Author: Marshall Schott
I tasted my first Berliner Weisse about 4 years ago, it was a commercial bottle I picked up at an overly priced market I prefer to refrain from visiting for anything other than beer. It was great– dry, effervescent, slightly tart, endlessly quaffable. In the months that followed, I sampled a couple homemade versions of the style, some good, others not so much. I proceeded to research how homebrewers go about making Berliner Weisse…
Sour mash
Sour wort
Kettle sour
Sour with grains
Sour with a pure lactobacillus culture
Sour with yogurt
Sour with lactic acid
Short boil
Long boil
Pre-boil
Post-boil
No boil
For such a simple beer, the options were dizzying! Stories of massive failure from brewers who’d tried combos of these methods were balanced by a similar number who swore their versions were delicious. I was going to make a good Berliner, I just needed to settle on an approach. I found the idea of souring with naturally occurring lactobacillus sort of romantic, so using unmilled grain appealed me.
My first shot was a pathetic joke, a haphazard attempt that stemmed more out of convenience and curiosity than a desire to make something I’d actually want to drink. The only good that came from it was increased motivation to try again using better technique, as the fact the wort did sour was pretty badass and inspiring. I’m inclined to believe I developed a subconscious fear of creating a puke-y mess that caused me to continue to avoid attempting to make a Berliner Weisse, as a few times I’d get it all planned out then something else would come up. It wasn’t until after sitting through Derek Springer’s fantastic NHC presentation, Berliner and Beyond, during which he served a tasty example soured with grains, that I decided it was finally time to do this thing.
Except, as I’m wont to do, I didn’t necessarily follow his precise process. According to Derek, I was walking a path toward poo beer… more about this in a bit.
Part 1: Making The Wort
It was a warm Saturday afternoon, my wife was attending a relative’s Bingo birthday party, I had the kids. After a couple hours of trampoline jumping, hide-and-seek, breaking up unnecessary fights over meaningless things, and cleaning up half-eaten food, I reached out to see if some pals wanted to grab a beer. My buddy Matt, who happened to be home with one of his sons at the time, met me at the House of Pendragon Brewing Co. tasting room. Sweet relief!
One chalice down, I brought up my, ahem, future plan to make a kettle soured Berliner Weisse using unmilled grains. Matt’s one of my few buddies who makes this style relatively often and does so quite well. He began telling me of the different methods he’s tried then suggested we head back to my place and throw a batch together.
Okay!
We made the 1 minute trek back to my house, set the kiddos up with a movie, and quickly designed a full volume BIAB recipe.
Kettle Soured Berilner Weisse using Grains
| Batch Size | Boil Time | IBU | SRM | OG | FG | ABV |
| 5.5 gal | 15 min (post-sour) | ~3 | 2 | 1.028 SG | 1.004 SG | 2.5% |
Fermentables
| Name | Amount | % |
| White Wheat Malt | 3.5 lbs | 50 |
| Domestic 2-Row | 3.5 lbs | 50 |
Hops
| Name | Amt/IBU | Time | Use | Form | Alpha % |
| Tettnanger | ~3 IBU | 15 min | Boil | Pellet | 4.2 |
Yeast
| Name | Lab | Attenuation | Ferm Temp |
| Safale US-05 American Ale | Fermentis | 86% | 66°F |
Our goal was to make this as quickly as possible, as we both had evening plans. I began collecting the water as Matt measured out and milled the grain.
Wanting to produce a bone dry a beer, we opted for a low 148˚F mash temp, which wasn’t terribly difficult to maintain on this 101˚F degree afternoon.
After an hour-long rest, we removed the bag and took some measurements– the temp had dropped to a hair above 146˚F and the SG was sitting right at 1.025, slightly lower than target thanks to my failure to adjust for an ingredient issue in BeerSmith.
Rather than bringing the wort to a boil like I’d normally do, we chilled it to 110˚F, which took about 90 seconds using my King Cobra IC, then moved the entire kettle into one of my ferm chambers set to maintain a temperature of 110˚F.
