Hey guys im going to try brewing a 5 gal batch of blue berry wheat, and was just wondering if anyone has suggestions on how much fresh blueberry to use and when to add the fruit, thank you!
At least 1 pound per gallon of beer. Blueberries can be tough to gauge in terms of amount, some people add up to 3 pounds per gallon. All depends on how much blueberry flavor you want.
Make sure the fruit is sanitized (either buy a puree or pasteurize fresh fruit) and add it to the secondary fermentation
Me do make. A kriek lambic. I do use. 2lbs fresh cherries. And 1 lbs. Cherrie purree what our host sells. Works perfect on 5.5 gal
In addition to to sanitizing, freeze them for a day or so. In the freezing process the ice crystals open up the cell membranes and help get the juices out. While this turns your blueberry muffins into a purple disaster, it is what you want for the beer. Freezing also kills some bugs, it’s not really a substitute for sanitizing, but it it does help.
I would add the berries after primary fermentation is done; which I would judge by just waiting 2 weeks; I wouldn’t bother with gravity readings at that point…
You didn’t mention if you wanted to rack the beer to secondary. That’s your call, but I say not necessary. In either case you will get some secondary fermentation, so you still want some headspace after the fruit go in.
Do you, or can you cold crash after primary to get an initial clearing before racking onto the fruit and then cold crash again after sitting on the fruit, or would the multiple temperature fluctuations hurt the beer?
Multiple cold crashes would help to suck in some O2… Why not, add the fruit now, let it ferment again, then cold crash? You’re hoping to have a CO2 blanket on top of the brew that will be the first to be pulled into the brew… Sneezles61
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Makes sense. Thank you very much.
When I did this I cooked down 5.25 pounds of blueberries until they were all burst. Dropped them into a wheat beer sitting on lees for “secondary” and got a significant reactivation of fermentation. Let that sit for 4 weeks then bottled it. Took twice as long to bottle condition but when it did it was really nice. The blueberry was super forward in the nose but very subtle in the taste.
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