Blueberry Ale - Puree or not to Puree?

Northern Brewer General
1

LMs,
I know there have been lots of discussion about blueberry beers (and how its hard to make them come out good). I have a freezer full of fresh-frozen blueberries that are calling my name (there are only so many pancakes you can eat). I am looking for a little bit of feedback/input on my plan.

I’m using NB’s all-grain American Wheat as a base. I plan to add 2 pounds of my frozen blueberries to the secondary for at least a week then keg. First question, should I puree the blueberries first? Just crush them up a little bit? Should I make a tincture by soaking the blueberries in vodka? I was also thinking about adding some additional blueberry juice right before kegging for some aroma.

Thoughts? Other ideas?
Chet

2

I’ve only used frozen blueberries once. I slowly heated while mashing, then sealed and cooled overnight.

Couple weeks in 2nd then kegged. Came out deep red with no pectin haze. My brother in law said he could taste blueberries,
it tasted like wine to me.

I used 8 lbs in 4 gals. You should be fine just pureeing.

3

[quote=“chetgregg”]LMs,
I know there have been lots of discussion about blueberry beers (and how its hard to make them come out good). I have a freezer full of fresh-frozen blueberries that are calling my name (there are only so many pancakes you can eat). I am looking for a little bit of feedback/input on my plan.

I’m using NB’s all-grain American Wheat as a base. I plan to add 2 pounds of my frozen blueberries to the secondary for at least a week then keg. First question, should I puree the blueberries first? Just crush them up a little bit? Should I make a tincture by soaking the blueberries in vodka? I was also thinking about adding some additional blueberry juice right before kegging for some aroma.

Thoughts? Other ideas?
Chet[/quote]

2lbs is not going to hardly do anything to almost 5g of beer. You should be using 5-10lbs.
Feezing them is sufficient to break the cells wlls, just thaw and throw in. If you want to puree go for it but it will be harder to strain.
I would not a juice to the keg, if you want add juice why not do it when serving each glass?

4

Thanks for the input. I will go with 5 lbs and just throw them in whole. I’ll report back when I he the results.
Chet

5

with blueberries I would puree them or at the very least pound them once they have thawed. I may do a tincture as well if you have excess fruit. With a tincture, you are essentially making your own extract, so I would probably puree for that as well, and add at packaging if necessary to supplement flavor/aroma. Worst-case, you will have some blueberry vodka that will be great in a cocktail.

Let us know how it turns out!