Blueberry Beer - should I mix mid fermentation?

[OutlawOne]

Hey all!
I am making my first attempt at a blueberry ale. I made a low hop American ale 1lb LME 1Lb DME. Fermented out 1 week to 1.008 SG than racking to my secondary with 6lbs of blueberries to my 5 gal batch.

I soaked my blueberries in sanstar froze and racked sanstar over to thaw prior to adding to secondary and racking beer over. Now the question being many of the blueberry skins did break open (which i was hoping for) and they are now floating at the top its been 2 days, I know that the CO2 should protect from mold/infection, but should I stir to remix berries in? Will this help add flavor or my thought cause too many sugars to ferment and take away the aroma and taste?

 

[Beer Viking]

Sorry I can't answer all of your questions, but to my knowledge you should never open up your fermenter and stir it. If you open it up you can let the bad bacteria in. I hope this helps a bit at least.

 

[OutlawOne]

I wouldn't physically open it more slosh it around to wet the berries on top. Thoughts?

 

[RM-MN]

My thoughts after having done a few batches of blueberry beer? Put the blueberries in pancakes, muffins, cakes, or pies. Use a high quality blueberry extract for flavoring at bottling time. You will enjoy the blueberries more and get better blueberry beer flavor too.

 

[Lurker]

I have a very sucessful Blueberry wheat I have brewed numerious times. Its delicious. I rack the fully fermented beer into a secondary on one can of Vintners Harvest blueberry puree. Then at kegging ad 2 oz of brewers best blueberry extract. I have tried every way possible to get blueberry flavor and aroma in a wheat beer and this is the easiest and best way I have found. Flavor from the puree and aroma from the extract. It keg condidtions beautifully and the wheat beer base is smooth, solid with enough body to support the fruit!

 

[OutlawOne]

I was thinking about doing the extract at the time of bottling but was worried about an artificial taste I experienced with my apricot wheat I made a few weeks back. Do you suggest just racking the beer onto the extract and bottle from there or should I allow any additional time for it to gather the aroma?

 

[McKnuckle]

You should leave them alone as they float. The fruit is saturated and fermenting from the inside out, and the visual incongruity of seeing unsubmerged skins is irrelevant from the point of getting blueberry "stuff" into the beer.

Also worth noting that you can't stop sugars in the blueberries from being fermented, nor should you try. They need to be fully consumed by the yeast before you can safely bottle the beer. Either the berries will eventually sink, or they will stay floating and you can rack from under them once gravity is stable.

 

[Lurker]

The fruit puree needs a week to sit but the extract flavoring can be added right at time of packaging. If your only using extract I recommend the whole 4 oz bottle of the brewers best flavoring. I think that answered your question...I dont bottle but I think adding the extract to the whole batch then bottling from there is best. Cheers, E

 

[Jag75]

I have a very sucessful Blueberry wheat I have brewed numerious times. Its delicious. I rack the fully fermented beer into a secondary on one can of Vintners Harvest blueberry puree. Then at kegging ad 2 oz of brewers best blueberry extract. I have tried every way possible to get blueberry flavor and aroma in a wheat beer and this is the easiest and best way I have found. Flavor from the puree and aroma from the extract. It keg condidtions beautifully and the wheat beer base is smooth, solid with enough body to support the fruit!

I had a terrible experience with harvest puree. I normally use frozen blueberries. I tried the Harvest puree this last time . I got hardly any blueberry flavor , aroma and color from the puree. Going back to the fruit .

 

[Lurker]

Those cans do have an experation date so wonder if the one you used was at the end of its life? They are really expensive...so thats a real bummer!

 

[OutlawOne]

You should leave them alone as they float. The fruit is saturated and fermenting from the inside out, and the visual incongruity of seeing unsubmerged skins is irrelevant from the point of getting blueberry "stuff" into the beer.

Also worth noting that you can't stop sugars in the blueberries from being fermented, nor should you try. They need to be fully consumed by the yeast before you can safely bottle the beer. Either the berries will eventually sink, or they will stay floating and you can rack from under them once gravity is stable.

That is good to know! I was worried that the berries floating above may not ferment properly which was my entire concern which you all have made me feel safe on that end. As to the flavoring I am going to test it after the FG is in range and see if it has the flavor + aroma im looking for, if not ill add in the extract.

 

[SourLover]

FWIW, on my last blueberry sour batch I took 8 pounds of frozen blueberries, pureed them in a food processor, pasteurized them by heating in the 150-170 degrees range for about 15 minutes, cooled them down a bit, and then racked approximately 5.75 gallons of beer on top of them. The blueberry flavor and aroma was great in the samples we tasted pre kegging/bottling.
Some blueberries were floating on top, pre cold crash, but they all eventually sunk to the bottom, as shown in the photos below.

 

[OutlawOne]

FWIW, on my last blueberry sour batch I took 8 pounds of frozen blueberries, pureed them in a food processor, pasteurized them by heating in the 150-170 degrees range for about 15 minutes, cooled them down a bit, and then racked approximately 5.75 gallons of beer on top of them. The blueberry flavor and aroma was great in the samples we tasted pre kegging/bottling.
Some blueberries were floating on top, pre cold crash, but they all eventually sunk to the bottom, as shown in the photos below.

When I blanche fruits when making wine I never have been happy with the sour pulling through always a sweeter outcome. Now thing is my beer has all the berries at the top, I broke the skin on all berries (well 99%) of them I did not puree. Im wondering maybe they will sink when I cold crash.

 

[Jag75]

They dont sink . At least they've never sunk on me. Ive done a lot of blueberry sours and they always stay floating for the most part. They start turning white . The more they turn white the beer gets darker . Heres a pic of them in my carboy. Then a photo of the finished product.

 

[OutlawOne]

That looks nearly identical to my carboy now I have a bit more airspace than you but same thing, did you add

They dont sink . At least they've never sunk on me. Ive done a lot of blueberry sours and they always stay floating for the most part. They start turning white . The more they turn white the beer gets darker . Heres a pic of them in my carboy. Then a photo of the finished product.

That looks nearly identical to my carboy now I have a bit more airspace than you but same thing, did you add any extract, or were you happy with just the fermentation?

 

[Jag75]

That looks nearly identical to my carboy now I have a bit more airspace than you but same thing, did you add

That looks nearly identical to my carboy now I have a bit more airspace than you but same thing, did you add any extract, or were you happy with just the fermentation?

I use 70% 2 row 30% white wheat
Wlp644
24 - 48 hrs later I pitch blueberry acai Goodbellys juice .
At tail end of fermentation I add 5 -6 #'s of berries
Then dry hop at the end of that fermentation kick up for a few days .
Then package

 

[Kickass]

I soaked my blueberries in sanstar froze and racked sanstar over to thaw

I read this whole thing expecting this to be addressed but maybe I’m on an island here. Am I the only one who cringed reading this?

When I’ve used fruit, I heat it to about 170 for 10 or 15 minutes.

 

[Jag75]

I read this whole thing expecting this to be addressed but maybe I’m on an island here. Am I the only one who cringed reading this?

When I’ve used fruit, I heat it to about 170 for 10 or 15 minutes.

I'll admit , I did a bit. I just thaw , open the bag and dump in . I live dangerously

 

[Lurker]

I also thought that...I have read alot about just frozen berries and almost never heard of infection from just throwing them in. Same goes for coffee, coconut, vanilla, cacao etc.