Blueberry ale.

Looking for some opinions on a good extract kit to use for a blueberry ale. I'm thinking about NB's American amber ale or there Witbier. I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks, Chris

 

I have a blueberry ale made from midwest's liberty cream ale kit, that I'll be bottling tomorrow. The initial taste tests have been outstanding.

 

My second brew was the NB American Wheat. I bottled 2 gallons and racked the rest onto the juice from 3 pounds of blueberries. Everyone liked it. They all said it was sort of fruity. Nobody could say what kind of fruit though. Next time I will either use more berries or toss in the skins too.

 

I plan to use the whole berries. Should I crush and pasteurize them. I've heard that freezing the should be enough to kill any nasties.

 

Freezing is really ineffective at killing nasties, but it does a good job of breaking cell walls so the beer can extract as much flavor as possible.

Beer is much more effective at killing nasties though so if you introduce them after fermentation is done you should be fine.

If you are concerned, you can always dip them in Star San.

 

Get a ziploc and some starsan. Give the bag and berries a quick dunk in starsan and then throw em in the freezer.

 

My next brew is going to be a Blueberry Ale using the NB Cream Ale.

 

I'm guessing you mean the inside of the bag?

 

Yea just sterilize the bag so once you sanitize the blueberries they stay that way in the ziploc.

 

Should I mash them up or throw them whole. I was just gonna throw them in whole.

 

I would think that a lot of the insides would never see beer if you didn't mash them.
That just doesn't seem fair.

 

So I'll mash em up sanitize freeze them and put into my secondary. Sound like a plan??

 

Freeze them before you mash them. Other than that you got it.