Another hazy IPA question!

[VolunteerBrewer]

So I am planning my next brew and considering a few options. I'm going a NEIPA with pureed blueberries or strawberries or both.

My grain bill will be pretty straightforward and my hop additions will be late and primarily dry hopped, but this will be my first time using a puree.

I don't use a secondary with my NE styles. I know this is going to lean towards a milkshake style but I want not planning on adding lactose (but could be talked into it). Any words of advise? How much fruit should I add? Do I want until after high krasuen? Will it impact my dry hop schedule? NE styles are very time sensitive beers and I typically only keep in my fermentor for 14 days or less.

5 gallon batch all grain - thinking el dorado hops and mosiac hops

My second question deals with filtering into bottles.

My last NEIPA had hop particles in it and added a hot black pepper taste and adding in fruit that is pureed will only add more junk potentially floating in the wort.

I'm in Tennessee and don't have a chest freezer set up to cold crash. Temps are no longer low enough to cold crash outside.

I've seen examples of attaching a nylon hop bag to the siphon when transferring to the bottling bucket but wanted to see if anyone had any other suggestions.

 

[cooper]

If you don't have the ability to cold crash you can let it sit at your bottling station it clears and you can bottle. That way you don't have to deal with disturbing the sediment when you move it to your bottling station. I'd also think about increasing the batch size so you don't have to worry about dealing with the puree sludge at the bottom and can count on leaving a bit more behind that you normally would.

I've been making melomels lately and I was thinking about doing something similar to this as well.

My idea was to use a normal NEIPA grain bill with about 45-50% of the grist being a combo of wheat and oats and add the thawed berry mix, probably around 4 lbs or so, to the primary in a mesh bag that I would normally use for BIAB. Ferment at 64F and add a biotransformation dose of hops at day 2-3, pull the bag of fruit at 5 days and then let it finish and settle/clear up before racking to a keg.

No idea if this will work or how the fruit will mesh with the hops but I think the mixed berries would play well with the wheat/oat combo.

 

[IslandLizard]

Definitely tie a fine mesh hop bag or a piece of fine voile (curtain material) around the bottom of the racking cane/siphon. Leave it very roomy, so it doesn't suck tight against the opening.