OK, so I got more interested in this topic than I originally thought that I would so why not start a thread?

What I am looking to do is use the kettle souring technique to brew a 1 gallon batch of Berliner Weiss.  Looking to do this over the summer. Here are the steps involved, which I will update as they are clarified.

Mash

This is straightforward.  Grist will be 50 / 50, 2 Row and Wheat.  May even go with more wheat.  Will mash low, around 148.  Will either sparge or do a mash out.  Will shoot for 5 or so quarts.  OG ~1.030.  Some suggest mash hopping but I won't this time.

Kettle souring

Will bring wort to a brief boil then chill to around 100 degrees.  Then pitch lacto.  Let sit for not sure how long,  Try to hold temp around 100 to 110  Options for this are crock pot, oven, warm room (attic).

Questions.  Yogurt or smack pack of lacto.  Yogurt is cheaper.  If yogurt how do I add it?  Just scoop it in?  Also how much?  Maybe need to target pH or just wing it.

UPDATE    Will use yogurt, a couple of spoonfuls.  Temperature will be maintained by using a warm water bath in a cooler.  Will swap out the water as needed.  Not going to monitor pH.  Will just let it sour for a few days and take what I get.

Boil

Boil 15 minutes max.  No hops.  Add some lemon zest at flameout (less than one lemon).  Chill and pitch yeast (not sure which yeast I will use).  This is also straightforward.

Primary for 2 - 3 weeks then bottle as usual.

That's it.  So, what I really need to figure out is the souring part.

Comments, suggestions are welcome.

Good idea here for maintaining temperature while souring.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/11/sour-experiment-1-two-week-sour.html

Water bath in a cooler should work.  Swap out the water once or twice a day.  It would only be a few days at most.  Not sure why I did not think of this before as I have used this technique to ferment cooler.

 

But I want it to taste good.

Ba-dum cha....

On a serious note, I'd buy the strain instead of using yogurt.  Same reason as for yeast, I'm not sure it's predictable what will happen with a strain or mixture of them not selected for the purpose.  Also hard to know the right amount.

I have heard commercial lacto strains don't seem to sour as intensely as what you get from yogurt or grains.

At work we use grains for our sour wort starter and it goes pretty quickly compared to what I have seen in homebrew forums.  Starter on day 1, mash and pitch starter on day 2, full boil and yeast ferment on day 3.

Here is a local guy's experiment

And as a funny side story, one of the newer homebrewers in the area was sooooo excited to brew his first sour beer and used the above blog as his road map.  He posted a picture on facebook of his yogurt starter buzzing away on a stir plate.  Blog guy basically responded with a face palm.

MTA: be careful with 15 minute boils.  #DMS

MTA: be careful with 15 minute boils.  #DMS

Yeah has come up a lot in my research.  I am going to go with the shorter boil for this test batch.  If I can get the proof of concept I will likely do a bigger batch at some point.  Would probably cut less corners for that one.