Blueberry 2
This past weekend I got the place to myself. It would have been totally awesome to be with my wife and baby at the Pitchfork Festival. But, I did have lots of brewing things to do. At least I got to see Sonic Youth have a rockin good time playing their Daydream Nation set on Friday night.
Saturday after work I had to bottle the Hop Blend IPA in order to make room for the Matrimony Ale on Sunday. I took advantage of a still and quiet house and bottled the Belgian Strong Dark Ale as well. Since that one was in 3 separate secondary jugs, I decided to use a piece of equipment little used for bottling. The bottling bucket...a bucket I only use for mixing grains, sterilizing hoses and bottles and stuff, and sometimes as a hot liquor sparge water tank. Bottling went well, and these beers taste pretty darn good.
Saturday after work I had to bottle the Hop Blend IPA in order to make room for the Matrimony Ale on Sunday. I took advantage of a still and quiet house and bottled the Belgian Strong Dark Ale as well. Since that one was in 3 separate secondary jugs, I decided to use a piece of equipment little used for bottling. The bottling bucket...a bucket I only use for mixing grains, sterilizing hoses and bottles and stuff, and sometimes as a hot liquor sparge water tank. Bottling went well, and these beers taste pretty darn good.
Sunday was the day to rack the Matrimony Ale to secondary. So I decided to brew a beer to pour right over the yeast cake in the primary carboy. I knew I wanted to do a fruit beer. Blueberries like last year? Raspberries? Passion fruit? I did some research and shopping round. Since Trader Joe's was selling 2 lb boxes of big plump and ripe blueberries for a very reasonable price, I had to go with them.
Last year's experimental Blueberry Ale had a very light malt base with very little crystal and no wheat. This time, for some reason, my confidence is up and I brewed a large batch. I wanted to go with a solid wheat percentage with enough sweetening support from a few crystal malts. I also thought some citrusy hops would pair well, and since Amarillo also has a fruity character, I used it for the aroma addition.
Brewing went very well, and I got good stats. Check out the recipe and stats below. I got only two photos of the rinsed and dried blueberries laid out right before freezing on Wednesday.
Blueberry 2
4.25 gallons (w/ blueberries...could be more in the end!)
Grains
4.00 lbs. 2-Row Pale Malt
1.75 lb. Wheat Malt
1.00 lb. Flaked Wheat
1.00 lb. 6-Row Pale Malt
6.00 oz. Crystal 40L
2.30 oz. Crystal 60L
1.75 oz. Special B
Hops
.50 oz. Amarillo, 8.7%, whole, bittering
.25 oz. Cascade, 7.6%, whole, bittering
.30 oz. Amarillo, 8.7%, whole, 5min-aroma
Fruit
4.00 lbs. Fresh Blueberries, hand squeezed, in wort at 140*F
4.00 lbs. Fresh Blueberries, hand squeezed, in 2nd half of primary
Yeast
Wyeast American Ale, large yeast cake from previous batch
Brewday Stats
Salts added to boil: 1/2 tsp Gypsum, 1/8 tsp Calcium Chloride
Mash Temp: 155*F
Mash Time: 1 hour
Mash-out Temp: 162 (always comes out low?)
1st Batch Gravity: 1.060
2nd Batch Gravity: 1.025
Preboil Gravity: 1.043
Original Gravity w/o blueberries: 1.054 (1 point over target)
Approx. IBU: 29
Color/SRM: 15-20 (with fruit)
Brewhouse efficiency: Approx. 75%
Cost: $35.76, $4.74/6-pack, $0.79/12oz bottle
Progress
1. I went out to catch a movie right after brewing, and when I got home there were bubbles coming out of the blow-off hose. I then retired for the night at around 10PM. In the morning there was a steady, but fairly slow bubbling. And now as I post this entry, the bubbling seems to be slowing way down. Not sure what's happening here. Either there was enough yeast to chew through everything throughout the night, or it got stuck for some reason. I suppose a gravity check will answer this.
2. A gravity check on Tuesday evening did informed me that the wort finished fermenting, and was settling down. This marks the shortest fermentation of all my brewings. Done overnight! WOW that's fast. And it tastes ok.
