Going to try to this for the first time. I am using 3 lbs of blueberry puree. I've done a good bit of research but am trying to figure out what will work best. 1. Should I use a hop bag for the puree or just add it to the beer and use a strainer when siphoning. 2. Will I be able to add it to a carboy or should I use a bucket as the secondary.(If I use a hop bag I think it would be almost impossible to add to a carboy) 3. If I use a bucket as the secondary is the extra headspace of 6.5 gallon bucket going to be a problem? Thanks in advance
I've done this several ways for different fruits. 1) I've added the fruit in secondary and racked the beer on top. This works well, except it tends to plug up the siphon when racking into your bottle bucket or keg. Even if you place mesh over the siphon opening, some of the fruit can still plug up that mesh; it depends on the fruit you are using. I've only used fresh, never puree, not sure how junky purees are. 2) I've also primary fermented in a bucket, and when primary was done, added the fruit in a mesh bag to the bucket, then removed the fruit prior to racking to keg/bottling. This worked a bit better; but I found that the fruit flavor was termpered a bit, presumably due to the amount of yeast in primary vs secondary. I also found that while it was easy to rack, the beer was still a little junky. I'd advise using method 2), add a bit more fruit to the batch than you would for 1), then use a strainer over the siphon to transfer. This should maximize flavor, minimize pulp in your beer, and prevent any transfer issues. Don't worry too much about headspace in the bucket when adding the fruit; once the yeast get a hold of the sugar in the fruit, they'll produce more CO2 and minimize the beer's contact with O2. Good luck.
When I add fruit puree I usually just add the can right to the primary about 3-4 days into fermentation. The puree I use is very much a liquid and wouldn't stay in a hop bag (and if you bought a can from a homebrew shop I'm guessing this will be the case for you). I'll try to cold crash the beer for a few days before bottling, and haven't had a problem siphoning into the bottling bucket without a strainer. Also, if you're using blueberry, you may want to consider adding some extract at bottling. I've found the flavor/aroma contributions from blueberry to be very subtle and to be more generic berry/fruit than pure blueberry.
