The latest beer to to be brewed in Clawhammer's home brew "test kitchen" is a keg conditioned Berliner Weisse. This is a low alcohol wheat beer that originated in Germany. It's final flavor will be a little sour and not very bitter at all.

Berliner Weisse Style Guidelines

• Sharply sour and somewhat acidic.
• A mild wheat flavor with light body.
• Very little to no hop character (IBUs 3-8).
• Low ABV (2.8% - 3.8%).
• Og: 1.028-1.032.
• Fg: 1.003-1.006.

Keg Conditioned Berliner Weisse - Homebrew Recipe Video

Here's the video, in case you aren't the readin' type. However, if you're interested in brewing this beer, scroll down for full recipe details.

Water

Beginning water volume: 6.7 gallons (25.4 liters).

Malt and Hops

• 2-row German Pilsner: 3lbs. (1.4kg) (50%)
• German Wheat Malt: 3lbs. (1.4kg) (50%)
• 1oz. Hallertau (28.3g)

Mashing & Hops

We mashed at 133F (56.1C) for 60 minutes, raised the temp to 152F (66.7C) for 15 minutes, then raised the temp to 170F (76.7C) for a 10 min mashout. This is what you call a step mash.

Mashing in

We also added our hops, 1 oz. (28.3g) of Hallertau, at the beginning of the mash, which is sometimes called "first wort" hopping.

Adding first wort hops

Fun fact: we also used a hop variety that originated in Germany, Hallertau. These are historic hops that are perfect when brewing traditional recipes like this one. 

Boil

We only did a 15 minute boil for this beer. It was so short because normally a Berliner Weisse isn't boiled at all, but we wanted to make sure anything living was boiled off so our beer wouldn't be contaminated.

Yeast & Fermentation

We cooled to 70F (21.1C) then pitched our yeast. Note, we used a special yeast for this beer - White Labs Berliner Weisse Blend WLP630.

This blend is perfect for a Berliner Weisse because it has Saccharomyces (normal yeast) and Lactobacillus, a special kind of bacteria that will give the Berliner Weisse its sour flavor.

Pitching yeast

We fermented this at 70F (21.1C) for two weeks and plan on keg conditioning for 12 weeks

Benchmarks

• Starting Gravity - 1.030
• Final Gravity - 1.010
• Final keg volume: 5.0 gallons (18.9 liters)
• ABV - 2.63%

We'll often take a starting gravity sample while we're chilling our wort down to yeast pitching temp

Tasting Notes

We made a tasting video about this beer once it aged about 8 months, watch it to see how this recipe turned out.