I put 8 oz of unmilled 2-row in a grain bag that’d been soaking in StarSan, tied a knot in the top, dropped it into the kettle, then laid a few sheets of plastic wrap over the surface of the wort to limit the introduction of oxygen. This is the part of my method that made Derek cringe, as he strongly advocates for pitching starters soured with grains to reduce the risk of “poo beer.” I was going rogue.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pre-innoculation wort pH reading, but based on my calculations, it was likely between 4.9-5.3. I expected the lacto from the grains to take between 36-48 hours to drop the wort to my target range of 3.3-3.4 pH, though I measured it at different points out of curiosity. I’m glad I did, as the pH dropped pretty drastically just 8 hours after inoculation.
Based on my starting pH assumption, I was surprised with how quickly the lacto seemed to be working, an assumed 2+ pH drop in less than half a day, and a sip revealed the wort was indeed tart. Thankfully, it also tasted pretty good, enough to assuage some of my anxieties. My notes state it had a flavor akin to plain yogurt with maybe a touch of granola. I let the wort continue souring for additional 14 hours before taking another measurement, again it had dropped more than I expected, another 0.13 pH.
Since I started making sour beer a couple years ago, I’ve been amazed at the impact a seemingly small difference in pH makes. At 3.38 pH, the wort had a noticeably more assertive tartness. Pleased with the acidity and concerned it might drop too low, which can negatively impact fermentation, I made the decision to stop the souring process and proceed.
Part 2: Making The Beer
Similar to souring methods, there seems to be an endless number of approaches to dealing with kettle soured wort once target pH is reached. While I’ve tasted some fantastic no-boil examples, I wanted to decrease my chances of something going awry by killing off any potential microbes that might cause problems. I started by removing the plastic wrap and grain bag from the wort then moved the kettle to my burner. Given the lower than expected SG, I opted for a 15 minute boil rather than my planned 5 minute in an attempt to boil off a touch more and increase the OG. As soon as a boil was reached, I added a whopping 5 grams of Tettnanger hops, an arguably unnecessary step that I did just because.
I also dropped my immersion chiller into the wort to get it sanitized and, out of habit, added 4 grams of Irish Moss. Once complete, I chilled to a few degrees above my groundwater temp, racked to a 6 gallon PET carboy, and placed it in my fermentation chamber controlled to 66°F to finish chilling. The soured and briefly boiled wort reached my target fermentation temp within 4 hours, at which point I pitched a rehydrated sachet of US-05 American Ale Yeast. I chose this strain out of sheer convenience– it was available and I didn’t feel like making a starter. That said, I was interested to taste how such a clean strain played with a wort soured with grain.
It took awhile for signs of active fermentation to arrive, I chalked this up to the lower pH of the wort and didn’t worry too much. Things were looking okay about 48 hours post-pitch, though not at all typical of what I’ve seen when fermenting “clean” beer with US-05. Either way, it was good to see something happening.
I returned from a weekend away to discover the krausen had fallen, which meant it was time to check things out. At 1.004 FG, my goal of dryness was reached, while the sample I tasted left me even more excited for the finished product!
I took a final measurement post-fermentation and found the finished beer had dropped to 3.2 pH, which I believe is quite respectable.
Despite the fact Berliner Weisse is known for being a cloudier style, I wanted to see how my normal fining process would effect this beer and added gelatin 18 hours into the cold crash. The following day, I racked the cold beer to a keg.
After 24 hours on 40 psi of CO2, I reduced the pressure to 16 psi, a bit higher than my typical serving pressure because I wanted this beer to be highly effervescent. Just a few hours later, I poured my first full serving. It was…
…glorious! Finally, I soured wort using only grains and it didn’t taste like sweaty gooch! No, it was actually really good.
| Tasting Notes |
I suck at describing beer in any objective manner, I suppose this is largely a function of my conviction that perception is hugely subjective. Anyway, here’s what I got:
Appearance:
Very light in color with noticeable haze, though not totally opaque, it became more clear as it sat in the cold keezer; stark white cap of foam that felt like pillowy whipped cream on my lips; retention was markedly better than I expected given the low OG and acidity.
Aroma:
Clean fermentation, no phenols or esters, with subtle wet hay and a touch of plain yogurt and Cheerios; no noticeable DMS or diacetyl; no hop aroma; little if any yeast character; clean and obviously sour.
Flavor:
Slight graininess that’s quite pleasing; interesting earthy flavor I figure may have come from whatever else was on the grains used to inoculate the wort, perhaps a wild yeast, but not at all overwhelming or negative; very clean lactic character was more pronounced than anything provided by the US-05.
