Blueberry Wheat

Hi all. I have been trying to find a recipe for a Blueberry Wheat (wife thinks it would be yummy), and haven't had any luck in the extract department. Have any of you fine peeps tried to make an Blueberry Wheat? If so, did it end up good? Recipes? Thanks in advance!

I've tried 3 times to make a good blueberry beer, once using blueberry extract (very artificial tasting), once with juice(not much blueberry flavor but probably the best I made), and once with real blueberries (purple in color, not enough blueberry flavor to notice) and then gave up. I think if you get a good quality blueberry extract you might like it but the extract I got wasn't that good. I've quit trying to make one. Seadog Blueberry Wheat was pretty good but I don't know just how they get their flavor. I've sampled one at a brewpub that was made on premises but that one wasn't much better than any I had brewed either.

Making a good fruit beer isn't that difficult. I made a blueberry kolsch last spring that won 1st in it's category in several competitions. This is what I did and would recommend:

1) Start with a good recipe and brew it well. Adding fruit to a poorly brewed beer just results in a poorly brewed fruit beer. You want to have a solid base beer that you would want to drink on it's own.
2) Add the fruit in the secondary. I added my frozen store bought blueberries in my kolsch at secondary. I tasted a sample at the end of each day to see where it was at. When I had the level of fruit flavor and aroma, I transferred the beer to my keg and carbed. Designing Great Beers recommended 2 lbs per gallon which is too high - I'd go with 0.5 - 1 lb per gallon and taste each day.

It wasn't difficult to do. I'm personally not a fan of the fruit extracts so I can't recommend them.

I made the brewers best wheat beer kit. I added about 3 lbs of frozen blueberry to secondary for ten days. I also added some blueberry extract flavoring. It came out OK. When I try again I would use more like 6 lbs of frozen blueberry and no extract flavoring.

Did you crush them or dumplings whole, still frozen?

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No need to crush the berries if you have already froze them. Freezing destroys the cell walls. Simply rack the finished beer over the frozen berries and taste each day until you get the aroma/flavor that you're looking for.

Sounds good!

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Do the berries float? Any chance of mold?


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rocketsan said:

Do the berries float? Any chance of mold?


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Yea, most will float. Just try not to let to much oxygen into your carboy. Leave the airlock in place and dont mess with it and you will be ok

So the frozen berries go in the carboy first, then beer on top? Are the berries loose or enclosed in a bag/sock?


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BeerEpiphany said:

So the frozen berries go in the carboy first, then beer on top? Are the berries loose or enclosed in a bag/sock?


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I put them in my carboy first then racked right on top of them. They were loose. One thing, USE A BLOW OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!