Fruit Beer Blueberry Oatmeal IPA

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treacheroustexan

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 17, 2013
Messages
4,932
Reaction score
4,930
Location
Cleveland
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
WLP001
Yeast Starter
Yes
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.056
Final Gravity
1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
47
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14 days @ 68 degrees F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
7 days @ 68 degrees F
Tasting Notes
A clean IPA with blueberry notes
Grain: (mash at 152f)
10 lbs 8 oz 2 Row Pale
1 lbs Flaked Oats

Hops:
1 oz Mosaic @ 60
1 oz Mosaic @ 5
1 oz Mosaic @ 0
2 oz Mosaic (Dry hopped after racking onto of blueberries)

Ferment for about two weeks, rack beer on top of 5# blueberries and add dry hops.

I wanted the base beer to be super light in color so it would pick up good color from the blueberries.

blueberryipa.jpg
 
Recipe looks good, but I'm gonna tweak it and add munich 10L and use S-04 for a "bready" or "biscuity" flavor to give it a sort of "muffin-like" flavor. Will brew this in a few weeks. Will post updates! :mug:
 
Recipe looks good, but I'm gonna tweak it and add munich 10L and use S-04 for a "bready" or "biscuity" flavor to give it a sort of "muffin-like" flavor. Will brew this in a few weeks. Will post updates! :mug:

I second the notion! Give updates with how the 'blueberry muffin' brew turns out. I have been mulling over the idea of a blueberry muffin brew for a while now and will need all the help I can get! :mug:
 
I've been doing some experiments racking beer/cider onto blueberries and keeping it cold so the fermentation doesn't kick off. Basically trying to capture the fruit flavor/aroma without adding fermented fruit acid character.
Also, I freeze the blueberries before use and smash them up a bit.
I'm going to use the above recipe next time, and use a keg with a shortened dip tube and just leave the blueberries in there until the beer is gone or maybe pressure transfer to another keg.
 
Brewed this tonight. Finally!
In addtion to the 2 row & flaked oats i added Munich Light 6L & a little biscuit malt per my LHBS guy. Using US-04. Will post how it comes out :mug:
 
Got a damn infection. Racked it off, added lactose, forgot before. Gonna let it sit for a week or two. tastes nice

65AAE271-7985-44DC-B78D-5784AB7DE4F4.jpg
 
Recipe looks good, but I'm gonna tweak it and add munich 10L and use S-04 for a "bready" or "biscuity" flavor to give it a sort of "muffin-like" flavor. Will brew this in a few weeks. Will post updates! :mug:
How much of the Munich 10L did you add? Did you still use the 10lbs 8oz of 2 Row and 1lbs of Flaked Oats?
 
Hey TreacherousTexan & Everyone,

I'm an amateur homebrewer and an all-time reader, first time poster on Homebrewtalk
My first batch was one of those LME Extract Out-of-the-Box IPA Kits, which came out ..Fine..lol

After much more learning and gathering equipment, I've made a BIAB Batch of Your Recipe!
Tomorrow I'm at 2 Weeks in the Primary and ready for the blueberries, I have (2x) 2kg Frozen Bags of Canadian Wild Blueberries.

My question to you or anyone, is How did you find the Blueberry flavor with the 5lb addition?
I'm debating throwing ALL 4kg(8.8lbs) I have or cutting down to 5-6lbs for the 5-ish gallon batch.
At the end of the day, Super excited to try this Brew :)

Will update with Pictures
IMG_1122.JPG
 
Hey TreacherousTexan & Everyone,

I'm an amateur homebrewer and an all-time reader, first time poster on Homebrewtalk
My first batch was one of those LME Extract Out-of-the-Box IPA Kits, which came out ..Fine..lol

After much more learning and gathering equipment, I've made a BIAB Batch of Your Recipe!
Tomorrow I'm at 2 Weeks in the Primary and ready for the blueberries, I have (2x) 2kg Frozen Bags of Canadian Wild Blueberries.

My question to you or anyone, is How did you find the Blueberry flavor with the 5lb addition?
I'm debating throwing ALL 4kg(8.8lbs) I have or cutting down to 5-6lbs for the 5-ish gallon batch.
At the end of the day, Super excited to try this Brew :)

Will update with Pictures View attachment 672795

Be sure to do something against possible infections. Just reacking on unpasteurised blueberries well likely give you one.
 
