Hi,
I'm going to brew my first ever Berliner Weisse soon. I've gone through different methods available for souring it properly. So far the most promising for me seemed tossing neutral yeast together with bacteria to chilled wort, but it bugs me (pun here!) that acidic profile of the beer would change over time in bottles. So I came up with an idea which I'd like to hear your opinion about.
Basically, the plan is to prepare regular wort and ferment it with neutral yeast. At the end of the fermentation I'd prepare bacteria starter (no stirring, sealed from air intake, put in temp. around 100F). Then, after 24 hours (should be very sour already) I would take two samples with syringes: one of fermented wort, bigger in volume of course, and another from the "bacteria starter" which would be smaller. I would inoculate small portions of the latter into fermented sample until I'd get desired level or sourness. Simple math and I could apply it to a big scale 5gal wort. If calculation says I don't have enough "bacteria starter" I would wait another day or two for more sourness and repeat the procedure. Having the profile that I want, I'd boil the starter for 15 min to kill bacteria and add appropriate volume of it to fermented wort.
I haven't seen this method anywhere online. However, it's quite hard to search forum for such description. What do you think about this? Do you see any downsides right ahead? Additional comment from my side is that I'm from Europe and I'm a little worried about viability of White Labs/Wyeast bacterias being after long journey from USA through the ocean. That's one of the reasons that I think I should make starter anyway.
Any help appreciated! Maybe there's another method I haven't seen as well. Open to options here. What was described above is inspired by Randy M. "Radical brewing" where similiar method is used to make spice beers.
I'm going to brew my first ever Berliner Weisse soon. I've gone through different methods available for souring it properly. So far the most promising for me seemed tossing neutral yeast together with bacteria to chilled wort, but it bugs me (pun here!) that acidic profile of the beer would change over time in bottles. So I came up with an idea which I'd like to hear your opinion about.
Basically, the plan is to prepare regular wort and ferment it with neutral yeast. At the end of the fermentation I'd prepare bacteria starter (no stirring, sealed from air intake, put in temp. around 100F). Then, after 24 hours (should be very sour already) I would take two samples with syringes: one of fermented wort, bigger in volume of course, and another from the "bacteria starter" which would be smaller. I would inoculate small portions of the latter into fermented sample until I'd get desired level or sourness. Simple math and I could apply it to a big scale 5gal wort. If calculation says I don't have enough "bacteria starter" I would wait another day or two for more sourness and repeat the procedure. Having the profile that I want, I'd boil the starter for 15 min to kill bacteria and add appropriate volume of it to fermented wort.
I haven't seen this method anywhere online. However, it's quite hard to search forum for such description. What do you think about this? Do you see any downsides right ahead? Additional comment from my side is that I'm from Europe and I'm a little worried about viability of White Labs/Wyeast bacterias being after long journey from USA through the ocean. That's one of the reasons that I think I should make starter anyway.
Any help appreciated! Maybe there's another method I haven't seen as well. Open to options here. What was described above is inspired by Randy M. "Radical brewing" where similiar method is used to make spice beers.