Memorial Day was the perfect storm for a Berliner. The three day weekend meant I had enough time to do the mash, sour worting, and boil all without work getting in the way. Plus, I didn't have anything fermenting that required temperature control, so the fermentation chamber was available to be used as a hot-box for the souring period. Game on!
I've been wanting to make a Berliner for a while now. Originally I was waiting for the triple digit summer months thinking I'd use the garage as a hot box, but once I realized I could use the fermentation chamber this project got fast tracked. I've read about a lot of different methods for souring a beer like this. Ultimately, I chose a mix of methods that fit my needs. It went a little something like this...
Mash Day
I've been wanting to make a Berliner for a while now. Originally I was waiting for the triple digit summer months thinking I'd use the garage as a hot box, but once I realized I could use the fermentation chamber this project got fast tracked. I've read about a lot of different methods for souring a beer like this. Ultimately, I chose a mix of methods that fit my needs. It went a little something like this...
Mash Day
- Friday night after I got home from work, I did a quick 45 minute standard mash at 152 (pH @ 5.4).
- Once complete, I pulled off a portion to boil and use for starters (topped off a few sour cultures I'm trying to keep around and also made a starter for the primary fermentation of this beer) and then stirred in 1lb of acidulated malt to the remaining volume.
- After another 15 minutes with the acid malt I vorlaufed and sparged into my kettle like normal. The hope was that the acid malt would get the pH down to 4.5 or lower, which I understand inhibits growth of unwanted bacteria. However, it didn't quite make it so I ended up needing to add 4ml of 88% lactic acid.
- With the pH down to 4.46 I brought the wort to a quick boil to kill anything that might be hanging around and also remove as much O2 as possible.
- After a brief 5 minute boil, I used my immersion chiller to cool the wort down to 120* and transferred into a sanitized carboy that had been purged with CO2.
- Finally, I added a 1/2 pound of uncrushed acidulated malt to the carboy, and toppped it all off with a bit of soda water in an effort to drive off any O2 that happened to survive in the headspace.
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/9/2/12929432/1439168257.png)
Sour Worting
From what I read, the ideal temperature for souring with Lactobacillus is around 110*. To achieve this, I added a space heater to my fermentation chamber and wired it to my STC1000+. I placed the carboy into the chamber on top of the thermocouple and went to bed.
I woke up the next day to find the temperature had actually dropped down to the mid 90s. Apparently, space heaters have internal safety mechanisms to shut off at a certain temperature. It tuns out that temperature is around 95* for mine. So that sucks, but with no viable alternative I decided to just let it ride (RDWHAHB and all that..).
From everything I've read, souring with grain cultured lacto requires 36-72 hours to reach sourness levels most brewers are striving for in a berliner. Knowing that I was wanting something pretty tart and also wanting to minimize O2 exposure, I elected to hold off on pulling samples until 36 hours into the sour worting rather than every 12 hours as I had originally planned. At the 36 hour mark, things were going well. There were no seriously off-putting smells (vomit and baby-diaper are two I've heard can take hold), and the pH had dropped down to 3.6.
I waited to pull my second sample sample until I was ready to start the boil, which happened to fall 60 hours into the souring process. The pH at this point was 3.4, which sounded great to me - being a bit fearful of what types of bacteria may exist without the presence of alcohol, I didn't taste the sample, and my limited experience meant I had very little concept for what that value meant. Either way I wasn't going to postpone boil day any further.
Boil Day
The boil portion went just like any other standard boil would go. I've read about no-boil methods and all that, but I was looking or something a bit more repeatable which meant killing off my precious lactobacillus. Since I used pilsner malt, I decided to go ahead with a 90 minute boil to avoid any potential DMS (which meant topping off with RO water since my initial volume was limited by the 6.5 gallon volume of my carboy). For hops, I used some old hops that had been sitting in my fridge for almost 2 years. The "target" IBU was 12, but given the age of the hops I have no idea what the actual value ended at (much lower..).
