So I was watching "Drinking Made Easy" last Wednesday with Zane Lamprey. They were in Spokane, Washington and No-Li Brewhouse had a Blueberry Cream Ale where they used fresh blueberries in the primary fermentation. The reviews for this beer support them saying there is definite blueberry flavor and aroma present. That got me thinking... Since I have a hefe that I'm going to brew in a couple week and I was already debating to make it a blueberry hefe since we have a ton of fresh picked blueberries from last season that are frozen and taste delicious with a nice tartness to them. I was going to see how many blueberries we have and will probably end up being able to use about 5 pounds or so (with wife's approval to use in beer). This episode got me thinking of maybe being able to skip secondary and just brew, chill the wort and dump it onto the blueberries and pitch the yeast. This will allow a quicker chill time since I could use the frozen blueberries to help with the cooling process and not have to cool way down with the wort chiller. Thoughts on using blueberries in primary vs. secondary??? Ingredients I already have on hand for the recipe: 6# Wheat DME, 1oz Hersbrucker (60 mins - 9 IBU), Safbrew WB-06.
I made a 4 gallon batch of blueberry witbier using WLP400 a few summers ago, using 80 oz of blueberry added to secondary. This beer subbed lemon peel for orange peel typical of a wit. Initially reminiscent of lemon secented floor cleaner, the lemon eventually faded. But perhaps the blueberry faded too. When I felt the lemon level was tolerable, the blueberries were barely hinted at, and mostly in ones imagination, I suspect, because of the slightly purple hue the beer took on. This ranks as one of my least successful efforts. Coincidentally, another of my least successful efforts was a dampfbier (German ale brewed with weizen yeast but not with wheat malt) using WB-06 - I found this yeast to be pretty unpleasant in a phenolic way. But, I only tried it once so maybe I messed up. It's been known to happen.
I have a Berliner Weisse bottled that I used the Wyeast Blend in and let it sit in secondary for 9 months and it never go sour (added ~2.5oz Lactic Acid - tastes awesome in the bottle!). I then brewed a very low gravity wheat beer and used the WB-06 in primary and transferred it onto the yeast cake left behind in secondary of the 1st Berliner Weisse batch got the nice berliner aroma but never soured. I guess it "soured" a bit more than the 1st batch on the yeast cake but I then added ~2.75oz Lactic Acid when I kegged it. It's still young on the cake but not young as a beer, being it was in secondary for quite a few months (maybe 5-6 months). It has some weird aroma coming from it and it may be the WB-06 now that you mention it... weird...
I've never used fruit in primary but everything I've read says to defrost the fruit and drain any liquid prior to use in secondary.
i'd suggest mashing the blueberries and not adding them whole (unless I'm not understanding what you were going to do). there will be more flavour
I made an experimental 2 gallons of blueberry blonde ale and used whole blueberries. It came out quite good (and I plan to try it again) but could have used more blueberry taste. Therefore I think you are right, crush the blueberries. I froze them, then rinsed them in a little starsan solution, then rinsed that with a little spring water and added to secondary (after two weeks fermentation in primary). I don't know if this was the right way to prepare the blueberries or not, but the beer did not wind up infected (caveat n=1). I also don't really know whether the secondary was necessary, or if they could have just been added to primary a bit earlier, but that's how I did it.
while starsan has bacteriocial properties, i'd just soak those berries in vodka. not a fan of soaking food in starsan. just a mental thing.
However, I only rinsed in starsan, did not soak, the contact was short. I realize this could have possibly led to infection because the starsan didn't contact the blueberries for very long. It was experimental, and it worked out. However, vodka sounds like it would have been better for this application as I did it, thoughts? How else do you sanitize blueberries? Sanitization before crushing?
crush then sanitize. as much surface area should come in contact with the vodka. by just soaking them in vodka, you're sterilizing the skin and assuming the fruit inside doesn't have bacteria....which is probably incorrect, since fruit ripens then rots.
Ok, so the hefe came out at ~5.5%. I added ~5.5# of blueberries that were picked fresh then frozen. I didn't crush them beyond what was needed to push them through the funnel into the carboy. A slight fermentation started up again but I have no idea how many gravity points has been added to the beer. I'm not hugely concerned but I'm thinking that this 5.5% hefe could be 6% plus now but I have no clue on how to figure out the calculation. Hopville said something crazy which I don't think is correct.
You could look up the sugar content of blueberries, like here... http://www.fitsugar.com/Sugar-Content-Fruit-20134844 And then do the math. Keep in mind that when you added them, you also added water to your beer volume, which will bring gravity and ABV down from what you would have got if you had just added sugar.
So... we'll call it a wash... ha-ha. I'm not quite the mathematician to figure out that equation... ha-ha. 5.5# blueberries at 8.5g sugar per 3oz = 249g (8.8oz) sugar in the 5.5#, I think. Plus the water that came from freezing the fruit so I'll call it ~5.5% (+/- 1%) Blueberry Hefe... ha-ha.
You're halfway there. 8.8 ounces of sugar (call it 46 ppg) would add 5.06 points to 5 gallons of wort... ((8.8/16) x 46)/5 = 5.06 And 5.06 fully fermentable points would add something like 0.67% ABV. So your 5.5% ABV becomes 6.17%, before dilution. To do that step, you just need to estimate the value of 'X', i.e. the amount of water added by the fruit... ABV = 6.17% x ((Old Volume)/(Old Volume + X))
No idea how to estimate that. I actually used a 6.5gal carboy for secondary since I was adding too much fruit to fit into a 5gal plus figuring fermentation would start again and didn't know where that would go. I really appreciate the help of formulation but I have no idea on the volume added since it was in a carboy and the fruit will be taking some of the beer with them once I transfer the liquid to a keg, I'm thinking at least.
Using an approach like Vikeman suggested, I estimated that 5 lbs of blueberries in my blueberry wit add 6.7 ounces of sugar. I suppose that there is the possibility that some sort of bacteria that could be associated with the fruit could help breakdown some of the complex carbs in the fruit to simple sugars, that ultimately yield more alcohol than this. However, I doubt it happens to a substantial degree.
All that really matters is the amount of water added (still easier said than done). The amount of beer left behind in the fruit isn't relevant to the ABV estimate. (It will have the same ABV as the beer you rack.)
