Home of the BrewNosers

So, I am doing some reading for the BJCP exam and I came across this paragraph:

"...One exception to boiling was historically used to brew the Berliner Weisse style. Here, the hops were added
to the mash tun, and the wort is cooled after sparging and then fermented with a combination of
lactobacillus from the malt and an ale yeast."

I am now intrigued, has anyone tried the "historical" Berliner Weisse Style of no boil?

Patrice at Acadie-Broue does his that way, only he boils it to kill off the lacto and pitches a little brett with the ale yeast for complexity. He mashes for 24 hours though to let the lacto have a good go at it.

Interesting. Have you tried the beer he does this way?
He boils it long enough to kill the lacto and then adds brett.
Would this be to better predict the outcome of the beer? Or some other reason that I am overlooking...

I think it's to balance that "horse blanket" flavor with the acid. It's a complexity thing, so as not to go too far down either road. He probably does it in leu of blending.
I haven't tried it yet. I've never done a sour, but it's on my horizon. Maybe spring when it's warm enough to get the lacto going and still have a cool fermentation.

Chalmers and I did a BW today and boiled for 15m as per BCS

Did you sour mash?

Sent from the brew timer.

RubberToe wrote:Did you sour mash?

Sent from the brew timer.

No, we just went with the berliner blend yeast for White Labs and I added acid malt to the mash.

Found the answer to my question. The natural occurring or "wild" yeast here in NS sucks, doesn't yield nice flavours. Which makes sense, we have probably all had an infected batch at some point and know it probably did not improve the flavour profile. Just created a gushing or exploding monster.

In areas where they have awesome wild yeasts, the boil may not be necessary.

If you're interested in BW homebrewing, I recommend you watch this presentation from the 2012 NHC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hClp9huB1M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a nutshell, they found that the best way to brew a Berliner that is a very close or exact representation of a true Berliner is to pitch Lacto FIRST, on its own, leave in primary for a week, and THEN pitch a German Ale yeast to help finish off fermentation. They also added some Brett at bottling.

I brewed a Berliner a couple months ago, and used the Wyeast 3191 PC-Berliner Weisse blend, which has the German Ale strain, Lacto, and Brett all together.

berley wrote:If you're interested in BW homebrewing, I recommend you watch this presentation from the 2012 NHC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hClp9huB1M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a nutshell, they found that the best way to brew a Berliner that is a very close or exact representation of a true Berliner is to pitch Lacto FIRST, on its own, leave in primary for a week, and THEN pitch a German Ale yeast to help finish off fermentation. They also added some Brett at bottling.

I brewed a Berliner a couple months ago, and used the Wyeast 3191 PC-Berliner Weisse blend, which has the German Ale strain, Lacto, and Brett all together.

I was interested in knowing why the wild yeast was not used, as the style was originally made.

Good video on BW.