Blackberries in a Belgium?

[Daniel1980]

I've got a Belgium Dubbel in the fermenter that I've been planning on racking onto fresh cherries but as I'm driving to lunch I noticed fresh locally grown blackberries for sale and the town in which I live is actually known for blackberries and they're in season so why not? Anyone have any experience using blackberries?

 

[daksin]

I think it would be tasty. Love blackberries. Also, just FYI, the word you're looking for is Belgian, which describes things/people from the country of Belgium. Belgium:Belgian::America:American

 

[Daniel1980]

Lol. Well you know, autocorrect kept changing it so I assumed my smart phone was smarter than me. Doh! Thanks for the heads up. Now to train my iPhone on how to spell. This, btw is one of its more innocent infractions.

 

[November]

I recently made a saison that has blackberries in it. Very nice and it has a unique color.

 

[daksin]

Lol. Well you know, autocorrect kept changing it so I assumed my smart phone was smarter than me. Doh! Thanks for the heads up. Now to train my iPhone on how to spell. This, btw is one of its more innocent infractions.

Haha, sorry to mention it, then. It's actually a really common non-autocorrect related mistake. Plus, they sound very close when spoken aloud.

 

[Daniel1980]

Haha, sorry to mention it, then. It's actually a really common non-autocorrect related mistake. Plus, they sound very close when spoken aloud.

That's good to know. I wasn't aware of the difference but back to the black berries....did you use the standard berry formula of 1# per gal? How strong was the flavor? I'm looking for subtle flavor and aroma.

 

[daksin]

I think 5lb is a good place to start for a 5gal batch. I would guess the flavor will be slightly more than subtle, but not overpowering. I can't say about the color, but I might shoot for the lower end of the scale for a dubbel as the blackberries may darken the beer. I don't know how much, as I've never used them.

 

[Daniel1980]

Got the fresh blackberries added this past weekend to the secondary. The aroma was amazing when I was racking on top of the berries. I froze them then did a soak in starsan then used a small sanitized medicine plunger to push them through my funnel. I had about three quarts of beer over what my carboy could hold due to the berries so I bottled that. Now I'll have a side by side comparison. Hope this turns out as great as I'm anticipating it will.

 

[FermentNEthinG]

You soaked your blackberries in star san? I guess that is one way to sanitize fruit before it goes into the fermenters!

 

[daksin]

Looks delicious! Let's see the beer!

 

[Daniel1980]

I'll post a pic of the carboy this evening. It's very dark, not a big shock there. I've read in a few threads that using starsan was a good way to sanitize the fruit plus my local HBS owner recommended it as well. He said our local yeasties are not very desirable. Didn't want to risk it with the time and money I've already put into this beer.
Now I've been hearing that i should leave this in the secondary any where from two weeks to a month. Is that important or will the length of time bottle conditioning be more important or a combination of both? Looking for subtle but not buried flavor and aroma.

 

[Daniel1980]