BeerBorg

Surprisingly I found very few recipes for this style. It's a Berliner Weisse with smoked malts. Reports are pretty varied on the correct % of smoked malt to use, the most detailed tasting note on this specific style has 60% weyermann beech-smoked malt in the grain bill. Basically he subbed it in for the Pilsen.

His tasting notes mention it's not very smoky at all, I don't have any experience with smoked malt but it seems like 60% would make it incredibly smoky. I'd rather err on the side of caution with this so here's a recipe I'm going to make for my next batch.

5 gallons:
3 lbs US Wheat (50%)
2 lbs Smoked Malt (17%)
1 lb Pilsen (33%)

Sour mash for 5 days under heat lamp with lacto (unmilled grains)

.5 Tett @ 15min
20 minute boil

US-05

I had a beer in this style at Rapp and absolutely loved it. I sent them a message about it, worth a shot to ask the source.

So, from what I have found...

Looks like the Lichtenhainer is soured post-fermentation... Likely with the addition of lactic acid, but some recipes use acidulated malt. Not sure what difference that might make though...

It appears most recipes seem to be made from beechwood smoked barley, however some references indicate a significant percentage of wheat in the grist and some using smoked wheat...

My thought was to use either a soured Berliner base or a non-soured Berliner base with the addition of acidulated malt to provide the pH drop. (Although I am also debating whether to just get some lactic acid and add it in secondary.) I will also use oak smoked wheat (since I have some left over from my recent Grodziskie), and a good percentage of Pilsen malt.

Probably the same German Ale yeast that I have used recently, Wyeast 1007.

I was also thinking Tettnanger or Hallertau...

Not sure if you have seen these in your research or not so, for what the're worth...

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008 ... ainer.html

http://chsbeer.org/beer/westbrook-brewing/lichtenhainer

http://beer.dotbrigade.com/lichtenhainer/

http://www.thebeerfiles.com/the-return- ... 4351681769

Nice! I'm reading thebeerfiles page right now actually.
I've done a lot of reading on souring with lacto and here is what I've surmised:
1. Souring post boil will allow sourness to continue to develop in the bottle. It may take longer than souring pre-boil and keeping the mash around 120F since the heat speeds up the process.

2. Souring pre boil and pre sparge allows you to sour faster under heat, and stop the souring at the level you desire since you will then boil and kill the lacto. This also helps prevent siphon tubes and carboys from harboring lacto.

3. Souring pre boil and post sparge is another method some use. I'm not sure there is a huge difference in the end result here vs the pre sparge souring. Theorteically more volume will be soured, but the effect could be negligible from what I understand. It's also harder to hold the temp high without the grains.

4. Some use lacto as the only means of fermentation, it takes much longer to ferment and finishes very low most of the time from what I understand. Not sure of the flavor difference this will cause, but the lacto will continue to develop in the bottle.

As far as the difference between lacto during primary fermentation alongside ale yeast, or post, maybe the ale yeast has a better fermentation without the competition of lacto.

jivex5k wrote:Nice! I'm reading thebeerfiles page right now actually.
I've done a lot of reading on souring with lacto and here is what I've surmised:

1. Souring post boil will allow sourness to continue to develop in the bottle. It may take longer than souring pre-boil and keeping the mash around 120F since the heat speeds up the process.

Agreed!

jivex5k wrote: 2. Souring pre boil and pre sparge allows you to sour faster under heat, and stop the souring at the level you desire since you will then boil and kill the lacto. This also helps prevent siphon tubes and carboys from harboring lacto.

Also Agreed!

jivex5k wrote: 3. Souring pre boil and post sparge is another method some use. I'm not sure there is a huge difference in the end result here vs the pre sparge souring. Theorteically more volume will be soured, but the effect could be negligible from what I understand. It's also harder to hold the temp high without the grains.

Meh... But this would be how Extract Brewers could do it...

jivex5k wrote: 4. Some use lacto as the only means of fermentation, it takes much longer to ferment and finishes very low most of the time from what I understand. Not sure of the flavor difference this will cause, but the lacto will continue to develop in the bottle.

Yeah, I think you end up with a beer with less character... I believe you need some neutral ale yeast to eat up sugars that don't get consumed by the Lacto... even though the ratio of Lacto to Ale yeast might vary from stye to style. For insance, 5:1 seems to be about right for a Berliner Weiss bit 3:1 is better for a Lichtenhainer as it shouldn't be quite as sour as a Berliner.

jivex5k wrote: As far as the difference between lacto during primary fermentation alongside ale yeast, or post, maybe the ale yeast has a better fermentation without the competition of lacto.

A study was actually done on this very question by Jess Caudill of Wyeast Labs and Jason Kahler of Solara Brewery and was presented at the 2012 NHC.

Essentially they tested Lacto (5335) on its own, and along with German Ale Yeast (1007) and German Lager Yeast (2124) and found some interesting results.

First, the combination of 5335 and 1007 produced a lower pH than the combination of 5335 and 2124.

They tested a few other case combinations but then:

Next, they wanted to know if it's better to pitch both cultures together, or separately to achieve the best results.

They found that:

1.) Pitching 5335 and 1007 together inhibits the 5335.
2.) Pitching only 5335 resulted in better acid production than the combined 5335 and 1007.
- However, one must still deal with the remaining sugars not addressed by the 5335!
3.) Pitching separately, 5335 then 1007 later in the process gave the best results and the most sour beer.

So, for our purposes, by souring with Lacto first, then innoculating with 1007, we are doing #3.

AHA members can access the full presentation here:

A Perspective on Brewing Berliner Weiss-style Beer... WITH BEER!

A couple more references that you may or may not have seen:

http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/brew ... tation.ppt

http://byo.com/stories/item/889-how-to- ... techniques

Awesome info man, thanks! Looks like souring the mash and finishing with ale is the way to go, probably why my first one came out so damn good.

I'm really enjoying messing around with lacto, it's super easy too. What I'm looking forward to is really exploring the possibilities with these sours, using different fruit in the secondary, throwing in salt to make a Gose, experimenting with more aggressive hop schedules. Hell what about a hop bursted berliner with centennial, could be a sour flower taste. The best part is how small the grain bill is, I could brew every weekend if I wanted.

Rapp actually emailed me back as well. They suggested using my favorite Berliner recipe, and substituting 40% of the non-wheat malt with smoked malt.
So that would be:

3 lbs US Wheat (50%)
1.2 lbs Smoked Malt (20%)
1.8 lb Pilsen (30%)

Very cool of them to respond, got nothing but respect for Rapp.

I'm not going to tell you not to do it if you want, but my experience with sours suggests they are best with very little bittering hops. Too much bitter and sour together gets gnarly, especially if the beer is really sour - IE lacto sour vs. brett sour.

But if you mean a "hop forward" sour, as in with lots of hop flavor/aroma, that might be good. I think I would do it as a hop stand at a lower temp vs. a hop burst, to restrict AAU utilization.

Yep that's what I was thinking, some flowery hop aroma and flavor, with as little hop bitterness as possible. That's wayyyyy down the road though, hell even this Lichtenhainer I won't be making for a little while at least.

The first thing I want to do is nail down the Berliner Weisse base, I'm very intrigued on how my second batch is going to differ from the first. It seems to have a more active fermentation going on, probably a combination of using a different yeast strain and mashing 10 degrees lower.

I probably should have only changed one variable but I wanted 05 from the get go and only did my first batch with WB06 because they didn't have 05. I want no yeast character in this base Berliner.

I think for batch three I will slightly adjust the wheat/pilsen ratio and go with 60% wheat and 40% pilsen.