Blueberries and bottling

[dbrunone]

Hey I'm new here...made a few batches with info I found on here, and it's worked out well...but I have a question for my next batch. I'm planning on brewing a Honey Blonde ale, then putting in a few pounds of blueberries into the secondary. My questions are:

1. How much blueberries should I use? I was going to do maybe 4-5lbs.
2. I've heard that if you let the blueberry sugar ferment completely, the blueberry flavor goes away. How, then, do I balance blueberry flavor with total sugar when it goes ito the bottle? I want carbonation, but not exploding bottles. Do I add the priming sugar?

Any help would be great, thanks

 

[beowulf]

It depends on how much blueberry flavor you want. Based on past experience, you may consider a ratio of 1:1 (#s blueberries : gals of beer). That should get some good blueberry flavor but not overpowering. I would recommend pulverizing the blueberries for more flavor prior to adding to the secondary. Last time I made a blueberry porter I just crushed them and didn't get the big blueberry flavor I was hoping for. I also let the blueberries ferment out completely then used corn sugar to prime. It did take the FG down a little (maybe 0.004 or so in my case).

I've also heard that you get more blueberry kick with some of the fruit flavorings you can buy in a bottle. I don't have any experience with those, but someone who does may want to speak up.

I haven't heard about not letting the sugar ferment completely...sounds a bit risky. I'm not sure how much flavor you're really sacrificing by fermenting completely, but personally I wouldn't take that risk. But then, I'm not an expert either on fruit beers either

 

[dbrunone]

Cool thanks for the info...I've read that the fruit extract flavorings taste fake and manufactured, almost too sweet....that's not really what I'm going for. This is more of an experiment anyway, we'll see how it goes

 

[BrewThruYou]

Sorry, but I don't have any hard answers. I just tried my first blueberry ale and it's currently been in secondary for 6 days (on blueberries). I used five 15oz cans of Oregon Blueberries in Light Syrup ($2.75 per can I believe), but I drained most of the syrup. Fresh blueberries are too expensive and I didn't want to do just extract. I would've used 1 can of 49oz Puree if my LHBS had it. For fresh fruit, I've heard 5lbs+ of blueberries since they have a subtle flavor.

I also bought the blueberry extract from the LHBS. My plan is to take a sample tomorrow (7 days) and see how it tastes. If it needs some more blueberry, I'll let it go for 3 days to another week. If still not enough, I'll rack to tertiary or bottling bucket (depending on how much of a mess racking is) and add some extract at bottling.

This is my first fruit beer, so I'm just seeing how it goes.

 

[tedearregardless]

I read somewhere that you can use sorbate in the secondary to help prevent the blueberry sugar from completely fermenting. But, I'm no expert and I've never done a blueberry beer (though I hope to do a blueberry wheat from NB t-can/bearcat's wheaten beatdown in a couple of weeks).