Berliner Weiss (Kettle Soured)

I tried my hand at another Berliner Weiss about a month ago after the first attempt went horribly wrong. The first batch was a Sour Mash and ended up being infected by Butyric Acid because I had forgotten to lower the pH below 4.5 before inoculation with lactobacillus. This is a crucial step you don't want to forget unless you like the smell and taste of vomit/baby diaper.

So I learned that lesson the hard way. This time around I went with Kettle Souring just to give both methods a try. I started by designing my recipe which wasn't difficult given how simple a Berliner Weiss is.

If anyone is interested you can have a look here: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/k-berliner

I brewed the beer like any other up until time to boil. Then I let the wort cool to 115 degrees when I used phosphoric acid to lower the pH to 4.4 then dropped in .75 lbs of un-crushed Pilsen malt. I popped the lid on, wrapped a plant heat mat plugged into a temp controller around the kettle then a heavy blanket around that. I checked the taste and pH after 12 hours 24, 30 and 38 hours. I was aiming for a pH of 3.4 but when I woke up in the morning the wort had dropped to 3.2. I boiled it immediately, hopped, cooled and transferred to the fermentor.

I spent the next 3 days struggling to get a standard yeast to ferment the beer out. I tried US-05, London ale and Kolsh yeast all of which fermented a few points then died out. Finally I hopped onto the Milk the Funk facebook page and it was suggested I use Brett. All I had was Trois Vrai so I tossed that in and tada! Two days later we were at a 1.004 F.G.

 After all that yeast drama I was worried how the beer was going to turn out but as it turns out it was great! I ended up taking this beer to Homebrew Con 2016 and serving it on Club Night. What a blast! I had a ton of great feedback on it and only brought home about 1/2 gallon from a 5 gallon keg.

I purchased Raspberry and Boysenberry fruit syrups to serve with this beer. Both jars were about half gone at the end of the night. This was my first tasting of a Berliner with syrup and I was surprised at how much they cut the acidity. In fact it was nearly unnoticeable after adding the tiniest amount of syrup. Although I liked the experience I think I'll be drinking my Berliners straight.

Berliner Weiss Tasting Notes

Appearance - A very hazy yellow to yellow brown color. A light bright white head that sticks around a long time then leaves it's mark on the glass. 

Berliner Weiss - Sorry for the picture quality

Aroma - Lemon grass / lemony aroma. Also get some biscuity malt aroma.

Mouthfeel - Very dry and thin. Not in a bad way for the style because the tartness is what's left on your tongue.

Taste - Amazing! Biscuit grainy character,  some wheat, lemon citrus and a lot of tart sourness. This beer change rather quickly going from almost unbearably sour to rounded and perfectly tart.

Future Changes - I'm not changing a thing. This beer turned out better than I could have expected. I'll just start by fermenting with Trois Vrai form now on!

Utilizing Phophoric Acid for Water pH Adjustment

Yesterday was another brew day. I'm trying to dial in my water adjustments for pale beers, specifically IPAs, so that is what I brewed once again. I focused on adjusting all my water and watching my pH for sparge and mash.

I started out by collecting 9 gallons of water early in the morning, adding 1/2 of a campden tablet and checking the starting pH. My meter was spot on at 7.7 with my last water analysis from less then a month ago. 

I used the Bru'n Water spreadsheet to calculate the amount of phosphoric acid I would need to bring my water down to a pH of 5.5. The spreadsheet indicated to add around 130 ml which I thought was a bit high. Thankfully for once I had the common sense (and soberness) not to just blindly trust the figure on the page.

I initially added 30 ml of a 10% solution of phosphoric acid to the 9 gallons of water I collected. I waited 15 minutes then checked my pH again and I was down to 6.5.  I repeated this step again except that I only added 15 ml then next time around. The result was a pH of 5.9. I added another 15 ml and the result was a pH of 5.3 which I should have known considering the changes the pH had taken in the last two rounds. To fix the over adjustment I added tap water at 4 cup increments and re-measured between each addition until I reached my 5.5 pH target after 12 cups.

So at that point I had 9.75 gallons of water adjusted with phosphoric acid to a pH of 5.5. I Collected 4.6 gallons into my mash tun for a 0.4 thickness mash with 11.5lbs of grain. After doughing in I waited 15 minutes then checked my pH which nailed my target mash pH at 5.2. The last time I brewed this IPA, I brewed it without the acid adjustment and simply added 10 grams of gypsum to gain a Burton on Trent like water profile. That time my pH was 5.8 so this is the first pale beer I have brewed where the mash pH landed in the commonly targeted 5.2-5.5 range. 

I checked my pH twice more throughout the mash and it held steady at 5.2. There are arguments both ways that you should/should not acidify your water to bring the mash pH into a target range, I simply decided to try it for myself and record the results here.

This beer is now fermenting in two buckets, in one I pitched a typical American ale use Safale US-05 and in the other I pitched an English ale yeast Safale US-04. This was just for fun so I could compare how the exact same wort would taste pitching two yeasts that I use frequently. Although I usually save the US-04 for my stouts so this should be interesting.

I will post again with the comparison of acid adjusted and non-adjusted water and another for the comparison in yeast strains. I’ll probably also eek another post out of this batch because I only added 7 grams of gypsum this time because the 10 grams in the last batch came out a tad salty and also 7 grams puts me in the 1:3 ratio of chloride to sulfate.