Ok so I bottled a few days ago and based on that experience I can say, never again. There was tons of fruit floating on top and more on the bottom. I sanitized a strainer and slowly, carefully lifted off the floaters. When I tried to use an auto siphon covered by a mesh bag, the berry carcasses gathered around the bag where the siphon opening was, clogging up the mesh, and caused the siphon to then pick up some oxygen. I didn't want to pick up any more air so I quit and ended up losing over a gallon of volume. I also overcarbonated my bottles due to being stupid and racking onto the priming syrup I made even when I knew I was definitely gonna lose some volume to the fruit. Huge bummer, I was really pissed the whole time.
That being said, the beer is wonderful. It's already at a low carbonation level so I'm drinking them. I also threw in like an ounce of the raspberry flavoring we talked about during bottling just for the hell of it and because it was such a low amount it only serves to slightly enhance the blueberry in my opinion, which has kind of a winey fermented flavor. It could do with more acid (post souring pH was just under 4) which would make the fruit pop more and taste less like wine. All in all, happy with it, lessons learned. I just gotta get a few (vaccinated) friends to come drink these this weekend before they explode on me.
Next time I do a fruit beer I will be using real fruit juice for "natural" flavor and to minimize loss and fussing around. It will be slightly more expensive but when you consider there's less labor and less waste it's really a no brainer.
Also thought I would mention one other thing that you probably already know. When you use wheat extract it's not 100% wheat so you should account for that in the recipe if you haven't.