Mouthfeel:
Very dry and crisp with an almost champagne-like carbonation; surprisingly creamy mouthfeel despite lower body; moderate to assertive tartness that wasn’t quite enough to cause serious puckering; no noted astringency.
| The Verdict |
I love this beer. Not because it’s the best one ever made, it’s certainly not, but it is pretty damn tasty. Rather, I love how incredibly easy it is to make. I spent about 1.5 hours making the wort then another 30 minutes getting it ready a couple days later. I absolutely plan to play around more with kettle souring using grains and look forward to trying different yeasts, making higher OG beers, adding certain fruits, and dry hopping. As popular as kettle souring has become, it seems to me to still be in its infancy, which means us homebrewers have the rare opportunity to try novel ideas and potentially blaze new trails. Jalapeno kettle soured Red Ale with cantaloupe, anyone? Remember, much of what was thought of as terrible by brewers centuries ago is lauded by modern beer drinkers today. While utilizing grain to sour wort definitely has its risks, the positive experiences of homebrewers continue to add up, leaving me convinced it’s a valid method. If you’re the adventurous type, I highly recommend trying this out for yourself!
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40 thoughts on “Berliner Weisse Soured with Grain: It Finally Worked!!”
Any chance you can post the recipe? I’ve been looking to do something like this but with limited time not as adventurous and would love a baseline to go by for first go.
50/50 2-row and wheat malt to 1.028 OG with a 15 min boil. For me, that was 3.5 lbs of each malt.
so you only boiled for 15 minutes? So in essence, do we boil wort to extract the bitterness from hops, which in this case is very little?
I have to try this! Thank you. You are my go-to beer guru as I read your experiments with fervor.
Many people don’t boil their BW at all, while another popular approach is to boil for 5 minutes just to halt the activity of the lacto. I boiled for 15 minutes to increase my OG a little bit… keeping things practical 😉
Thanks for this write-up! All of the other info out there seems contradictory and disjointed, so I never really got serious about this style. My wife homebrews with me, and she loves sours – especially Berlinerweisse. This is definitely sliding into the lineup soon.
Apologies if you’ve described this before, but I’m curious about the filter attached to your hose, as well as your general approach to water. Any details appreciated.
Hi there! I use this RV filter, it seems to be doing a fine job. As for water, I treat all of my brewing liquor to reach certain specs. For this batch, I’m pretty sure I went for a 1:1 Cl:SO4 ratio with Ca around 75 ppm. I’ve got a few articles on how I approach brewing water:
A Pragmatic Approach to Water Manipulation
Brewing Water Primer
Allow me to translate: “after learning the proper, no-fail way of making a Berliner from Derek I decided to go the poo-beer route anyway.” All you had to do was add a tablespoon of 88% Lactic Acid! 😛
Folks are surprised that Berliner is one of my fastest turn-around brews. Even with souring I can turn one around in a little over a week. I mean shoot, folks make starters with higher gravities!
Wait, you’re making BW with lactic acid addition? So a low-OG wheat fermented with a neutral strain with a good hunch of lactic acid before kegging?
The 88% Lactic Acid addition is only to bring the pH < 4.5, which significantly inhibits competing organisms. The actual lacto will be doing the brunt of the work.
Also, from what Michael Tonsmeire claims, lowering the pH < 4.5 will prevent the lacto from secreting a chemical that will ruin your head formation.
Is this in lieu of the grain soured starter? Do you still let it sit for 14 hours?
What I did was sour the entire batch of wort and not use a grain soured starter, if that’s what you’re asking.
Awesome post!! Thanks for sharing. I happen to be souring a BerlinerWeiss in my 5 gallon insulated mash ton as we speak. How did you get the image of your refractometer reading? Cheers!
Haha, I get the refractometer question often. It’s actually quite easy: place phone camera over refrac hole, wiggle until the image looks good, snap the pic, then crop it.
Thanks for the write-up!
Can you explain this line a bit further, “then laid a few sheets of plastic wrap over the surface of the wort to limit the introduction of oxygen.”
How did you do this? Doesn’t sound like you put the plastic wrap over the top of the kettle. Did you somehow stick it to the sides?
I literally laid large sheets of plastic wrap on the surface of the wort. It wasn’t all that easy, actually, and there were a few small spots left uncovered, but it seems to have done the trick.
Dude, that looks killer! A bigass chalice of that after mowing the yard would be great – definitely on the to-brü list!
