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y partner in brewing wants to do a blueberry beer this summer, and looking into it, a blueberry wheat seems like it would do well. We don’t have much capacity for mashing, and haven’t really done even partial mashes yet, so we’re strictly extract + specialty grain. Here’s what I was thinking for a base recipe:
3.3 lbs. Amber Malt Extract
3.3 lbs. Wheat Malt Extract
3/4 oz. Hallertauer (60 mins.)
3-4 lbs. Fresh Blueberries
German Weiss-beer yeast
So, that being said, I have a few questions:
1) Are there any specialty grains that I should consider here?
2) Any thoughts on blueberries in the primary vs. the secondary? I understand that putting them in the secondary will lead to a more pronounced fruit flavor than the primary.
3) Any thoughts on how to add them? I was thinking either thoroughly mushed or maybe even put through a blender, maybe I’ll do this, let them sit in the fridge overnight with a campden tablet, and add to secondary?
4) What’s the deal with pectic enzymes? I guess that I wouldn’t be too worried about clarity in a wheat....
5) Do I have any chance of calculating a marginally accurate gravity on this thing?
6) Any other thoughts in general? This was more or less a normal weiss recipe and I just added the blueberries. Should I change hops amounts? This isn’t a whole lot, but it would kind of defeat the purpose to have it overpower the blueberries.
I think that’s about it. Any specific thoughts or just general comments would be great. Also, any specific experiences that y’all have had with brewing fruit beers....
Cheers,
Paul
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Blueberries have a natural yeast coating on them, so to kill that off, you want to slowly heat them up to about 180 degrees with about 1/4th a cup of water and add water as needed. Stir to keep them from singing. That’ll effectively break the cell membreanes and make the blueberries more usable.
I usually do not do this when using blueberries as I want the wild yeast to do its thing, but I usually am using them in either a sour beer or a cider.
As far as adding them, I prefer secondary as you get more out of them. I usually leave them in about 2-3 weeks to do their thing then rack to a tertiary and crash cool to get the residual blueberries out of there.
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Also, assuming you’re going for a hefeweizen feel, I’d add 1# of flaked wheat. Otherwise it looks good as is.
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I just bottled a blueberry wheat this past week, and from tasting it while racking I can give you this advice. Blueberries are a pretty subtle fruit so
1. I would at least double the amount you plan on using.
2. Purree the blueberries because they will clog your siphon and take away some of your final beer.
3. when transfering to the secondary taste and make sure that there is enough acidity to show off the fruit, I didn’t think there was in mine so I added .25 oz of acid blend and it really really made a difference
as for your recipe I would foget the amber extract and steep a light crystal malt. i used Cali ale yeast to make mine since I didn’t want esters interfering with the blueberries, and I was wondering what you were thinkikng with the weiss-yeast. It may not be bad but you won’t get the blueberries to be as pronounced in the aroma if they are battling with hefe-weiss phenols and esters.
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