Blackberry Wheat Beer question. Yeah I know, DWHAHB.

So I just cranked out my second brew after getting back into it after a 10 year hiatus.

I had a grip of wild blackberries in the freezer and on the recommendation of my LHBS I made a Hefe with a blackberry infusion. In a nutshell, they recommended making the Hefe per their recipe and also making a "tea" from the blackberries seperate from the wort. Put them in a grain bag and heated them in a gallon of water to 200F and then took it off the heat for 20 minutes and then cooled said tea before putting into the fermenter. The wort was then added to the tea already cooled and in the primary.

The short of it, is that after all is said and done I have an OG of 1.060. I'm guessing that I will end up with a Hefe with a high ABV at the end of it but am looking for some advice on where this will go. I'm guessing the tea added a ton of fermentable sugars into the mix. 10 minutes into it, I already have a lot of happy yeast fermenting merrily away.

This is a six gallon batch and I used about 3.8lbs of blackberries to make the tea. The recomendation was 3-5lbs.

If I am missing providing any info, let me know, but basically I looking to find out where this will go.

Thanks much.

Dukester

That seems like a lot of blackberries...they're pretty potent. It must be a nice dark purple by now.

I always recommend adding fruit to the secondary. Reason? You want to make sure you have a successful batch of beer before adding the expense of berries onto a bad brew.

I would have taken gravity readings before and after adding the fruit.

Keep us informed with the outcome.

I usually add fruit to the secondary.
Much of the flavor and aroma might be "scrubbed" during the ferment.
You might also end up with a bit of haze, from the pectin, from heating the fruit.

homebrewer_99 said:

That seems like a lot of blackberries...they're pretty potent. It must be a nice dark purple by now.

Click to expand...

Yes, very purple.

I always recommend adding fruit to the secondary. Reason? You want to make sure you have a successful batch of beer before adding the expense of berries onto a bad brew.

I would have taken gravity readings before and after adding the fruit.

Keep us informed with the outcome.

Click to expand...

In hindsight the gravity advice is something I will add to my routine next time. It would be good information to have.

DragonTail said:

I usually add fruit to the secondary.
Much of the flavor and aroma might be "scrubbed" during the ferment.
You might also end up with a bit of haze, from the pectin, from heating the fruit.

Click to expand...

According to the guys at my LHBS making a tea out of the blackberries should avoid the pectin problem. They reccomended bringing the tea to 200F and then taking it off the heat to steep. Supossedly not bringing it to, or keeping at a boil should avoid the pectin problem. Could this possibly still be a concern?

At this point I'll just ride it out to the end and see how it turns out, but good points made and duly noted.

Cheers,

Dukester

I second the secondary and no tea. I have made bb wheats like this fermenting about 7 to 10 days with WL american wheat strain, put bbs in secondary and rack beer on top of it. It will be purple, it will be hazy, but it will be excellent. This will be a beer everyone will love and it's so easy (except the cost of the fruit). Of course, I say this having never made the tea to compare the two but it sounds like a) more work and b) unnecessary. word. whatever you do the beer will be good. malted wheat plus two row plus wheat yeast plus bbs? killer.

btw, nice use of the term 'grip'

Update:

Two weeks into this brew and I have moved it to secondary mostly to remove it from contact with the fruit sediment at the bottom of the primary and also to hopefully clear it up a bit more.

After adjusting SG readings for temp, we are looking at about 5.3% ABV at the moment which I'm sure will change.

The color of the sample taken is right about a 9 or 10 Lovibond. Very lovely looking deep honey color. At this stage, it tastes pretty good.

There is a noticable but subtle blackberry flavor that I'm hoping will finish off nicely in secondary/conditioning. No off flavors that I can detect at this point. So far it seems to be a success. We'll know more in a few more weeks, but just thought I would post an update.

Cheers,

Dukester

Any pics of the purple beer?

I'd like to refresh the thread with a related question:

I had a Weizen practically ready for bootling, when I suddenly decided to turn it into fruit beer. I racked it on some blueberries, and I wonder how long shall it sit on the fruits to pick up the flavour? 2 weeks or rather 2 days?

Piotr said:

I'd like to refresh the thread with a related question:

I had a Weizen practically ready for bootling, when I suddenly decided to turn it into fruit beer. I racked it on some blueberries, and I wonder how long shall it sit on the fruits to pick up the flavour? 2 weeks or rather 2 days?

Click to expand...

I always just go until the berries start to turn white, never had any problems with that route.

I make a blackberry wheat every year, Blackberries grow like weeds around here in Washington so i take advantage of the local foliage and make a really decent blackberry wheat. I use seven pounds of berries per five and a half gallon batch, and i usually just toss the berries in at the end at flame-out, letting them steep for about 12 minutes. It always turns out great and it cost me about 12 bucks to make!