Hey TreacherousTexan & Everyone,

I'm an amateur homebrewer and an all-time reader, first time poster on Homebrewtalk
My first batch was one of those LME Extract Out-of-the-Box IPA Kits, which came out ..Fine..lol

After much more learning and gathering equipment, I've made a BIAB Batch of Your Recipe!
Tomorrow I'm at 2 Weeks in the Primary and ready for the blueberries, I have (2x) 2kg Frozen Bags of Canadian Wild Blueberries.

My question to you or anyone, is How did you find the Blueberry flavor with the 5lb addition?
I'm debating throwing ALL 4kg(8.8lbs) I have or cutting down to 5-6lbs for the 5-ish gallon batch.
At the end of the day, Super excited to try this Brew :)

Will update with Pictures View attachment 672795

That's super exciting! I'm glad to hear you brewed it. I was thinking about this recipe the other day and trying to figure out when I can brew it again. In my opinion, the 5 lbs. of blueberries was very balanced with the mosaic hops and still tasted like an IPA with hints of blueberry. Not too overpowering at all. I've never brewed it with more than 5 lbs. so I can't really say how it will turn out but if you still want some of the IPA/bitter characteristics I'd stick with the 5-6lbs, but if you want to kind of hide some of the hops & bitterness and make it more fruit forward I see no problem adding all of your blueberries. Just depends on your taste preference! Looking forward to see how it turns out for you.

As far as pasteurization goes for the blueberries, with frozen blueberries I've rarely done anything other than dump the frozen bag into the carboy. A lot of people I've seen have put the blueberries in a pot on the stove and heat it to 160F (~72c) and hold it for 5-10 minutes to kill off any bugs that might end up infecting your beer.
 
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There are so many Posts on HBT about Pasteurizing versus Adding Frozen (Whole) and honestly, I wanted to add them whole, instead of working with a goopy mess.
I figure I take my chances, and dumped the whole lot of Blueberries (4kg/8.8lbs) & Mosaic Hops (2oz) into the Secondary.
While transferring the Mosaic Brew, it smelt delicious and now the airlock is pretty active.
Can't wait to try It!

Will Update with Pics :)
image2.jpeg image3.jpeg image5.jpegimage4.jpeg
 
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(Just a quick update since I have all this time off due to the Pandemic happening)
Primary was transferred last Friday to the Secondary, so this would be the 5th day. All the Blueberries have now risen to the top, no signs of infection, lots of activity in the airlock and it has turned a dark purple lol.
 
Good Friday to Everyone! So it's been Two Weeks in the Secondary, and there's still a small but constant amount of activity through the airlock. So I may hold off bottling till next week.
I've also obtained a free chest freezer from a neighbor and purchased a electronic thermostat, which I'm playing and testing with, before I decide whether or not to Cold Crash the Blueberry Beer.
Will Update with Pics.
 
Good Friday to Everyone! So it's been Two Weeks in the Secondary, and there's still a small but constant amount of activity through the airlock. So I may hold off bottling till next week.
I've also obtained a free chest freezer from a neighbor and purchased a electronic thermostat, which I'm playing and testing with, before I decide whether or not to Cold Crash the Blueberry Beer.
Will Update with Pics.

Loving the updates, thanks! Looking forward to it.
 
Good Friday to Everyone! So it's been Two Weeks in the Secondary, and there's still a small but constant amount of activity through the airlock. So I may hold off bottling till next week.
I've also obtained a free chest freezer from a neighbor and purchased a electronic thermostat, which I'm playing and testing with, before I decide whether or not to Cold Crash the Blueberry Beer.
Will Update with Pics.

Hey, how did this turn out? Getting ready to brew another batch myself.
 
I've got a batch made with Wundergrain and flaked oats resting on 5 pounds of blueberries and an oz of mosaic dryhop right now.......This thing smells amazing, I'm planning on bottling Monday and it's gonna be real hard to wait till it's properly carbed to crack into it!
 
I've got a batch made with Wundergrain and flaked oats resting on 5 pounds of blueberries and an oz of mosaic dryhop right now.......This thing smells amazing, I'm planning on bottling Monday and it's gonna be real hard to wait till it's properly carbed to crack into it!

Glad to hear you're enjoying so far haha. Let me know how it turns out!
 
Cracked into these after a long wait......Plenty of blueberry flavor, a great color and aroma! I'll definitely make it again, might swap out the oats for some wheat next time to try and boost the mouthfeel a little bit. I don't think I got much oat contribution from the oats. I could also try toasting them?

Thanks for the great recipe!
 
When can I add the blueberries?

And if I only have one fermentation bucket, can I just add them in there....or should I try getting another bucket for secondary fermentation?
 
