Hi all, planning on brewing a beer for my sister in celebration of her 3rd baby, she requested a ‘fruity’ beer so I’m thinking a nice wheat beer maybe with some blueberry. My question is how much fruit would I need for a present yet subtle taste. I’ve never brewed with fruit before but I do have several all grain batches under my belt so my fundamentals are pretty fine tuned with some styles, just not with adjuncts lol. I do 2.5- 3 Gal batches. Any and all suggestions I appreciate. Cheers!
Blueberries are a tough fruit to work with, as they don’t have a strong flavor that comes through when added to beer. As a general fule of thumb, about a pound of fruit per gallon gives a subtle to moderate flavor, but you will likely have better results with a stronger flavored fruit like red raspberries, blackberries, or tart cherries.
Agree, blueberries are not the easiest choice to work with. Raspberry is a very forgiving fruit to work with and it is, or at least was, the obligatory fruit option for wheat beers. Apricot is another easy and forgiving fruit to work with common to fruited wheat beers. You can also go the tropical fruit route which would pair well with all the tropical fruit flavored hops out there right now.
A pound per gallon is plenty to get moderate fruit flavor and still taste some of the beer underneath. Today most fruited beers are closer to 2-3 lb/gal. The good thing about fruit is you can always add more if you feel like your first addition isn’t enough.
Also don’t forget to use pectin enzyme to break down the pectin in the fruit so that the sugars in the fruit will ferment. It will also reduce the haziness in the beer (this may not be an issue since you are doing a wheat beer and may want the haze).
For blueberries in a wheat beer, I’ve found 2 lb./gal. to be about right. At least with the blueberries we grow.
If you want to get huge long lasting fruit flavor do a mixture of fresh fruit in secondary and a tincture. I know tinctures aren’t “natural” and people hesitate against them but fresh fruit flavor just seems to fade out over time unless you’re going to drink this whole batch quickly. I used to have complete disdain for tinctures but have come to accept em.
Good quality natural flavors are perfectly acceptable in my book, although I once thought it was a no-no. I recently ordered 6 or 7 different flavors from Apex Flavors for home soda/seltzer making, and after tasting them I would have no reservations using them in a beer. The nice thing is that an extract can also be dosed in the glass, so you can try it without commiting a whole batch.
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions, I’ll do a couple test batches with natural fruit and I’ll go for raspberries instead. Will report back with results.