3. I added the second round of blueberries on Tuesday night. 4 more pounds of plump blueberries squeezed into a thick pulp. This second addition started to ferment within an hour, and continued for about a day.
4. Periodically, as I walk past the boiler room, I give the carboy a light swirl because the blueberries have a strong propensity to float above the surface. Because the boiler room is halfway down the hallway, its easy to remember.
5. Racked to secondary on July 27th. The color is simply amazing. Looks more like wine than beer. The color of the base beer was probably around 9, but now with all the crushed blueberries its more like 15-20. So far so good. Looking forward to tasting it when its done.
6. I think the photos below totally rock. I love the colors and the way the blueberries look all funky. The whole blueberries that managed to slip through my fingers while hand crushing rested on top of the layer of pulp. Thank you my dear for taking these.
7. Bottled on July 31st. It's color is amazing. It tastes very good. Clean, light, with great blueberry taste and aroma. There was a sort of awkward lager/6-row malt flavor that has since vanished. There is a very nice soft acidity too. I wanted enough carbonation to hold a head for a little while (which should turn out reddish-purple) so the 4oz. of priming sugar should bring the CO2 volume to about 2.65.
7. Bottled on July 31st. It's color is amazing. It tastes very good. Clean, light, with great blueberry taste and aroma. There was a sort of awkward lager/6-row malt flavor that has since vanished. There is a very nice soft acidity too. I wanted enough carbonation to hold a head for a little while (which should turn out reddish-purple) so the 4oz. of priming sugar should bring the CO2 volume to about 2.65.
8 comments:
Great efficiency! Are you batch sparging on all of those? My efficiency suffers when I batch.
Good looking brew and good looking stats.
I really like batch sparging. I've been doing it this way for all my smaller volume brews. At this point it looks like the efficiency is just about as good as the fly method.
Not really sure why its coming out so good. I don't increase malts or mess around with different Ph's or anything. I use a 10 gallon round Rubbermaid mashtun with Phil's false bottom.
For better drainage speed, I cut two small "V" shape notches at the very bottom of the intake/L-tube. It occurred to me even before I first used it, that it needed more drainage holes. This MUST be the reason I'm getting such great results! Ha!
I will get around to talking about Ph soon.
Blueberry! Belgian Strong Dark!! Oh, man, I am stoked to sample some of these amazing-sounding brews! See you in late July, my dear friend. Brewnsai Brewnsai Brewnsai.
Hey Mr. N., we tried the Hop Blend IPA last night. After one week in the bottle it is amazing. Very fresh with smooth/soft & light carbonation. Its as close to a cask conditioned ale as I can get. Hopefully there will be some left for your arrival. I'll try my darndest to get this blueberry 2 in a bottle by then. Brewnsai! Brewnsai! Brewnsai!
Hey Ted -
I'm throwing together a blueberry wheat using the same methods you described above. Did you have any problems with carbonation? Bottle Bombs? Did you feel the Blueberry flavor was spot on or could have used more/less? Cheers!
No problems with carbonation. It was just right. Fermentation happended so quickly and thoroughly, that when all signs ceased, it was time to bottle. It'd didn't even go into a secondary.
I thought the blueberry flavor was impressive. Both additions fermented very well, so the taste was almost wine-like with a light beer backing. I am interested to repeat this recipe. I'd say the second addition of blueberries could be added to a secondary fermenter for a more complex taste. I aged about a 1/3 of the batch for a one year tasting. Can't wait.
Good luck. Hope it turns out exceptional.
Ted -
Appreciate the response! Good to hear about the carbonation. I was pretty worried about over-carbonation. I'm not pitching on a yeast cake so I'm sure mine wont take off quite as fast. My original recipe was going to have the full 6lbs added to the secondary but after reading this I'm going to follow your methods.
If you were to add some blueberries to the secondary, how many pounds would you add? We're looking for something with loads of blueberry flavor.
Cheers!
Sorry it took so long to reply. I was on tour, and haven't looked at this in a while.
Adding a LOT in primary does a lot for the flavor. But if you wanted even more, then a couple more pounds in secondary should do. Blueberries are a soft tasting fruit, and you really can't overdo it. However, I think the flavor can overtake the beer flavors, so a fermented blueberry taste, I think works well.
Good luck. I'd like to know how it turns out.
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