Berliner Weisse 1830's style

It's seems like an eternity ago that I last wrote about Berliner Weisse. In fact, it was just last summer. How time flies. Before you know it, it'll be christmas again.

"The Art of Brewing" by David Booth (published 1834) is an unusual book. British technical brewing books of the period rarely make any much of foreign beer. Partly, no doubt, because of the lack of contact with continental brewers. The superiority of British brewing technology meant there was little to learn, too.

But Booth dedicated a whole section of his book to continental brewing methods. He describes how they brewed in a variety of European cities: Brussels, Munich, Vienna, Augsburg and, of course, Berlin.

You'll notice that there's no mention of lactic acid bacteria, nor even sourness. The system of delivering the beer in casks to pubs where the fermentation was completed and the beer bottled, is very similar to that employed by Gose breweries in the Leipzig area.

[The following passage is taken from "The Art of Brewing", by David Booth, 1834, chapter IV pages 41-43.]


METHOD OP BREWING WHITE BEER AT BERLIN.

This White Beer, so called on account of its pale colour, is made from a mixture of five parts of malted wheat with one part of malted barley. There is no false bottom in the mash- tun, and the copper is very small in proportion.

Nearly nine barrels of liquor (8.8), heated in the copper to 95 degrees of Fahrenheit, are turned into the mash-tun, and mashed, during half an hour, with 3.83 quarters of malted wheat and 0.76 quarters of malted barley, both ground fine. While the mashing is going on, 5.6 barrels of liquor are brought to the boiling-point in the copper, and immediately added to the goods, the mashing of which is continued a quarter of an hour longer. The heat of the mash is now 126 degrees.

After an hour allowed for infusion, two barrels of the worts are taken from the top of the mash and put into the copper, where they are mixed with fifteen pounds of fine hops, and boiled a quarter of an hour. This boiling is interrupted by the introduction of four barrels more of worts, taken also from the top of the mash. There have been now six barrels of worts altogether put into the copper; and these, along with the hops, as soon as they are raised to 75 degrees of Reaumur (201 of Fahrenheit), are, with the exception of a barrel left to keep the bottom of the copper from burning, turned back into the mash-tun, where, after being mashed a few minutes, they are left to stand half an hour for infusion. Heat of the tun, after mashing, 153 degrees.

Other six barrels of the worts, taken from the top of the mash, are carried to the copper, and heated to 205 degrees, when the whole of what is in the copper as well as in the mash-tun, grains included, is turned into another vessel called the tap-tun. This tun has a false bottom, which is covered with a layer of straw, over which the goods are deposited, the heat being 167 degrees; but no mashing takes place in the tap-tun.

In about a quarter of an hour the cock of the tap-tun is opened, but in so small a degree that the worts can scarcely be said to run, it occupying commonly seven hours before the whole are drained off. The motive for this slow progress is, to have the worts as clear as possible, and, indeed, they are almost quite bright A sparge of six barrels of boiling liquor is added to the beer, and the whole is pumped directly from the under-back into the coolers, from whence, at 72 degrees, it is let down into a fermenting-tun. There it is mixed up with a gallon of good solid yeast, and in two hours the fermentation becomes apparent. From eight to ten hours after, when the head has risen about four inches, this fermenting wort is cleansed into small casks, and immediately carried out to the publicans, in whose custody it passes through the other stages of its fermentation. The consequence is, that the Brewer has never any yeast of his own, but is obliged to purchase it from the publicans; and it is his practice to buy from the customers of another Brewer, so as he may have a change of yeast, which is accounted more favourable to the production of a perfect fermentation.

From the quantities of malt before-mentioned, the Brewer has been able to send out eighteen and a half barrels of beer. The fermentation is finished in the publican's cellar in three days; the cask is bunged up on the fifth day; the beer is bottled on the ninth, and drunk on the fourteenth or fifteenth day. It may, however, be kept in bottles six months or more, without deterioration. It seldom requires finings, and has a very agreeable taste.

The wheat-malt is necessary for the production of the requisite flavour, as much as for colour. Wheat is seldom, if ever, malted in this country ; and we have never seen the operation performed. The acrospire and the roots come out at the same time ; and it is the care of the maltster to keep the former as short as possible. It is said to be necessary to allow the wheat-malt to clot together on the floor, otherwise the separated grains would cease to grow. The completion of the process is judged of by crushing the malt.