After the 90 minute boil I cooled as low as possible with my immersion chiller and transferred back into the freshly cleaned and sanitized carboy. I then placed the carboy into the fermentation chamber, now set to a primary fermentation temp in the mid 60s (either 62 or 68 - poor note taking..) and allowed the wort to chill to pitch temperatures before pitching a decanted starter.
Fermentation & Fruit
This thing fermented a lot harder than I anticipated given the low OG and pH. I actually had to add a blow off less than 24 hours in, and it continued fermenting hard for several days. After 5 days the bubbles had slowed enough to show it was about done, so I raised the temp up to 71 and left it to clean itself up.
2.5 weeks after boil day I called an audible. One of our local supermarkets (okay fine - Walmart) randomly had a fantastic shipment of mangoes arrive. They were only $0.40 each, so I bought a few. After eating one and remembering how amazing mangoes are, I decided I couldn't let the opportunity to make a mango berliner go to waste!
I still wanted to keep some of the base beer for comparison, so I bottled up about a gallon, which also had the effect of increasing available head space for the fruit addition. I purchased 14.5 pounds of mangoes (or about $20 worth), but those little suckers are hard to slice up. I did my best to keep all the fruit and only discard the seeds and skin, but in the end I was only left with 6.5 pounds of actual fruit to add to the ~4.5 gallons remaining in the fermenter. With the fruit added fermentation resumed with steady bubbles. A keg finally came available mid July so I transferred off the fruit (which was a giant pain) and force carbed as per usual. The fruit ended up eating another gallon of wort, so in the end I only finished with ~3 gallons in the keg. Bummer.
From what I read, the ideal temperature for souring with Lactobacillus is around 110*. To achieve this, I added a space heater to my fermentation chamber and wired it to my STC1000+. I placed the carboy into the chamber on top of the thermocouple and went to bed.
I woke up the next day to find the temperature had actually dropped down to the mid 90s. Apparently, space heaters have internal safety mechanisms to shut off at a certain temperature. It tuns out that temperature is around 95* for mine. So that sucks, but with no viable alternative I decided to just let it ride (RDWHAHB and all that..).
From everything I've read, souring with grain cultured lacto requires 36-72 hours to reach sourness levels most brewers are striving for in a berliner. Knowing that I was wanting something pretty tart and also wanting to minimize O2 exposure, I elected to hold off on pulling samples until 36 hours into the sour worting rather than every 12 hours as I had originally planned. At the 36 hour mark, things were going well. There were no seriously off-putting smells (vomit and baby-diaper are two I've heard can take hold), and the pH had dropped down to 3.6.
I waited to pull my second sample sample until I was ready to start the boil, which happened to fall 60 hours into the souring process. The pH at this point was 3.4, which sounded great to me - being a bit fearful of what types of bacteria may exist without the presence of alcohol, I didn't taste the sample, and my limited experience meant I had very little concept for what that value meant. Either way I wasn't going to postpone boil day any further.
Boil Day
The boil portion went just like any other standard boil would go. I've read about no-boil methods and all that, but I was looking or something a bit more repeatable which meant killing off my precious lactobacillus. Since I used pilsner malt, I decided to go ahead with a 90 minute boil to avoid any potential DMS (which meant topping off with RO water since my initial volume was limited by the 6.5 gallon volume of my carboy). For hops, I used some old hops that had been sitting in my fridge for almost 2 years. The "target" IBU was 12, but given the age of the hops I have no idea what the actual value ended at (much lower..).
After the 90 minute boil I cooled as low as possible with my immersion chiller and transferred back into the freshly cleaned and sanitized carboy. I then placed the carboy into the fermentation chamber, now set to a primary fermentation temp in the mid 60s (either 62 or 68 - poor note taking..) and allowed the wort to chill to pitch temperatures before pitching a decanted starter.
Fermentation & Fruit
This thing fermented a lot harder than I anticipated given the low OG and pH. I actually had to add a blow off less than 24 hours in, and it continued fermenting hard for several days. After 5 days the bubbles had slowed enough to show it was about done, so I raised the temp up to 71 and left it to clean itself up.
