Adding berries; how and when?

I would like to make a berry beer with huckleberries (extract, not AG). I plan on freezing a gallon of huckleberries (which turns out to be about 7lbs) and adding them to primary (after about 7 days. I will most likely buy a wheat beer extract kit from morebeer.

So, I'm wondering of my plan is ok. I don't plan on boiling the berries but I'm open to somehow making a concentrate or extract to add during bottling instead of adding to the fermentor (although I have had no luck in my online search to figure out how).

Any advice is appreciated and I thank you in advance.

-Dan

I've had great luck with pureed fruit in a secondary fermenter for about 1.5 weeks. I had a little extract of the same flavor at bottling for the aroma boost.

Not sure how you would ensure that your puree is sanitary though...I buy mine from the lhbs.

rifraf said:

Not sure how you would ensure that your puree is sanitary though...

Click to expand...

And therein lies the dilemma. I guess I could gamble, but there has to be a way to reduce risk of infection.

Extract actually works very well here. Hold back about a gallon of the water you would have topped off with, and ferment as usual. After a week or so, add your berries and that gallon of water to a large pot and bring to at least 160F for at least five minutes. When cooled to under 100F, add the berries and water to your beer and let ferment for another couple weeks. You'll have a ton of trub and some beer. I'm not familiar with huckleberries, so I can't tell you if 7lbs is a good amount, but I'm guessing that's a little on the high side.

Thank you. I have been reading some more and was kinda leaning toward the method you described. Would it be a good idea to put a filter over the racking cane before bottling to get more beer out of the trub? I heard something about a painters bag from home depot...

That would probably help. Paint bags work for hop pellets, so I assume they would work well for huckleberry parts as well. Most of the chunky stuff will drop to the bottom when cold, whether in a bottle or keg. I should add that your beer will be pretty cloudy.

Sweet guys well it looks like I have a plan.

Thanks a lot!