Hello I am going to brew a berliner wisse for the very first time my ? Is how do u sour this beer up I heard of kettle sour but I don’t know if i can keep temp of 90f plus. I do have a freezer an a dual temp controller but I don’t know if it be safe to plug up a space heat an place it inside the freezer an have it set to 90f plus .
The four ways that I have heard of (only tried two) are:
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Add food grade lactic acid to achieve your desired sourness
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Make a solution of about two cups of DME to 1/2 gallon of water, boil for about five minutes and cool to 100 degrees F and add a handful of your base grains. Try keeping it at 100 degrees for a day or so and then on brewday add this solution to your boil. (This is the old fashioned way, but I have never tried it this way)
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Pitch a Lactobacillus delbrueckii culture; e.g. WLP677 along with your regular ale yeast. Make sure you use a closed fermentation system with this culture because the slightest oxidation can really throw this culture off. I pitched the Lacto culture 24 hrs before my Ale yeast, but I do not know if that makes a huge difference, just what I did and it worked.
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Blend with a sour beer. This method seems to take the fun out of making the BW.
Good Luck and happy brewing.
My experience is somewhat limited, but here are my thoughts…
The 90F minimum temperature is ideal if you’re culturing your lacto from grain. This is to give the lacto bacteria a head-start to lower pH and prevent some of the nasties from growing in it. If you’re using a purchased culture (l. delbrueckii or l. brevis), I think you can skip it as long as you pasteurize your wort.
How sour do you want it? Like andymag says, keep O2 out of it to prevent the vomit smells. L brevis seems to be the culture of choice for a quick souring. Give it a couple of days to sour with just the bacteria, then pitch your yeast. Or if you want to keep your equipment clean, sour it in your kettle (with some saran wrap on top to prevent O2) for a couple days, pasteurize/boil, and then pitch primary yeast in your bucket like any other fermentation.
I’d skip the food-grade lactic acid - don’t fear the bacteria! It’ll give you better results to go with a lacto culture.
You don’t need a space heater, just a 60W light bulb will do, and it will be perfectly safe if it isn’t actually touching anything. Just have the controller turning the light bulb on and off.
I’ve only used the “throw a handful of grain” into the wort method, and that worked great. Two days at near 90F and the lactic had fully fermented out.
I would caution you to use something like a paint can to cover the light bulb. I used the lightbulb method before I got a heating pad and it started to melt the lid of my chest freezer. Of course i used a lamp which put the bulb about 6" from the lid. A shorter lamp would probably alleviated the issue I assume.