2.5 weeks after boil day I called an audible. One of our local supermarkets (okay fine - Walmart) randomly had a fantastic shipment of mangoes arrive. They were only $0.40 each, so I bought a few. After eating one and remembering how amazing mangoes are, I decided I couldn't let the opportunity to make a mango berliner go to waste!
I still wanted to keep some of the base beer for comparison, so I bottled up about a gallon, which also had the effect of increasing available head space for the fruit addition. I purchased 14.5 pounds of mangoes (or about $20 worth), but those little suckers are hard to slice up. I did my best to keep all the fruit and only discard the seeds and skin, but in the end I was only left with 6.5 pounds of actual fruit to add to the ~4.5 gallons remaining in the fermenter. With the fruit added fermentation resumed with steady bubbles. A keg finally came available mid July so I transferred off the fruit (which was a giant pain) and force carbed as per usual. The fruit ended up eating another gallon of wort, so in the end I only finished with ~3 gallons in the keg. Bummer.
Tasting:
So how did it turn out, you ask? Amazing!!!
Starting at the begining, the first samples smelled (as I mentioned, I didn't taste it pre-boil).. interesting... The sour wort smelled like nothing I had ever experienced. I asked a few people who happened to come by to "name that smell" and no one could nail it down. Eventually I decided to write down the three closest things I could think of which were 1) grain (freshly crushed pilsner) 2) moldy lemon - in a good way 3).. nothing. I couldn't even pick out one other scent that was familiar. I ended on "mix of tart and sweet" for my third descriptor. The good news is that neither baby diaper nor vomit were not present at all, so I moved on.
Once the beer fermented out, but before the mango addition, I tasted a sample. It had a funny lemon twang to it. Of course it was tart, but the lemon flavor was fairly strong and distracting. It also had a strong musty/earthy character to it. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of drinking 5 gallons of it. Luckily, the flavors faded and blended together well over the month+ it sat idle.
Then I added the mango.. At first, I really hadn't decided if it was worth the hassle or not. Pealing and pitting all that fruit took a while and was a sticky mess. Top that off with the pain of separating the final beer from the fruit and the fact that I lost at least a gallon of wort - I was leaning towards "no". That said, the final product is something I'm in love with. It's one of my favorite beers I've brewed so far. Perfect for the triple digit heat we've been having, and a great compliment to the other beer's I've got on tap. Surprisingly, it's also something several friends who either don't drink beer or don't drink "sours" have really enjoyed, and the keg has drained quickly. Now on to a more detailed review:
Appearance
Very light in color - about the same as most macro beers. Clear, but has the slightest haze (much less that the photo makes it appear). Its got a white puffy head that eventually recedes with some lacing - better retention than I expected, but I suppose 33% malted wheat really helps. Very pretty beer.
The non-fruited version is a touch lighter, but I imagine even that version is darker than traditional Berliners since these started with an OG in the upper 30s. The non-fruited version is much cloudier and looks more like a wheat beer should. I assume this is the difference between bottling and kegging.
Aroma
Straight earthy sourness with a hind of fruity sweetness similar to Starburst candies. The sourness makes it hard for me to pick out any fruit other than lemon/lime and maybe green apple, but the strong lemon flavor that was present early on is all but gone. The earthy character from the yeast is something I really enjoy. As it warms up green apple becomes more dominant.
The non-fruited version has a much brighter aroma with maybe a bit of graininess. Not quite as earthy. It is more effervescent than the kegged version (no idea what the difference in co2 volumes is) and it was hard to pick out anything around the co2.
Flavor
Man, this is great. Strongly tart like a lemonade without a boatload of sugar. It doesn't have a super clean lacitc flavor, which I assume is due to using grain as a source (probably some other bugs involved), but this does not detract from the beer. A little bit of graininess, and an earthiness from the yeast that gives it a bit of depth, which helps keep things interesting. If I didn't know it had mango I'm not sure I would ever pick it out. However since I know it's there, once it warms up I'm able to taste it.
