Fresh Juice

[Zymurologist]

Was gifted a half gallon of blackberry juice with the intent to make jelly, it is vac sealed in a canning jar in the fridge.

At this point I'm wondering if the juice would be better served in a beer recipe,

Is a half gallon of fresh raw blackberry juice enough to add much flavor to a five gallon batch, would it be better to ferment it in the primary or in a secondary, and does it matter the style of beer, pale ale versus stout. If added to a secondary type fermentation would I need to boil the juice to pasteurize it or is that process even necessary.

TIA

 

[iamninjabob]

I would recommend putting it in the secondary so that the flavor of the fruit isn't fermented off during primary fermentation. I tried adding muscadine juice to a cider a while back, and I regretted putting it in the primary, as it was almost non-existent in the final product. I'm not sure how much flavor .5gal will add to a 5gal batch. The recommendation I've seen for blackberries is .5-3lb per gallon, but I'm not sure how you'd translate that to juice volume....

As for pasteurization if you don't know if it's been sterilized I'd be very sure to take care of that. You can boil it or use campden tablets (potassium or sodium metabisulfite).

 

[AzOr]

Blackberry juice is really strong stuff. I’d say that amount is enough.
mom not a fan of berries in beer so I can’t help out.
I have use blackberries in cider and only used about 5lbs of whole berries in a batch. It came out really good when backsweetened.
One warning- the color is very strong. So much so that it stained my beer line in kegerator. It was a giant pain to get it clean again.

 

[bkboiler]

Blackberry in berliner weisse is excellent! Ballast Point does a version that is delicious!

 

[Fish84]

Blackberry sours are delicious

 

[AzOr]

Make a blackberry syrup and mix w Berliner Weiss post packaging.

 

[Zymurologist]

Thanks for the replies, after further research it looks as though mead might be a better place for the juice.