Blueberry hefe

[Goodbeer]

Gday guys

Bottling a hefe next week, thought I'd try something different and making half of it a blueberry hefe.

Just after a bit of advice in terms of amount...will use blueberry flavouring, due to the price of fresh blueberries at the moment. I have a 112g bottle, and 21L in the fv.

Again, just planning on making half the batch blueberry.


Cheers

 

[Goodbeer]

Also is an extract

400g cracked wheat

2kg wheat lme

1kg wheat dme

28g tettnang

Safbrew wb-06

 

[Jack of all biers]

I made a blackberry beer once. It's base was a De Konick recipe (belgium ale) and it turned out quite pleasant, a good summer beer. I used real berries though, not flavouring so I'm not sure anything I learnt will help you. I know from experience of drinking commercial belgium Kriek and frombeer beers made with berry flavouring that you shouldn't over do it. The commercial ones aren't that great (overpowering artificial sweet berry flavour) in my opinion. If you do decide to go the real berry option, then I would recommend using frozen berries (or freezing your fresh ones) to break open the cell walls, letting the primary fermentation take place, then microwave the berries (kill any bacteria) before adding to the primary to let the yeast attack the berries. I added my berries to the wort boil for the last 15 mins and found that created too much in the way of pectin, that settled in the bottles later on (still tasted good, but not a clear beer at all). By adding the berries after the primary this should avoid the problems I had.

 

[Jack of all biers]

Just thought of this after the last post. Go a buy a commercial Hefeweizen and add 5 ml (or less) of the blueberry flavouring to the 500ml beer, stir and taste. Add more (measured each time) until the taste is what you are after. Then calculate that to the amount of beer you want to make into a 'Capt'n Blaubeer' (blueberry hefe) and sim-sala-bim (as the germans say).

 

[Florian]

Frozen blueberries work well from my experience and are very cheap compare ed to fresh ones.
Either throw in whole or let slightly defrost and mush them up.

From memory 2 or 3 kg give great results.

 

[Weizguy]

I believe that most flavoured hefeweizens are of the American hefe variety, but am happy to be corrected.

Not sure German hefeweizen is conducive to fruit additions.

 

[Goodbeer]

Thanks guys.

Good idea on trying in a bottle of hefe, will do it in a bottle of the last hefe I did.

Maybe next after this will try frozen berries.

Lez I've only ever had moon dog's water melon weizen, pretty good, in terms of flavoured wheats. I know prickly moses do a blueberry hefe, thought I'd give one a go, and thus far have only made Bavarian wheats, being my fave.

 

[Jack of all biers]

Hey Goodbeer, how did the blueberry hefe go? Was the blueberry flavouring okay or S*^t? It would be good to hear your results.

 

[Goodbeer]

Gday Jack

Bottled half the batch with 2ml per 640ml bottle.

Was quite nice. Just a hint of blueberry, not too sweet.

Some of them was only just recognisable, bottling another this weekend so will prob step go 3ml, in half the batch again...don't mind a sweet beer, but prob wouldn't want a whole batch of the blueberry.

Certainly wouldn't recommend doing a full batch. Was generally well liked but a couple of mates thought was too sweet. Like everything personal preference is always different!

 

[seehuusen]

Hey mate,

Ive made a couple of these, after having the Prickly Moses version
Before i did it, i made up a simple recipe, which i sent off to Luke at Prickly Moses...

60% german pilsner
40% wheat

Mashed at 66C for 60mins, aiming for 1.050

17 ibus of Hallertau mittlefrue and saaz

Added 12.5% weight of grist, of frozen blueberries at 10 mins and the same again when 90% of fermentation is done (e.g grist might be 3kg, so add half a kg at each step). Luke hinted that theirs was all added during fermentation. I think i like it better half and half, ymmv

I fermented with WB-06 @ 20C, but Luke confirmed that they use Wyeast 3638 - Bavarian Wheat.

Probably a bit late, but hopefully some thoughts for the next batch

Cheers,
Martin

 

[Droopy Brew]

I believe that most flavoured hefeweizens are of the American hefe variety, but am happy to be corrected.

Not sure German hefeweizen is conducive to fruit additions.

I agree. A good hefeweizen has such a beautiful flavour I dont know why you would try and cover it with additions.
However that is Home brewing for you- everyone has their own taste and makes beer accordingly.

 

[Phoney]

I once added 2kg of frozen blueberries to a hefe (50/50 pils/wheat WY3068).

Wouldn't do it again. It had a mild spoiled / decomposing fruit aroma and taste that was...just drinkable, but certainly not pleasant.

I've added 2kg of frozen raspberries to the same beer a couple of times before with great results. Goes bright pink, is tart, fresh and pleasant to quaff.

 

[///]

We just made one at work. With the mash filter we used 95% wheat and 5% rye. Into 4000l we added 160 kg of frozen pulp once the ferment was done

Probably only change would be to a more neutral yeast. Used a Munich wheat and it threw off some cloves which clanged with the fruit a bit

Anyways, will see how it sells, am not getting beaten up too much on untappd

 

[takai]

This is my little blueberry hefe. 500g of frozen berries into 20L. Its straight out of the fermenter so no carbonation, but so far tastes reasonable. Perhaps not enough blueberry for my tastes, but should be quite quaffable. I used WLP320 for this one, so no big phenols out there to clash with.

(kitchen paper for white balance)