The non-fruited version is a little more bland. Stronger graininess and sharper acidity. Less depth, less interesting.
Mouthfeel
Dry, crisp, and super refreshing. If I don't down it quickly (which is usually what happens because it's so easy to drink, and throwing one back after coming in out of the heat is really satisfying) it eventually looses some of the carbonation and warms up leading to a slightly creamier mouthfeel that coats the tongue, but then quickly relinquishes so that it is still refreshing and dry. It's dry, but rounded (not sharp).
The non-fruited version never relinquishes that crisp snappiness on the tongue. I feel this is a negative as it leaves the beer very one dimensional and I quickly grow tired of it, where-as I could enjoy the mango version all night long (literally, since it's only ~3.5% ABV). It finishes a bit astringent, something not apparent at all in the mango version. 10 bottles of this beer is about perfect - If I had 3+ gallons of this beer on tap I would be researching how to make syrups to add. The mango beer definitely doesn't require syrups. In fact, they would probably ruin it...
Overall
I love this beer. I'm very happy the sour worting technique worked so well, and I'll definitely be using it more in the future. As much as I hate the idea of adding fruit in the future since the mango flavor itself was not very apparent, I doubt I'll make this again without a plan for adding something. The fruit certainly added a roundness to the beer that in my opinion is necessary. Next time I may play around with adding juice concentrates, or at a minimum putting the fruit in a bag so that I can slowly pull it out and allow it to drain. Of course, syrups are always an option.
I was actually able to get this beer in front of a few guys for feedback, which was a first for me (lot of people drink my beer, but very few who are able to provide usable, knowledgeable feedback). I took a growler to the local home brew shop where three guys tried it and had nothing but positive things to say, and seemed to earnestly enjoy it. I eventually learned those three guys were all professional brewers! Two brew at St. Arnold, and one is the co-founder/brewer for Town in City, which opened the following week. They were there to judge a SMASH competition later in the day, and since I happened to have a SMASH on tap I was able to enter last minute (more on that later). Essentially their feedback was: no off flavors, well made beer. The only things to change going forward would be based on personal preference like potentially including a brett secondary.
I'm sad this keg is almost gone, and am already thinking of my next sour-wort beer!
Very light in color - about the same as most macro beers. Clear, but has the slightest haze (much less that the photo makes it appear). Its got a white puffy head that eventually recedes with some lacing - better retention than I expected, but I suppose 33% malted wheat really helps. Very pretty beer.
The non-fruited version is a touch lighter, but I imagine even that version is darker than traditional Berliners since these started with an OG in the upper 30s. The non-fruited version is much cloudier and looks more like a wheat beer should. I assume this is the difference between bottling and kegging.
Aroma
Straight earthy sourness with a hind of fruity sweetness similar to Starburst candies. The sourness makes it hard for me to pick out any fruit other than lemon/lime and maybe green apple, but the strong lemon flavor that was present early on is all but gone. The earthy character from the yeast is something I really enjoy. As it warms up green apple becomes more dominant.
The non-fruited version has a much brighter aroma with maybe a bit of graininess. Not quite as earthy. It is more effervescent than the kegged version (no idea what the difference in co2 volumes is) and it was hard to pick out anything around the co2.
Flavor
Man, this is great. Strongly tart like a lemonade without a boatload of sugar. It doesn't have a super clean lacitc flavor, which I assume is due to using grain as a source (probably some other bugs involved), but this does not detract from the beer. A little bit of graininess, and an earthiness from the yeast that gives it a bit of depth, which helps keep things interesting. If I didn't know it had mango I'm not sure I would ever pick it out. However since I know it's there, once it warms up I'm able to taste it.
The non-fruited version is a little more bland. Stronger graininess and sharper acidity. Less depth, less interesting.
