Berliner Weisse

I first sampled a Berliner Weisse at Tria the summer before when my sister was working there.  It was a Dr. Fritz Briem 1809 served with woodruff syrup and was amazing.  It is a nice intro to sour beers.  So I set off researching the style and the multitude of techniques for brewing this beer.  I settled on going with a 15 min boil and using lacto.  I used my single kettle e-BIAB setup with a full volume continuous recirculation.  The European Ale was slow to ferment and after a week I pitched a packet of S-05 for safe measure.  I let it sit for 3 months and kegged it, which was a big mistake.  It had no sourness and was very boring.  I almost poured out the keg but decided to bottle the remainder with my new bottling adapter that lets me go right from the tap to the bottle without changing any pressure.  A few months later I cracked a bottle and was stunned, the beer was perfect, great carbonation, great head, great sourness.  Just a great Berliner Weisse all the way around.  Lesson learned, always bottle this beer.

Grains:

4.2# Pils

3# Wheat

Mash at 149 for 90 mins       

           

Additions:

15 min boil    

1 oz Hallertau at 15 min

Wyeast 1338 – European Ale and Wyeast lacto

OG 1036
fg1006

 
Poland Spring water with no adjustments

Levitation - Fail

I respect the guys at Stone a heck of a lot and wanted to brew one of the recipes that they released in BYO.  I was looking for a beer with some hop, but more of a session beer so I settled on Levitation.  I used my CB20 system and missed my target marks by 5 gravity points.  My target efficiency was 81% and I got 73%, which is about right for a CB20 system with no sparge.  I had planned for this in my calculations, so it wasn't a big deal, but I am thinking about redesigning my system to have an option to sparge.  I didn't have any crystal hops on hand so I subbed Hallertau.  I kegged the beer and at first tasting, it just wasn't good.  I let it go for a few months hoping it would get better and it never did.  Sadly, I gave up and poured out the keg.  Maybe it was the hop sub or the higher suggested mash temp, I don't know, but this beer came out bad.  Others have reported good results with this recipe, but it didn't work out for me.

9.4# 2-row

1.1# c-75

.6# c-150

.044# black patent

Mash at 156-157

Additions:

90 min boil

.5 oz columbus 90 min

1 oz amarillo 30 min

1.16 oz crystal 20 min

.38 oz simcoe 20 min

1.48 oz amarillo dry hop

s-04 at 67 add diacytyl rest

1048 OG
fg1014

Mosher's Ideal Pale Ale

Water Adjustments (tsp)

.587 Epsom Salt

.066 Chalk

4.407 Gypsum

Ca=120

SO4=269

Mg=19

Na=27

Cl=70

Carb=65

Hard=377

Alk=57