1st attempt at a sour beer

I bottled this Berliner Weisse experiment in Feb 2015 and now, 4 months later I cannot detect any sourness at all. Made it without boiling, added WLP 630 Berliner Weisse blend, and hoped I’d notice some sourness coming through by now. Does it really take a year, or will it never come through?

This should be moved to the Homebrew forum, and I’m sure you’ll get some responses once it is.

Moved to homebrew. And it will continue to sour but lacto acts very quickly. If the culture you used didn’t have much lacto in it or if you fermented it cool then it might take longer.

Maybe try making another batch and fermenting a little warmer (after primary) for a few days and see if that speeds up the process.

The Lacto blend from white labs is weak at best. Most Lacto strains like it hot and anaerobic. To get any significant drop in pH, it needs to be in the 90F range, which will give all kinds of off flavors from any sacch present.

I used that strain in a beeline and after about 2-3 years it finally got to a decent sourness.

Next time, I would recommend pitching pure lacto for at least 48 hours before adding sacch. It would also be ideal if you could have a CO2 purge to avoid any butyric acid production.

Other than that, CLevar may chime in with some good info.

homers information is good, but with one point of clarification.

If you are pitching a pure culture of LAB, you won’t need to worry about butyric acid production or other nasty acid production. Those off flavors are associated with Clostridium contamination, typically from grain often used to sour, or worse, because someone did a sour mash. When mixed/unknown cultures are used, great care should be taken to keep oxygen out of the wort. When pure cultures of a LAB are used, it’s very much species (or even strain) dependent. For example, I culture the LAB that I use on plates in atmospheric oxygen levels, and it grows just fine.

Heed the CLevar advice. He has steered me in the right direction!

Originally posted by sylvia40
I bottled this Berliner Weisse experiment in Feb 2015 and now, 4 months later I cannot detect any sourness at all. Made it without boiling, added WLP 630 Berliner Weisse blend, and hoped I’d notice some sourness coming through by now. Does it really take a year, or will it never come through?

I used 4 lbs of two row pale malt and 4 lbs of wheat. 1 Oz. of Hallertauer in the mash.

The best way to make Berliner Weisse consistently, in my experience, is by kettle souring, so I’d look into that. It lets you choose and fix your sourness. Definitely use a pure lacto culture, either bought or cultured from grain (or yoghurt or whatever). Massively overpitch to get souring done quickly. 12 hours should be an absolute maximum, in my view. I also think brettanomyces is essential to a good Berliner Weisse, so I’d add a nice, fruity, mild brett strain as well.

I’d pretty much write-off your current brew as far as getting any more sour is concerned. If you really want it more sour, pour all the bottles into a fermenter and add a bunch of lambic dregs and a little maltodextrin. The carbonation should blast out Co2 and prevent oxidation, if you fill the fermenter and don’t leave too much head space. To be honest, if it’s tasting okay, I’d just drink it and have another go.

Don’t forget to add the dill

Did you boil this at all? If so, then if you boiled for 60 minutes with 1 oz. of 4.5 AA (assumed) Hallertauer as a mash hop, you’re going to end up with around 13 IBUs (40% reduction of the 22 IBUs calculated by Beertools) which would certainly inhibit lacto. If not, then I don’t know what to tell you other than what everyone else has to consistently say about the lackluster souring capacity of the White Labs lacto strain(s).