brewing with blueberries

[Maritimer]

I have 5+lbs of blueberries in the freezer from last year, it would be nice to use them all in a wheat ale.
I saw some pics of someones blueberry beer and it was purple, can't find it for the life of me now.

Just wondering, those of you that have used berries in your beer, what did you do and how did it work out?

I was thinking on adding a pound of so at the end of the boil and cooking up the remainder into a pulp and adding to the secondary. I'm a little worried about fermenting out all the berries though.

[mr x]

The berries will ferment out unless you drink before it's finished fermenting, or find some way to kill the yeast when you are happy with the stage of fermentation you are at.

I wouldn't put any in the boil, just let them sterilize at no more than 170f for a bit.

[Maritimer]

The berries will ferment out unless you drink before it's finished fermenting

generally not a problem in my house would chilling stop the fermentation?

I thought about adding the blueberries when the beer is finished fermenting and then cooling it down just above freezing for a few days. The other thought I had was to dose it with metabisulfate before adding the berries, something I'm not that familiar with.

I guess I would loose all the berry flavor from putting them in the boil.

[mr x]

Chilling will greatly slow the fermentation, and maybe stop it depending on the strain. Are you kegging?

[Maritimer]

yup, although I'm still a keg virgin, my set-up has finally come together.

[mr x]

I'd be more comfortable kegging beers with residual sugars than bottling.

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[GuingesRock]

Beers have been made and marketed as "anti-aging” beers. Hops potentially have huge health benefits. I looked into making a "health-kick" beer before and thought that blueberries would be great for that. The blueberry flavour apparently dissipates if you boil the blueberries, but the anti-oxidants are largely heat stable http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19255889.

A good “anti-ageing” beer might be an IPA with lots of hops and lots of blueberries. I wonder how that would taste I Googled and there are some commercially available blueberry IPAs .

[chalmers]

I'm also doing a blueberry beer, a wheat for my brother's wedding early August.
Problem is, I won't be able to touch the beer after Thursday until the night before serving it (in Ottawa), so here's my plan (someone tell me I'm crazy):

Beer is currently fermenting, expect it to be done tomorrow or Sunday. Will confirm via gravity.
Will chill as much as possible using my fermentation chamber (no crash cooling for me) to have yeast settle
Wednesday: Rack to keg with 4lbs of blueberries in cheese cloth (if they are IQF, do I need to sanitize them?), and will cool and slowly carbonate it until checking it August 8th, serving the 9th.

It's a wheat, and there'll be lots of colour from the berries, so clarity is not a primary concern. Thanks for any input, for or against!

[mr x]

I think the berries need to be broken down for maximum effect. I mash and sterilize at the lowest temp possible, I think 170 for 15 min is the max. As you go down in temp increase the time, but I'm not sure of the tables.

Bur if I was going to do kegging, I'd buy the organic juice from ss or sobeys, and use that as the carbonating liquid with a spundig. Didn't Brian make one?

[ANGELofDEBT]

I have done a blueberry blonde ale in the past at 1lb/gallon. I had frozen berries that I put in a blender and added to a secondary. Doing it this way the beer was purple.

[chalmers]

Good ideas here, thanks. I'll aim for about 1lb/gallon, and sterilize then crush them, then add in a paint strainer (to avoid clogging the tube/post) to the keg. I do have time to let the berries and juice ferment, so that can be the primary source of carbonation, and will use the tank to finish the job.

[canuck]

I racked a pale ale onto 6 lbs of blueberries last week. I heated the frozen blueberries up to 165F and kept it at that temp for about 15 mins or so to pasteurize them. I just let them cool down in the fridge until they were 70F and then dumped them in the secondary and racked the beer on top of them. I used 5 lbs last time I made it and thought it was just a little too subtle.......so I added an extra pound this time around.

[mr x]

I'm a bit leery about adding a bag of that many berries into the keg, even in a bag. Might clog up the whole bottom area.

[NASH]

Good ideas here, thanks. I'll aim for about 1lb/gallon, and sterilize then crush them, then add in a paint strainer (to avoid clogging the tube/post) to the keg. I do have time to let the berries and juice ferment, so that can be the primary source of carbonation, and will use the tank to finish the job.

I thought you were a chemist?? You could sanitize the berries but sterilization is somewhat doubtful.

Pectins set at slightly higher or lower temps depending on the type but many of them set around 160 f, clarity aside, you likely don't want milky beer. Regardless of that, you certainly do not need to blend, mash or process frozen berries. The cell walls are already completely ruptured. Also, IQF are more than plenty sanitary to throw right in there. No need for all the extra work.



Transmitted from the hop-phone.

[mr x]

I think you'd get better extraction of flavour and sugar over a short time frame if you mash them. That was my impression using bakeapples.

They weren't IQF though, so maybe that's all it takes to allow sugar to quickly pass from the centre of the fruit.

[Tony L]

. That was my impression using bakeapples.

Speaking about that, how did the brew taste?

[mr x]

Lambicy, lol. Tart too. I think it's good.

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[Maritimer]

I'm tempted to rack my wiezen onto 6 lbs of frozen blueberries and chill it to 2-3C

[chalmers]

Thanks for the continues suggestions. You're right: sterilize vs. sanitize, I did misuse the term. Oops!

I thought I'd be getting IQFs, but got fresh instead (price was right), so will definitely be doing the 170F for 15min route. Bought 2lb of berries and 500mL of blueberry juice, suspect that'll be enough flavour for the 17 or 18L of beer I'll be racking onto it (stovetop BIAB, so smaller batch than usual). Oh well, it's my first crack at it (maybe last), and it's only my brother's wedding. If it was mine, I'd care more.

[canuck]

Just poured myself a pint of my Blueberry Ale.

[mr x]

Looks great!

Sent from my Nexus 4

[canuck]

Tastes pretty darn good too. I'm really glad that I bumped the amount of blueberries up to 6lbs for this batch.

[Ladd]

that looks fantastic!