Blueberry beer

[brewser09]

I have a Brewers Best wheat kit laying around the house and i would like to add Blueberry to the beer to hopefully get my wife hooked on some of my homebrew I bought a 4lb bag of frozen blueberries and was thinking about adding 1 lb into the last 10 or 15 minutes of the boil and then add the other 3lbs to the secondary is there any reason this wouldn't work? Or should i just omit the berries in the boil and add all four pounds to the secondary? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Tinga]

i think if you boil the pound it will give you a nice color not sure if 3 lbs is good for the secondary though.

 

[azscoob]

I do all of my fruit additions in the secondary, you will get plenty of color as well.
I am making a blueberry pale ale, primary fermentation is underway and I will be adding 5 lbs of thawed and lightly crushed blueberries (picked them myself in Temecula CA last week) to the secondary and racking the beer on top of them. this has worked well for a strawberry blonde and a watermelon wheat. I hope this one is as good as those!

 

[Runyanka]

Boiling the fruit will be pointless. All the aromas and flavors will be boiled off or scrubbed out during primary fermentation. Plus I've heard that you don't want to extract the pectin from the fruit while boiling.

 

[starrfish]

My raspberry pale I used 4 lbs... all steeped 15min at end of boil. and added to primary. very clear good raspberry flavor and nice reddy color. blueberries are a bit more delicate and milder, I'd up the poundage another pound or two...

maybe split fruit 50% end of boil steep 50% end of primary for 5-7 days...

 

[duffman2]

Boiling the fruit will be pointless. All the aromas and flavors will be boiled off or scrubbed out during primary fermentation. Plus I've heard that you don't want to extract the pectin from the fruit while boiling.

+1. Don't boil your fruit. When adding your fruit to the secondary you can cook it down a bit with water, but don't let it boil or you'll get some nasty stuff in there and it will never clear

 

[k1200rsvt]

I just did a Blueberry Wheat and put a 4 lb bag of frozen blueberries in the 2ndary for 2 weeks. I did nothing to the blueberries just dumped them in the carboy from the bag. Color is kind of blueish red with nice blueberry taste. I have gotten a lot of comments that people like it so that would be my recommendation on how to proceed.

 

[brewser09]

That sounds great! I was trying to figure out if i boil or don't and i think i will just dump them in. Did you let them thaw before dumping them in or dump them in frozen? And i will hold off and not boil them in the wort.

 

[k1200rsvt]

I was planning on letting them thaw by placing the bag in a bowl in the refrigerator, but forgot to take them out so I just dumped them in. Probably slowed the start of fermentation of the new sugars a bit but it ended up lower final gravity then when I rack it to secondary so I am assuming it didn't really hurt anything by not thawing them.

Good luck with it.

 

[reaghmac]

might be a stupid question but how did you filter out the berries when ya went to bottle?

 

[PGHcableguy]

might be a stupid question but how did you filter out the berries when ya went to bottle?

I just did my this week, I just used my auto shiphon and transferred to a botteling bucket leaving the blueberries and bottom yeast behind

 

[azscoob]

I just did my this week, I just used my auto shiphon and transferred to a botteling bucket leaving the blueberries and bottom yeast behind

Exactly what I do,let gravity do the clearing, then rack off the top of them

 

[treacheroustexan]

Adding fruit to the secondary, would it becoming moldy be a concern at all?

 

[PGHcableguy]

Adding fruit to the secondary, would it becoming moldy be a concern at all?

I left my blueberries in for 7 days, the CO2 should protect them for the week. Try not to keep opening it up because oxygen will get in and your fruit might start to mold.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Does the fruit ( blueberries) float or sink?

 

[PGHcableguy]

Does the fruit ( blueberries) float or sink?

Will start on the bottom then after 24 hours they will float to the top and will stay there.

 

[NoleKyle]

Will start on the bottom then after 24 hours they will float to the top and will stay there.

Would it be a bad idea to stir the blueberries back into the carboy when I switch from a blowoff tube to airlock? I racked on top of 10 lbs last night and mixed it in (tons of bubbles came up to the top, I'm guessing it was CO2) and all the berries were sitting at the top this morning.

 

[TimFarAway]

Just cracked open my 1st bottle of a blueberry cream ale. I used 3lbs in a 2.5 gal batch, and wish I had used at least another pound. I used frozen, but sterilized them at 170 F for 15 min with a bit of water. Still have NO IDEA how much fermentable suger it added or what my actual ABV is.

 

[PGHcableguy]

Use a blow off valve! !!!!!!! Trust me

 

[therev71]

I had 2000ml of wort left over after my boil and added 20ox (1.25 lbs) to the secondary this morning. This is the same wort that I made my IPA with but I wanted to leave a little more room in the primary for krausen because the last time I brewed AI had a blowoff so I put this into a 2000ml Erlenmeyer flask with the yeast and added the blueberries this morning.

Ill let it secondary the same amount of time as the carboy full of IPA.