Blueberry Ale

Brewiz · 01-29-2006, 07:18 PM

Guys,
I am doing my first ag with a friend of mind and we are trying to come up with a fruity brew for the wifes.. Any suggestions would be greatly appreiciated.. Pictures and questions to come.

**Pumbaa** · 01-29-2006, 08:13 PM

I did a blueberry wheat with 2lbs of dried bluberries into the secondary, been great so far . . . I still need to bottle that crap though, HOPEFULLY Monday night . . .

had to rack it to a 3rd fermentor though to let it settle out some after 2 weeks with the blue berries

jldesign · 01-29-2006, 08:17 PM

did a raspberry lager once. used 2 bags of frozen raspberries. dropped them into the wort at flame out and steeped for 5 minutes. secondary is mandatory after 4-5 days. turned out good.

also but my notes are sketchy as it was a test

did a raspberry bock
recipe as usual
primary for 4 days
racked half to secondary as usual

racked the other half to another secondary onto (1 can of oregon blueberries at any food store) oregon makes canned pie filling cherry & blueberry for sure and it is pasturized in the can so no worries.

secondary for 7 days or so then I re-racked to a thirdary? to leave behind all the blueberry funk for 2+ weeks not knowing what the blueberries would do to FG
it was great like a dessert wine you could only have one or 2 at most maybe a full 5 gallon batch with one can would have been better. it did finish at correct FG so I think it was finished. it was strong % stuff anyway. it was good though espcially 2-3 month out real sweet. I'd use oregon for any fruit beers from now on IMO.

FWIW
found this in my bookmarks
http://www.leeners.com/fruitbeerrecipes.html

SteveM · 01-29-2006, 08:57 PM

I did a Raspberry Ale for the holidays. I wanted something that would be very "accessible" for people who thought that my typical amber or darker ales were "too strong." It came out great. I wanted to be able to taste the raspberry and not overwhelm it with hops, and have a nice light color. Here is the recipe:

Coopers Very Light LME - one can.
Rice Solids - I forget the exact amount - I will try to remember to look it up and edit here - Two pounds, if I recall correctly.
No steeping grains.
A very light hop load - like one ounce of a 3.6% acid, half at the start of the boil, half in the last five minutes.
Nottingham dry yeast.
Five ounces of Raspberry extract.
3/4 cup of priming sugar.

I boiled it all up for the usual hour. The rice solids look a bit odd as the boil gets going but press on. I let it sit in my primary for two weeks and went straight to bottle. I put the priming sugar and the raspberry extract in the primer (boiled with maybe a quart of water for about fifteen minutes).

I will do this again next year (this was a holiday beer) but I will use a secondary for sure. Using rice solids defintely produces a much lighter and less compacted sediment at the bottom of the bottles than you usually get with barley malt. Pouring, even now, requires careful decanting. I figure the use of a secondary, maybe for two or three weeks, should help this. my raspberry ale is VERY pale in color - commercial beer pale, which is what I was going for.

I will likely use something like a couple of jars of Polaner All Fruit instead of fruit extract. I am not unhappy with how it came out with extract but I read here about some folks that went that way with good results. I am leery of using fresh fruit because of the sanitation issues.

Brewiz · 01-29-2006, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pumbaa

I did a blueberry wheat with 2lbs of dried bluberries into the secondary, been great so far . . . I still need to bottle that crap though, HOPEFULLY Monday night . . .

had to rack it to a 3rd fermentor though to let it settle out some after 2 weeks with the blue berries

Pumbaa,
How about sharing that recipe....Sounds pretty good!!!

**Pumbaa** · 01-29-2006, 10:31 PM

not much to really share

Just made a basic wheet beer with DME, 6lbs I think (65% wheat malt 45% barley malt) 2lbs dried blueberries, can't remember what hops, and Wyeasts american wheat yeast

let it sit in the primary until it was done
racked it to a secondary
blanched the dried blueberrys in 160f water for 15 minutes and added them to 2ndary
let it sit in the 2ndary for a couple weeks
racked it to a 3rd fermentor to settle out a bit more
plan on priming with 9oz of wheat DME when I bottle

mainly followed BJCP guildelines for American Wheat (6D) and tried to stay as close to that for the basic wheat as possible, but stayed at the high end of the IBU scale to counter the blueberries. Addition of the blueberries fubar'd the SRM . . . the beer is purple.

Last taste test was good, hint of the blue beries wasnt overwhelming but was noticable. Soon as I get it bottled and carbonated I'll let ya know how it really is. Gonna force myself to get it into bottles tomarrow, I've just been so freeking busy that I honestly havent had the time.

Wonder if I can get my wife to throw the bottles into the tub with some bleach b4 she goes to work tomarrow . . . that or I'm gonna be up kinda late since I'm working a 48 hour shift and have a officer class to go to tomarrow. 52 hours at work in 3 days gets long