I’m planning on brewing a blackberry berliner weiss, and I was wondering people’s opinions of using juice vs whole fruit. My options are… whole fruit, post freeze, or juicing the berries with a quality juicer, with a good extraction rate. My plan is to brew a sour mash berliner weiss, and add the blackberries or juice in primary.
My thought is that anything I can do to aid in reducing trub / pulp in the beer is a good thing.
thanks,
Aaron
Blackberries are pretty darn tart (malic acid?). How much blackberry are you planning on adding, and how sour are you planning to make your BW?
I would freeze, thaw, then add the berries. No problem at all. I would taste it after a week or two and keep on top of it, the tannins of the berries/seeds could have a negative effect on the final beer. You could make a syrup, but then I would just add it in the glass like traditional schuss.
I plan on making it fairly tart, but you are right, I have to figure out just how much juice I want to add. I’ve only got so much fruit, so that’s my obvious upper limit. I might make some juice, and add it to a straight berliner weiss and see what it takes to taste it, and go from there. It sounds like I’d be saving myself a step of having to remove seeds if I just juiced the berries. So, I’m going to go that route.
thanks guys.
Yeah - blackberry seeds are a PITA to keep out of a puree - and they dont really drop out if they get in the beer.
Fine mesh seive, a little patience, and some elbow grease will get you there. I usually get a low yield using whole blackberries. They’re plentiful while in season, so its ok.
Ive had great success with the Puree from brew sites(Oregon, Vitners Harvest). 1 can is good for 5 gallons. No dealing with seeds, worrying about sterilization, freezing or whole fruit taking up carboy space.
Its also not much more expensive(if at all) than buying 4 lbs of blackberries unless you get a nice deal at a farmers market or something like that.
If you have the fruit on hand, Im with the above. Freeze and drop em in.