Blackberry Wheat. How many pounds

Ingredients
1

I will be making 10 gallons of hefeweizen this weekend. 5 will be clean and the other 5 will be with blackberries (my girlfriend has been bugging me to do a fruity wheat beer). How many pounds do you think I need to get a good blackberry flavor? Also, I was planning on using wyeast 3068 yeast for both. But as I type this I am thinking that I would get more flavor using wyeast 1010 yeast for the blackberries.

Any ideas and thoughts are great.

2

1-2 lbs of fruit per gallon is general rule though I personally don’t have any experience with black berries in beer.

3

Never did s fruit beer but everything I’ve read says to add it to secondary. So I would probably just brew a hearty gravity beer and add the berries to secondary

“Friends don’t let friends drink bad beer”

4

One pound per gallon should be enough but you may want to go higher. The easiest and cheapest source for blackberries will probably be frozen. I bought some over the winter for some lambic and the frozen were way cheaper than the fresh and tasted just as good.

5

Yeah I figured it would be about 2 pounds a gallon. Reason I am doing blackberries is because they are on sale at the store for a decent price.

Thanks for the replies guys.

6

I’ve never brewed with blackberries, but have made other stuff with them. You may want to freeze the berries to break the skins to allow the juice to come out easier. You may also want to bag them to help keep the seeds out of the beer.

by more flavor using 1010 im assuming you mean more pronounced blackberry? It depends on whether you(she) want a plain blackberry wheat or a beer with a hefewiezen’s banana and/or clove qualities. I’m not too into fruit beers but I know Long trails balckberry wheat is a big hit with a lot of people.

7

I used blackberries in a hef last year with mixed results. I loved the flavor, but I would change some things about the process:

  1. I would buy the blackberry puree from the LHBS. Its expensive for a reason. It takes a metric shit-ton of blackberries to get you the 5-10 lbs of puree needed to make an impact on the beer. 5 lbs blackberries ~ 32 oz (by volume) of puree. There is a LOT of skin/seed there. I used a fairly fine sieve (my old strainer from the LHBS) and it let a lot of skin/seeds through. These don’t settle out (even with finings) and I was left with floaties. Basically - making your own puree sucks.

2.  I would add closer to the 2 lbs/gallon range than the 1 lb/gallon. Blackberries have a delicate flavor, so don’t be shy with it. I think increasing the volume will also yield the deep purple color I was looking for.

  1. I would add some orange/lemon zest at knockout. Similar to building a fruit dessert or mango salsa, citrus helps brighten the fruit flavor.

Hope this helps! I’m excited to brew another blackberry wheat beer this summer. I might switch it up and go with a wit yeast.

8

I brewed a Blackberry hefeweizen last summer and used 1 pound per gallon of frozen and thawed blackberries. I used WY3638, which tends to have a bit more vanilla/cinnamon/cardamom than clove on the phenolic side compares to 3068, but is otherwise a fairly typical hefe strain. Honestly, if I were to brew another blackberry beer I would go with a more neutral yeast. I wasn’t a big fan of the hefe yeast in combo with the fruit.

I also find that blackberries tend to be a bit more astingent/tannic than I like in a fruit beer. I also didn’t get as much of the fresh berry flavor I was looking for. If I were to try this again, I’d probably either use 1lb of blackberries + 1lb of raspberries per gallon to get more “berriness”, or even just use a combo of fresh raspberries plus a bit of blackberry flavor extract just to kick up the flavor a bit.

9

Agreed.

Now that I think about it - I’ve brewed wits and added fruit, and I didn’t like that flavor combo either. I’ll probably go with either a kolsch yeast or just 1056 at low temps for the next one…

10

I think I used a wit once with cherry puree that I thought came out pretty good.  Can’t speak for how it pairs with other fruits. I am totally sold on the Oregon purees though. Makes brewing fruit beers for my wife a lot less PITA.