Any thoughts on adding blackberries to an American wheat extract. From what I have seen a 3lb addition to the secondary seems like the right ratio. Is this correct? Frozen/Unfrozen? Do any adjustments need to be made due to the extra sugar?
Freezing the fruit helps the juice come out. You don’t need to make any adjustments, the fruit won’t raise the ABV that much.
3 lb of puree would be decent. If you’re talking fresh fruit, you may want to up that closer to 5 lb or more for the flavor.
I made a raspberry wheat last year with 3lb of frozen berries for my wife. It didn’t have as much flavor as we were expecting. It was a good beer, just not quite what I was hoping for.
Great. Sounds pretty straight forward. Thanks for the input.
Keep in mind that my suggestion of 5lb of fresh frozen fruit is a minimum to get a nice, somewhat subtle but noticeable flavor. If you really want the fruit flavor to “pop”, you may want to add more.
Good luck!
I’ve made a blackberry wheat twice now with great results. I used frozen berries. They were hard to beat for the price/availability. At 1.5 lb./gallon, I had a very prominent berry flavor, but the characteristic flavors of a wheat beer were still present. The second time I made this beer, I added the berries to the secondary in a nylon paint strainer bag. I highly recommend this method. Let me know if you have more specific questions.
