Looking for recommendations for WLP 630 Berliner/Lacto Blend

[San_Diego_Matt]

2 months or so ago our club held a club competition at the request of a local brewpub. The requested style was "a light ale with wheat and Belgian yeast." The brewpub intended to take the recipe, scale it up to their system and serve it.

The winning recipe ended up being a pretty standard saison. A couple weeks after the competition, the brewub had us in to help brew it and at the end of the day each club member that helped, got to take home 5 gallons of saison wort.

The brewer had originally intended on having a couple different strains of saison yeast on hand for us homebrewers to try (we got the wort pre-pitch) but on brew day he only had one yeast on hand. I mentioned to him that I had a vial of WLP630 Berliner Weisse Blend (A blend of a traditional German Wiezen yeast and Lactobacillus) that's part of the 2011 Platinum Series this year.

I pitched it, started fermenting warm (78F at the request of the brewer) and have since cooled it down to 72F. It's been in the carboy for about 6 weeks now and I'm considering bringing this to NHC this year.

I've never worked with any sort of sour culture before and the reviews of this yeast on the White Labs site are pretty slim.

It's done fermenting, but the reviews I've read have said it can take a couple months for the sour/tartness to set it.

My questions are:

Should I keg this now?

If so, is this going to be an instance where I need to use "different" transferring equipment because of the lacto?

If I do keg it now, once kegged, where should the keg go? In the keggerator? In the 70F house?

Any advice is appreciated

Matt

[siwelwerd]

I brewed a Berliner Weisse with the 630 strain(s) on 2/27. Like you, I pitched about 80, and let it cool down to about 70 and fermented there. I kegged it a month later (4/3), and it was not very sour at all. So I pitched the dregs of the two commercial Berliner Weisse I found at my local shop into the keg, and have had it at room temperature since. I tasted it yesterday, and it had developed a little more sourness (I don't know if I should attribute this to the dregs, or to patience). My plan is to keep it at room temp until the sourness develops to where I want it, then into the kegerator and drink it.

Not sure how helpful that is, other than I'm in the same boat as you just a month ahead. My impression is that warmer temperatures will help develop sourness more/faster, which is why mine is sitting at room temp.

[San_Diego_Matt]

This is great info! Thanks for the help.

Looks like I may need something else to bring to NHC

[ChrisKennedy]

I am anti berliner blends, simply because I don't think it contains enough lacto. But at this point, the warmer you can get it the better. Upper 70s to 80F or so will help the sourness develop. Priming your keg with some simple sugars (instead of force carbonating) and pitching some more lacto, or the dregs from say a Cuvee Rene, can help also.