If you remember from the Berliner Weisse brewday, Batch 1 was allowed to convert into a sour mash in the keg. 3 days into pitching the raw grain and L.acidophilus, I took a quick taste. It was very light yellow and very cloudy with chunks of grossness floating around, and it had a noticeable sourness. It's quite a nice sourness - tart, but not aggressive or jarring. I continued to let it run for a full week though, as I wanted the sourness to really come through.
So Day 7 - boil day. The plan was to rack the sour mash back into the tun for a short 15 minute boil with hops, before cooling and fermenting as a conventional beer.
The stuff looked absolutely horrendous in the tun. It had a film of stuff at the top - not quite a pellicle, but rather what I'd describe as a biofilm.
10g of hallertau mittelfruh hops were added at the start of the boil, which lasted for 15 mins. I also added some irish moss as well. At flameout, the wort was run off into my usual Cube to cool overnight. At this point I'm still deciding on which yeast to add. Traditionally it would be a German ale yeast and perhaps some Brett, but I do have fresh starters of Pacman and Brett bruxellensis Trois on hand. On top of that, there's still that other packet of Wyeast Berliner Weisse blend. Choices, choices, choices! I'll probably mull over that for the next hour or so.
7 Oct 2013 - Update
I decided to go with Pacman.
Anyway, here's what happened during the boil. My wife came rushing out to see if a sewage pipe had burst, and I saw her walking around the house looking like this:
I'm also going to have to up everyone's anticipation by presenting this pic of my sis, after a sip of the (unboiled) Weisse:
Still, I have a strange feeling that this is going to turn out quite ok, and soon enough the 2 ladies pictured above will probably be begging me to brew more of this stuff.
Batch 2
Batch 2 was the other 10 litres which was cooled, and had Wyeast Berliner Blend thrown in. Considering that it was a rather old package of yeast/bacteria, they really worked quickly! I forgot that I didn't install an airlock in my fermenting "wild" Cube (I usually just leave the lid slightly loose to allow CO2 to vent), and this was what happened overnight:
That's it for now! The next time I'll most likely be reporting on the batches when they are carbed and ready to drink.
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