Blackberry Beer

I found this recipe that I am very interested in, but honestly I kinda lost a little bit trying to translate the Australian, (i.e. sacchiarification, sparge, rack, etc.). If someone could please put this in white-america-redneck language I can understand I would appreciate it, (complete with unit conversions would be nice).

Blackberry Beer

After watching an episode of the Beer Hunter showing desert style beers
I tried my hand at producing some of my own. Some were dead set poison
but this one came up a treat.

Malts:
Ale 4000g
Wheat 100g

Hops:
Saaz 40g (Soak)

Adjuncts:
Blackberries 1500g
Invert Sugar 300g
Dextrose 300g
Irish Moss 1 Tsp

Yeast:
Wyeast Danish 2042

Procedure: Bring 20 litres filtered water to 72c. Add Ale Malt and
sacchiarification rest at 69c for 90 min. Raise to 77c and sparge
with 30 litres of water. Bring sweet wort to boil and add Invert sugar
and Dextrose. After 70 min pitch in teaspoon of Irish Moss. After a
further 15 min add Hops. Boil for a further 5 min and start cold break.

As wort is ready to draw off put Blackberries in blender and mulch. Run
wort off into fermentation vessel and add Blackberries and yeast.
Ferment at 12-15c for around 10 days. Rack off to secondary vessel and
add finings. Let sit a week and bottle adding 1Tsp sugar to each 750ml
bottle.

Beer will be ready to drink in 2 months but is better left at least 6.
The original recipe I made without wheat malt with the result that the beer
had no head. This may suit some people but us traditionalists prefer a
bit of froth on top

Original Gravity 1060
Final Gravity 1018

Should produce 24 750 ml bottles.


Iain Mckimm - Member Bayside Brewers Club
P.O. Box 175
Melbourne Australia 3196

Source: http://www.cs.csustan.edu/~gcrawfor/beerfiles/black.html

davemac45067 said:

I found this recipe that I am very interested in, but honestly I kinda lost a little bit trying to translate the Australian, (i.e. sacchiarification, sparge, rack, etc.). If someone could please put this in white-america-redneck language I can understand I would appreciate it, (complete with unit conversions would be nice).

Click to expand...

For the vocabulary of brewing, you could start with How-to-Brew

Conversion factors:
Ale malt 4000g = 8.8lb
Wheat 100g = .22lb
Sazz 40g = 1.4oz
Blackberries 1500g = 3.3lb
Invert sugar 300g = .66lb
Dextrose 300g = .66lb
20l = 5.28gal
30l = 7.92gal

28g = 1 oz
454g = 1 lb
1L = .264 gallons
69c = 156 degrees
72c = 161 degrees
77c = 170 degrees
12-15c = 53-59 degrees

This should give you a general idea. One issue I would be concerned with is "mulching" the blackberries and adding to primary. If you can find canned berries just sanitize the lid and can opener before opening and dump them into a secondary and then rack the beer from primary into the secondary. Fresh/frozen berries will have to be pasteurized prior to introducing them into the beer.

I freeze my berries and then cook them at 150-160F for 15 minutes to pasturize. This breaks down the berries and maximizes the juice. You don't want to crack the seeds, they can hurt the flavor.

I ferment in buckets & put the berries in a big mesh bag, so cleanup is easy. Haven't tried them in a wheat, just cider and porter.

david_42 said:

Haven't tried them in a wheat, just cider and porter.

Click to expand...

I tried a blackberry lambic at a beer festival in Asheville last fall and it was fantastic. I was expecting it to be darkish like a kriek or framboise, but it was actually very amber with more of a hint of blackberry flavor. It really inspired me to brew a lambic, but then I brush up on lambic brewing and lose interest.

If you boil you fruit you might want to add some pectic enzyme form a wine brewing shop. It will break down the pectins and reduce pectin haze.

A little late to reply but:-
sacchiarification rest - this is starting the mash at 40c for 20 mins before lifting to 66c
sparge - running the wort off the grain into the boiler
rack off - either an Aussie term telling someone to go away,,, or once primary fermentation is finished syphon off to secondary fermenter leaving yeast base behind for 2-3 days to give you a cleaner beer

I am amazed this recipe still floats around, I published to a bulletin board in 1991 pre internet days

Iain McKimm