Icky's Berliner Weisse Recipe

[yellowthere]

Didn't Icky have a great Berliner recipe that was supposed to be really good? he even can some talk at an NHC about it, I think.

I'd love to have the recipe and the process. My BW was okay, but not sour enough, much like others' in the forum.

Thanks,

[Oktober]

Didn't Icky have a great Berliner recipe that was supposed to be really good? he even can some talk at an NHC about it, I think.

I'd love to have the recipe and the process. My BW was okay, but not sour enough, much like others' in the forum.

Thanks,

+1

-Okt

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

Yeah it was good, tried it at NHC. I'm working on my second one now and it's not ready but it's better than the first. I did no-boil and also pitched a mixed-bug culture.

There's supposed to be some great info in the new Brewing WIth Wheat book, I'd check that out too.

[Mylo]

From what I recall, it's basically just a 50/50 grainbill. Whatever will get you to a 1.030 OG, with your efficiency. Most any hop will do, cuz it's a short boil. I stuck with a small charge of Hallertau for about 6.5 IBUs in the 10-15 min boil. I also did the sour mash, and was quite happy with the result.


Mylo

[11amas]

Whatever happened to the ol' funkybucket? Once he got famous he dropped the BN?

[BrewerJ]

I don't know ickys recipe but he is in my homebrew club. Berliner weisse recipes are real simple. What I can tell you is its more the process than the recipe. Get yourself around a 50/50 or 60 40 2-row wheat grist 1030-1038 og and no more than 10 ibus. I have had good results with this process. After cooling to about 90 I like to pitch lacto and let it sit warm for about 24 hours. Then pitch your choice of sac and let it finish. Taste it after two weeks and if you want more sourness let it sit in the keg above 60 for several more months until desired sourness is reached.

[mediumsk]

There's supposed to be some great info in the new Brewing WIth Wheat book, I'd check that out too.

definitely one of the main reasons to pick up the book. According to Stan, historically BW has been made with about a million different process's. They really stress a 1 to 5 sach to lacto pitch rate though if your going for the pure culture route. I will be trying this method on my next one.

[yellowthere]

I don't know ickys recipe but he is in my homebrew club. Berliner weisse recipes are real simple. What I can tell you is its more the process than the recipe. Get yourself around a 50/50 or 60 40 2-row wheat grist 1030-1038 og and no more than 10 ibus. I have had good results with this process. After cooling to about 90 I like to pitch lacto and let it sit warm for about 24 hours. Then pitch your choice of sac and let it finish. Taste it after two weeks and if you want more sourness let it sit in the keg above 60 for several more months until desired sourness is reached.

I definitely agree with you. I was more asking about the process than the recipe; although I didn't do a good job of asking for it in the original post. The last BW that I made, I pitched lacto for about 3 days at 80F held constantly, I lowered the temp to around 67, pitched sac, but it wasn't terribly sour. After the ferment was done completely, I bumped up the temp to 90 for almost 2 months. Still was only faintly sour, which was only noticeable after I carbonated it heavily. I used White labs lacto, no starter, maybe that was my problem.

I don't want to add lactic acid either, I want to figure out how to use lacto to produce firmly sour beer in a BW or otherwise. I've got some experiments kicking around in my head. I'll probably do 3-4 attempts at sours with lacto. After hearing that New Glarus and Cascade (the cascade that I had was sour as hell too) get the vast majority of sourness from lacto, it really makes me want to play with this and figure out a consistent process for sours.