I dont have a heating element on my chest freezer, room temp is usually around 85 where I live. Would I be able to sour my 110 degree wort in a cooler, like my mash tun? I know it would drop temp over the 14 hours it takes…
I bet if you you added the grains when your wort was about 120˚F then put it in your chamber at ~85˚F, you’d be just fine. Maybe wrap some towels around it for insulation.
Put a 100W lightbulb-in-a-can in your freezer, and see how warm that keeps it
Dude my Berliner is in the fermentation chamber right now! I followed your post to the letter. Thanks for doing this write up! I’ve always wanted to try a sour beer but was nervous I’d F it up. The only thing I did differently was I pitched wlp630 (berliner weisse yeast). I’m stoked to see how it turns out!
Dude! I did it taste before pitch? Did you take a pH measurement?
My palate sucks- but yeah taste before pitch was very similar to yours. Wet hay, yogurt, granola, Cheerios. Pretty tart.
Had to use a friends elec seedling heat mat wrapped around my kettle- the darn thing only goes up to 108F. PH level dropped dramatically at first but leveled out at 3.78, around 27 hours to get there. I decided to boil (cuz I had to go to sleep) and didn’t want to let it sit overnight.
Great site, love everything you do. Can you get your friend to describe making the sour starter in a little more detail? Cuz I’m not really down for the risk of the whole poo beer thingy.
I know this is an older post but I screwed up my first berliner attempt, don’t ask how… came out looking and smelling like sour milk. So I am going to try your method soon. I have a very simmilar setup, did your paintcan heater hold the 110F or did you have to use a heat pad?
It worked just fine, but it was also in the middle of Summer when outside temps are above 100°F where I live. A heating pad might be better, I’m not sure.
Making this tonight. Only change is I am pitching onto some WLP029 from a Helles last week. Cheap shot at a sour. Thanks for the writeup
Not too excited to try this once fermented out. Smells extremely “goochy” and sweaty. IF I decide to keg and carb it, it will not come out of any of my beer taps, but a cobra tap. haha
Will the unmilled grains used to sour make a difference?? I only have extra dark malts floating around right now. Trying this out starting tomorrow evening.
Good question! While I’m not certain, I’d imagine all grain has lacto on it.
I found some crystal 40* I will give a go and let you know!
Just to be clear, the 8 oz. of grain you added to sour was soaked in star san or just the bag?
“I put 8 oz of unmilled 2-row in a grain bag that’d been soaking in StarSan,”
Marshall, did you know the ph of your water? Thanks 😀
Starting was about 7.9 pH
I am confused why you had to soak the grains in starsan if you wanted the bugs. Wouldn’t starsan kill them? I love your site. Keep up the great work!
I didn’t sanitize the grains, just the grain bag prior to adding the grains to it. Who knows what microbes were hanging around on that?
IMHO… if you’re not using BIAB, just simply leave all of your base grains in the kettle, add your souring grains WITHOUT any sanitized bag (i recommend only base malt, as highly kilned or roasted malts will likely have less live lacto), cover the surface with plastic wrap and hold the whole mess at near 100F, checking as Marshall suggests (but not too often, as oxygen is the enemy here). THEN, vorlauf / lauter / sparge as normal and start your short boil. Works absolutely perfectly every time. And in case you’re wondering… NO the extra time with the whole mash does not over convert or over extract.
Hi Marshall, great article as always!
I heard about some people that uses only lactic acid to sour their beers. Some say that this kind of sour is simple or unidimensional, will be great to compare a quick sour method with lactobasillus and sour beer with only lactic acid.
Cheers
You inspired me to do the same recipe!
Its my 3 or 4 ish brew. It came out great! The difference is that I did a sour starter from grains, used omega Voss Kveik – OYL-061 (at 90-95F) and reached an OG of 1.040. Should have fined with gelatin thought! Opening the bottle sends the yeast back in suspension.
I don’t have a PH meter, only strips that go down to 3.8. I decided to stop the souring by taste and boiled after 48 hours at ~115F. The sourness is obvious but moderate, really good body and mouthfeel and the foam retention is great (thanks to the pre-acidification).
With the OYL-061, its a great recipe to do in a heat wave
Thanks again!
I usually use my tap well water for my stouts and Gose beers. RO for other styles. Which is preferred for this. Both are In the low 7’s for ph.