@treacheroustexan @Jabob513
Also, to be clear. I let sit for 2 weeks then add blueberries. Then wait another 7 days. Then bottle?

What’s the best way to sanitize the blueberries? Sorry it’s my 2nd batch ever made!
 
That will work! I let the fermentation go till little/no activity was visible, then added a 5lbs frozen bag of blueberries that were pre-pasteurized from Gordon Food Service Store. The sugars in the blueberries caused fermentation to pick back up for a 2 or 3 days, so I let it sit for another week. Halfway through that week I added the Mosaic dry hop. After 3 days, I racked to another vessel and cold crashed/gelatin fined.

The beer was amazing for the first half month, but it has turned a little harsh/vegetal. If/when I make it again, I will likely do a bigger dry hop and keep the blueberries in the beer for less time before racking off to try and avoid the vegetal notes.

If you don't have a second container/bucket, don't worry racking it off into another container. You can still try gelatin fining or cold crashing but you're more likely to end up with some sediment from the yeast/berries in the beer, which isn't that big a deal as long as you don't mind it not being totally clear.
 
That will work! I let the fermentation go till little/no activity was visible, then added a 5lbs frozen bag of blueberries that were pre-pasteurized from Gordon Food Service Store. The sugars in the blueberries caused fermentation to pick back up for a 2 or 3 days, so I let it sit for another week. Halfway through that week I added the Mosaic dry hop. After 3 days, I racked to another vessel and cold crashed/gelatin fined.

The beer was amazing for the first half month, but it has turned a little harsh/vegetal. If/when I make it again, I will likely do a bigger dry hop and keep the blueberries in the beer for less time before racking off to try and avoid the vegetal notes.

If you don't have a second container/bucket, don't worry racking it off into another container. You can still try gelatin fining or cold crashing but you're more likely to end up with some sediment from the yeast/berries in the beer, which isn't that big a deal as long as you don't mind it not being totally clear.
Awesome! Thank you🙌🏽
But what is cold crashing...kinda new to this. Is that when you set the kegerator to a certain temp to stop fermentation?
 
Yeast flocculate (clump up rather than float around freely on their own) quicker at lower temperatures. If you pop the whole fermentation bucket into the fridge, most of the yeast will clump up and sink to the bottom of the vessel rather than floating in solution. This makes the beer appear more clear. I bottle, so I do this before bottling so that there is less crud in the bottom of each bottle. There will still be plenty of yeast dissolved in the beer to carbonate in the bottle once priming sugar is added.

Only caveat with cold crashing is that oxygen/CO2/whatever gas the container is exposed to will suck into the beer, which can oxygenate hoppy beers (generally bad) and means that when you add priming sugar, you have to adjust the amount of sugar down because there is already more gas in the beer. This calculator is a valuable tool for priming!
 
Yeast flocculate (clump up rather than float around freely on their own) quicker at lower temperatures. If you pop the whole fermentation bucket into the fridge, most of the yeast will clump up and sink to the bottom of the vessel rather than floating in solution. This makes the beer appear more clear. I bottle, so I do this before bottling so that there is less crud in the bottom of each bottle. There will still be plenty of yeast dissolved in the beer to carbonate in the bottle once priming sugar is added.

Only caveat with cold crashing is that oxygen/CO2/whatever gas the container is exposed to will suck into the beer, which can oxygenate hoppy beers (generally bad) and means that when you add priming sugar, you have to adjust the amount of sugar down because there is already more gas in the beer. This calculator is a valuable tool for priming!
Thank you so much! I’m going to bottle also, when’s a good time to stick it in the fridge to clear it out, 2 days prior to bottling? And what’s a good temp?
 
I usually try and give it 2 or 3 days in the fridge, I believe my fridge is at about 37 degrees but it shouldn't make much of a difference if it's different than that! Just make sure that you've allowed the sugars from the blueberries enough time to ferment before you bottle and that you use that calculator, otherwise you'll end up with more pressure in the bottles than you expect with potentially dangerous bottle bombs! I usually boil like half a cup of water and add my sugar to that, then pour it into the bottling bucket as I'm moving the beer into it, making sure that it's mixed in well. You can also add equal amounts of sugar to each bottle but it takes longer.
 
Sorry if I've missed your window, but check out that calculator I linked to above, it is very helpful and you can determine exactly how much of whatever sugar you've got you need to add. Should be plenty of info if you google "Priming sugar for bottling" or something like that as well! I believe I carbonated this to 2.5 volumes.
 
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