BlackBerry wheat lacking flavor

[SailorJerry]

Hey everyone.
My buddies and I biab, made the wheat beer that is attached to this post with a can of vintners BlackBerry puree.

Batch 1, last year, was nothing short of great. This batch, now with RO water and a bit of gypsum, lacks flavor. Beer looks good, smells good, but has no real taste.

Is there anything we can add at this point to help it? Any brewing salts? Sugar to help brighten it? We have another can of raspberry purree in hand or a couple cans of the frozen lemonade concentrate (make it into a shandy, essentially).

Thoughts?

 

[Soulshine2]

I'm watching this thread as we discovered we have blackberries growing on our property. I'm also thinking of making some fruit beers in the future.
I guess I have a few questions about the difference of your 2 brews.
What water did you use on batch #1 ? was it softened or hard water? I'm guessing it was hard, maybe it had the right amount of salts/minerals that affected the taste .
Your grain bill makes me think its a 5 gallon batch. How much raspberry puree did you add and when?
Im about to make a watermelon gose for my son(new house celebration) and the popular method of adding the watermelon is to puree , freeze ,then let the frozen puree drip its flavor ,concentrating it ,twice. I'm wondering if adding a concentrated puree is better for adding the flavor rather than the entire juice,pulp and other solids which might wash out and leave the beer "uneventful" . You mention adding frozen lemonade , how about just citric acid? My ex brother in law used to be a beekeeper , he would make flavored honey and he found when he tried to use only flavor concentrate additives it came out flat ,he needed to use a lot of flavorings or itd be almost tasteless . He found that adding a bit of citric acid reduced the amount of added flavorings. Especially cinnamon . it went from being like almost undetectable to being like Fireball.

 

[SailorJerry]

I'm watching this thread as we discovered we have blackberries growing on our property. I'm also thinking of making some fruit beers in the future.
I guess I have a few questions about the difference of your 2 brews.
What water did you use on batch #1 ? was it softened or hard water? I'm guessing it was hard, maybe it had the right amount of salts/minerals that affected the taste .
Your grain bill makes me think its a 5 gallon batch. How much raspberry puree did you add and when?
Im about to make a watermelon gose for my son(new house celebration) and the popular method of adding the watermelon is to puree , freeze ,then let the frozen puree drip its flavor ,concentrating it ,twice. I'm wondering if adding a concentrated puree is better for adding the flavor rather than the entire juice,pulp and other solids which might wash out and leave the beer "uneventful" . You mention adding frozen lemonade , how about just citric acid? My ex brother in law used to be a beekeeper , he would make flavored honey and he found when he tried to use only flavor concentrate additives it came out flat ,he needed to use a lot of flavorings or itd be almost tasteless . He found that adding a bit of citric acid reduced the amount of added flavorings. Especially cinnamon . it went from being like almost undetectable to being like Fireball.

We went from using city water, run through my softener, for the first batch (I believe?) to using RO water. It was a 5 gallon batch, we added the blackberry purree after fermentation was complete on both brews, and yes, we used one large can of the purree in each as well.

Just a bit perplexing.

 

[Keith81]

If you are looking for blackberry flavor and aroma I'd suggest blackberry flavoring (extract). I used 2 oz each on a cream ale and amber ale and both turned out intensely blackberry. The extract is not fermentable and is added at bottling or kegging.

 

[SailorJerry]

If you are looking for blackberry flavor and aroma I'd suggest blackberry flavoring (extract). I used 2 oz each on a cream ale and amber ale and both turned out intensely blackberry. The extract is not fermentable and is added at bottling or kegging.

I've had the extracts before and they were always underwhelming, and batch 1 of this beer was awesome. Started off tart, almost sour, and as it conditioned a bit, it turned into this smooth berry beer. It was delicious, and I'm sad we didn't replicate it.

We did read on MoreBeer that they recommend 1-2 cans of it, so maybe we had used 2 cans? I'm sure I had only bought 1 though the first time? I don't know...

 

[RPh_Guy]

When did you add the blackberry? Adding after the primary fermenting completes will provide the most flavor.

You definitely want to use calcium chloride to increase the chloride level. You may also consider some sodium chloride to increase sodium.

FWIW I've had great experience with Brewer's Best blackberry natural flavoring. However, flavoring just provides flavor rather than the organic acids too, so it definitely produces a different beer (less tart and less juice-like).

 

[TwistedGray]

I always subscribe to the 1lb to 1gal ratio of fruit to beer, so I would start there. I measure raw fruit for the poundage though, so I am not sure if x# of ounces of canned goop is the same. Just a thought...up the blackberry. Also, my blackberry stuff usually comes out more purpler than yours which is why I think you should just bump up the blackberry volume.

 

[SailorJerry]

We added a 2nd can, this one raspberry purree, and they said it is now excellent! I'm sure we must have added two cans of the Vinter's Blackberry Purree last year, and just thought we did one. I haven't tried it again yet, but I have another wheat that just got done fermenting that might get the same treatment.

Very Berry Wheat

A drastic change from our typical NEIPA DIPA WCIPA beers that we brew 90% of the time.

Just scored a fresh bourbon barrel, need to do something for that too...