I've searched all around, and I can't seem to get an answer (or even a general idea) of what kind of gravity contribution I can expect from adding frozen blueberries to a beer. I have had an idea for a while about making a Belgian Wit with a hint of blueberry and adding Brett to the fermentation, and the time has come to brew it up. I'm not talking about adding the blueberries to fermentation, I was planning on using Sam's method from "Extreme Brewing" where he suggests adding them to the kettle at flameout, letting them sit in there at approx. 170 degrees for 15-20 minuites before chilling, then straining the solids out on the way to the fermenter. He suggests using 10 pounds of blueberries for a 5 gallon batch, I will be using about 5 pounds in a 3 gallon batch. Any ideas on what kind of gravity contribution they will have? I have heard answers ranging from 30 points all the way down to "negligable".
Gravity contribution of blueberries?
- Thread starter AdamWiz
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I think I may have an answer. I found some nutrition info on frozen blueberries online that every 1 cup serving ( about 155 grams)contains about 13.1 grams of sugar. So 13.1 divided by 155 comes out to about 8.5% sugar content. So 5 pounds of berries times 8.5 percent comes out to about 0.425 pounds of sugar.
BrewThruYou
Well-Known Member
Negligible because the blueberries contain water too.
I brewed this up yesterday, "BrewThruYou" was right about the gravity contribution being lower than you may think due to the berries also containing water. The base recipe without the berries I had figured to come out at about 1.050, with 5 pounds of berries in a 3 gallon batch the gravity came out at about 1.052. So as for recipe formulation, I would say assuming that for every pound of blueberries you add, it is the equivalent of adding about .04 pounds of sugar. I can't wait to drink this stuff, it looks and smells incredible. It is a bright bluish purple, and today the carboy was full of really cool looking bright purple krausen. I hope that some decent blueberry character is left after fermentation, otherwise I may have to add a bit of flavoring or extract when I keg it. I'm thinking that the Brett will really go well with some blueberry flavor. Since the brew contains both wild blueberries and wild yeast, I've named it "Wild Wild Blueberry Wit".
