BeerBorg

Well my Berliner came out great, and the good news is I took good notes on it. The only things I would like to see change:
1. Finished too thick at 1.014, want a dryer finish.
2. Too much yeast in bottles

I used WB-06 dry wheat yeast, didn't rehydrate it. I believe I can fix the high FG by using 05 or WLP001 depending on what the store has, and making sure I rehydrate or make a starter if liquid yeast. Don't want to spend money on an oxygen setup or anything, going to shake the crap out of the carboy to oxygenate it.

Too much yeast, well I can't cold crash my carboy, best I can do is put even more ice packs in the cooler with it. I'm going to rack my next one to a secondary for a day or two, load it up with more ice packs to try and get it down real low before transferring to a bottling bucket. I also need to store it on a raised platform so I can siphon without moving the carboy and stirring up yeast.

So those are the changes I am going to make. Here are mistakes I made that I question altering:

1. Put grains in water to warm up with mash.
2. Didn't stir mash once.
3. Flame out too late, mash was 10 degrees higher than recipe called for.

I really don't know how changing these 3 factors will affect the beer. It's a simple berliner, 3lbs pilsen/3lbs wheat, sour it under heat lamp for 5 days, bring to boil, 20 minutes with .5 tett hops for 15.

Any advice or feedback is welcome.

jivex5k wrote: Finished too thick at 1.014, want a dryer finish.

Flame out too late, mash was 10 degrees higher than recipe called for.

And there's your problem Because you mashed so high, you have created more unfermentable sugars, hence the high FG. Next time, mash lower (150-152F) for a more fermentable wort.

russki wrote:

jivex5k wrote: Finished too thick at 1.014, want a dryer finish.

Flame out too late, mash was 10 degrees higher than recipe called for.

And there's your problem Because you mashed so high, you have created more unfermentable sugars, hence the high FG. Next time, mash lower (150-152F) for a more fermentable wort.

Oh cool, thanks for this info!

I've been doing reading on this style. I see a lot of people using Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast.
Just some information I've seen haven't brewed one yet still learning on this.

There is a good read on this style in the May-June 2014 issue of Brew Your Own Magazine.

Mashing in right now. Heated up strike water to 155F, put in 6lbs of grains...too much water in pot LOL whoops!
Not way too much thankfully, but now I know better.
Also it brought it down to like 151F, need to lower strike temp to 150F I believe to hit 145F mash.

Stirred a lot, gonna stir again in 5 minutes and take temp reading. Only a 45 minute mash so it will be finished soon, then cool it to 120F with ice bath (gotta leave in grains), throw on unmilled grain, cover with saran wrap and under the heat lamp it goes.
Best part is I get to enjoy my current Berliner while I make this new one:

You sir, make me want to brew up a berliner weisse!