Monday, September 27, 2010

Berliner Weiss

Over the winter my friend Jesse brewed a Berliner Weiss that turned out delicious. He used a historically influenced no-boil method where he did a normal mash, boiled a tiny amount of hops in the sparge water, then sparged with that, and then did not boil the resultant wort at all after lautering. It had a butyric vomity character for several months, but it has faded significantly now into a tart, complex beer that is aging nicely. He happen to save the yeast/bug slurry from that batch and made a second BW with it as well that, as far as I know, hasn't been bottled yet.

I got him to share half of the resultant slurry from that batch with me and brewed one of my own following his original method yesterday. I was brewing a Habanero Pale Ale, and happen to have a bunch of Belgian Plis and German wheat malt I bought in bulk just sitting around, a thermos full of BW yeast slurry, and I bought the hops awhile back so I could brew it at my leisure without having to make a trip out for a tiny bag of hops. Here's the recipe:

Berliner Weiss

brewed on: 9/26/2010
expected OG: 1.028

Expected IBUs: 4 IBUs
mash temp: 150F

mash:
3 lbs. Belgian Pils
3 lbs. German Wheat

Hops:
0.5 oz Hallertauer - boiled in the sparge water for 20 minutes prior to sparging

Yeast:
Jesse's yeast/bug slurry

Boiled the hops in the sparge water, but otherwise this was completely a no-boil recipe. I collected the wort, let it cool naturally in the basement with a lid on it, then transfered it to a carboy and pitched the slurry while it was lukewarm (to encourage a bit of bacterial growth before the yeast kicked in.)

10/4/10 - SG ~0.999. Appley, malt w/ slight sourness developing.

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