto sharp sourness.

You can wrap towels around the kettle to help keep it warm too. I tasted it until it was sour enough for me, then once it was I planned for the boil that day. Brought it to a boil for only 20 minutes, hopped the tett for 15 of those minutes. Cooled with wort chiller, pitch yeast, etc...everything is back to normal now and the boil should kill the bugs so your equip isn't infected.

After carbonation the beer has more sourness to it, which bumped it up to a fantastic level for my personal taste.

Thanks for that information. One of my next questions was if you left the grains in the mash while you were souring, looks like you did. I'm planning on experimenting with my pot full of warm water, cooler, reptile heat tape and my STC-1000 and see what temperature I can hold.

Think I'll do a five gallon batch and then split into MrBeer kegs for the fermenting and use different yeasts. Experiment with smaller batches and see what I like better.

Inkleg wrote:Thanks for that information. One of my next questions was if you left the grains in the mash while you were souring, looks like you did. I'm planning on experimenting with my pot full of warm water, cooler, reptile heat tape and my STC-1000 and see what temperature I can hold.

Think I'll do a five gallon batch and then split into MrBeer kegs for the fermenting and use different yeasts. Experiment with smaller batches and see what I like better.

Something worth note is a lot of homebrewers have been doing a "sour wort" technique as well instead of sour mash. Instead of leaving the mash in you sparge and collect your sweet wort, then throw the unmilled grains on that and let it sour. It won't hold a temp as well, but theoretically you sour more of the beer since the sparge would increase your volume and it's all getting lacto.

The heat holding isn't even necessary according to a notable homebrewer on BA, he just sparges, removes grains, cools to 120F, throws on unmilled grain and lets it sit for a week or longer with no additional heating. Others have tried his method with success. I'm not going to do this next time cuz I only want to change a little at a time, but I'm going to try it in 4 or 5 batches most likely to see what, if any, difference it makes.

In fact my heat lamp didn't hold it at 110F the whole time, it kept higher for 3-4 days, but it ended up around 80F for the remainder. It helped when I sparged and squeezed the bag since it wasn't hot and I don't have any heat resistant gloves. I'll need gloves when I want to try the sour wort method.

I don't think you have too much to worry about with "other bugs" in the grand scheme of things because many of them, and all pathogenic bugs are going to kick the bucket once the lacto sours the wort and/or alcohol is produced. They don't like the PH levels produced in the sour wort, and they also don't like the levels of alcohol produced later.

And because you are then boiling the result, or at least bringing it to a boil for a brief period of time this will inhibit how the ones that don't mind the PH will affect the beer, as in they only did their thing for 5 days. Stuff like Pedio isn't going to do jack in that timeframe and even if there is Brett in there there won't be enough to do much either - both are slow comparatively speaking vs. the lacto you are introducing.