[darkalex]

Hello Gang,

I am a big fan of the Berliner Weiss style.  As I live in Florida , and the heat index brings the outdoors into the protein rest range, this style of beer has quickly become my table beer.  For the initial 5 gallon batch, 1 vial of WLP029 Kolsch and WLP677 Lactobacillus delbruckii was used.  Over the course of the 2011 brew cycle, I have rinsed the yeast/bacterial cake with boiled and cooled water, added this to a 1.040 yeast starter, and repitched into a subsequent batch within a day or two of packaging the previous batch.  I have done this over 4 batches, the last two winning awards for sour beer in the Florida circuit.

I stored the yeast/bacterial cake for fifth batch for about two weeks prior to pitching, the resulting beer in the carboy now tastes like cocktail sauce..  nothing like Berliner Weiss and sadly this batch is going to be dumped.  The early batches having been restarted within a day or two of racking, and the fifth being stored a longer time period, do you suppose this might be my problem? 

Thanks!

Alex

[davidgzach]

Probably not a storage issue.  If it was over 6 months, then maybe.  I would guess a sterilization issue or the fact that you are on generation #5 and have some mutations.  If it tastes like cocktail sauce, I'm guessing the former.  You had some bacteria creep in there one way or another....