Mouthfeel
Dry, crisp, and super refreshing. If I don't down it quickly (which is usually what happens because it's so easy to drink, and throwing one back after coming in out of the heat is really satisfying) it eventually looses some of the carbonation and warms up leading to a slightly creamier mouthfeel that coats the tongue, but then quickly relinquishes so that it is still refreshing and dry. It's dry, but rounded (not sharp).
The non-fruited version never relinquishes that crisp snappiness on the tongue. I feel this is a negative as it leaves the beer very one dimensional and I quickly grow tired of it, where-as I could enjoy the mango version all night long (literally, since it's only ~3.5% ABV). It finishes a bit astringent, something not apparent at all in the mango version. 10 bottles of this beer is about perfect - If I had 3+ gallons of this beer on tap I would be researching how to make syrups to add. The mango beer definitely doesn't require syrups. In fact, they would probably ruin it...
Overall
I love this beer. I'm very happy the sour worting technique worked so well, and I'll definitely be using it more in the future. As much as I hate the idea of adding fruit in the future since the mango flavor itself was not very apparent, I doubt I'll make this again without a plan for adding something. The fruit certainly added a roundness to the beer that in my opinion is necessary. Next time I may play around with adding juice concentrates, or at a minimum putting the fruit in a bag so that I can slowly pull it out and allow it to drain. Of course, syrups are always an option.
I was actually able to get this beer in front of a few guys for feedback, which was a first for me (lot of people drink my beer, but very few who are able to provide usable, knowledgeable feedback). I took a growler to the local home brew shop where three guys tried it and had nothing but positive things to say, and seemed to earnestly enjoy it. I eventually learned those three guys were all professional brewers! Two brew at St. Arnold, and one is the co-founder/brewer for Town in City, which opened the following week. They were there to judge a SMASH competition later in the day, and since I happened to have a SMASH on tap I was able to enter last minute (more on that later). Essentially their feedback was: no off flavors, well made beer. The only things to change going forward would be based on personal preference like potentially including a brett secondary.
I'm sad this keg is almost gone, and am already thinking of my next sour-wort beer!
Recipe:
Batch Size: 7 Gallons (includes 1 gallon for various starters)
Planned OG:1.035 (Actual = 1.038 after boiling post sour)
Planned IBU: 12** (used very old hops so actual value is even lower)
Planned Efficiency: 75%
FG: 1.003 (Actual)
Grain:
6# German Pilsner
3# Red Wheat Malt
Hops:
0.35 oz 2yo German Tettnang @ 90min
0.25 oz 2yo US Goldings @ 90min
Extras:
6.5 pounds fresh mango (added to ~4.5 gallons wort for secondary)
Yeast:
WLP644 Trois (Gen 2)
Water:
Target Profile (ppm):
Batch Size: 7 Gallons (includes 1 gallon for various starters)
Planned OG:1.035 (Actual = 1.038 after boiling post sour)
Planned IBU: 12** (used very old hops so actual value is even lower)
Planned Efficiency: 75%
FG: 1.003 (Actual)
Grain:
6# German Pilsner
3# Red Wheat Malt
Hops:
0.35 oz 2yo German Tettnang @ 90min
0.25 oz 2yo US Goldings @ 90min
Extras:
6.5 pounds fresh mango (added to ~4.5 gallons wort for secondary)
Yeast:
WLP644 Trois (Gen 2)
Water:
Target Profile (ppm):
Salt Additions (gram/gallon):
References:
As I mentioned, I read a lot about this subject before venturing out on my own. I want to make sure and give credit where credit is due, so below are a few places I picked up one thing or another along the way. There are lots of ways of souring beer and I believe my method is a combination of several I've read about. I'm not sure how much or how little I actually used from these references, but the wealth of online information was invaluable in the planning of this batch of deliciousness so here are a few I know I learned from:
Derek Springer's Five Blades Brewing
Michael Tonsmeire's Blog and Book
This post on HomeBrewTalk
Dr. Lambic's Sour Beer Blog (I don't think I found this one until well after I had already brewed, but it's a fantastic resource)