Looking for Recipe feedback - Blueberry Muffin Ale

[stratslinger]

Up until now, I've been happy to brew others' recipes - whether I've found them here on HBT, in Brewing Classic Styles (Jamil's definitely given me some great beers!), or wherever. But I'm now trying to put together my own first recipe.

I'm trying to go for a blueberry ale, and trying to go from Jamil's advice for fruit beers: think about the base beer first - something that will lay a good backbone for the fruit. So, I'm thinking of something along the lines of a muffin - I want to bring out some bready qualities, and maybe a little bit of spice to boot. So, without further ado:

This is an 11 gallon recipe, I made it with BrewTarget, and I can't seem to figure out how to get it to export cleanly like I've seen several folks to with BeerSmith, so this'll be pretty manual:

22lbs 2-row (77%)
2.75lbs Biscuit Malt (10%)
2.75lbs Rye Malt (10%)
1.0lb Carapils (3%)

Hops
1oz Galena (60 min)
1oz Goldings (30 min)

Mash @156F for 60 minutes
Boil 60 minutes

Not decided on the yeast just yet - I've got S-05 as a place holder...

Calculated OG 1.067
Calculated FG 1.017
Calculated IBUs 26.5
Calculated Color 7.7 SRM


So... Still to be decided is whether or not the Rye is a good idea - I like the idea of a little bit of spice in a blueberry muffin, but I'm not sure if the spice character would overpower the blueberry. Also, is there a yeast that would better suit this type of beer? Or, is something about this attempt at a recipe just way off base to begin with, and do I need to reconsider the basics?

Then - what's the best way to introduce the fruit to the beer? Go with fresh fruit and puree it? Just get puree straight from the wine supply section of the LHBS? Save some time and effort and go with an extract at kegging time? Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[ArcticBear]

I'd be interested to see how this turns out. Unfortunately I can't provide much in the way of the recipe except that I think the rye is a little on the heavier side but that's just me (not being partial to beers with a lot of rye)

As for the fruit I did a chocolate cherry porter with extracts and I tasted nothing. So now I renewed it in a split ten gallon batch to apply varying amounts of cherry purée. I will say that the stuff in the cans in the purée was not what I thought it was going to be when the can opened. But we will see how it turns out.

Good luck and hopefully someone can provide some good insight

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

sounds great. please update when this is done. I've made some fruit wheat beers and the Wyeast Bavarian wheat gives a great dark/rich fruit flavor by itself. I was thinking about doing a blueberry wheat.

I don't think the rye would be a good fit, but depends on personal taste

think about adjusting the mash temp or adding some honey malt if you want some sweetness.

To get the best fruit flavor and aroma, drop pureed fresh/frozen fruit or canned puree into boiling water for a very short time to sanitize and add to the secondary. Extract is generally not as good, but it does allow you to adjust the amount to taste at bottling. Also if you can, ferment a small amount without the fruit to taste the base beer, to help with formulating a second batch.

 

[stratslinger]

Anybody else??? I'm still a little torn on the Rye, here... I really like the idea of going with the little spicy note that the Rye can add, but I don't want to overdo it and risk the Rye competing with the Blueberry... I'm considering backing down the Rye to 5% and upping the Biscuit to 15%, but I'm still not sure.

Also, on the Yeast note, I've done a little digging, and I think I've come up with my top two choices. I'm going to try to go with Wyeast 1450 - Denny's favorite. According to Wyeast's notes on the strain, it's got the same attenuation as S-05, so no changes to my numbers. But more importantly, they say it gives a big mouthfeel and accentuates malt and fruit character of a beer, which sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. It does have low attenuation though, so it might have to spend an extra week or two clearing, but I've got a decent pipeline going right now so that's not a big concern.

The second choice, in case the LHBS is out, is Wyeast 1968 - London ESB. That one does change up my numbers just a bit - my projected FG goes to 1.021 (and all these numbers are before figuring for fruit, keep in mind!)... The London ESB has in its favor that it's highly flocculant, so it'll be a quicker turnaround (yeah, not much of a factor for me). However, it does tend to produce "distinctly malty beers" which should provide a nice malty backdrop for the fruit.

 

[stratslinger]

OK, well, I did get a little feedback from some of the folks in my club. That, and the most local LHBS, where I had to go to source the yeast to get a starter going, didn't have any Denny's favorite, so my yeast choice was made for me... So, here's what my actual recipe will look like:

11gallons:
21lbs 2-row (81%)
2.5lbs biscuit (10%)
1.25lbs rye (5%)
1lb carapils (4%)

1oz galena (60 min)
1oz goldings (30min)

Wyeast 1968 - London ESB

I plan to mash around 155 or so, to account for the less attenuative yeast. Might even let it drop a little lower...

I wimped out on the Rye for this go around - I backed it down to 5%... I figure we'll see how it goes. If it's good, great. If it's too subtle, then I'll bump it up in a future brew. If it's still a distraction from the fruit, I'll drop it in the future. But it's something I want to dry, so dang it, I'm gonna try it!

I figure I'll ferment this out for 2-3 weeks at around 66F (probably the 2 will suffice with the WY1968), then rack onto blueberries - probably going with frozen strawberries at roughly a pound per gallon. Let that sit for another 2-3 weeks, which should put this ready to keg by the end of June. My only minor concern there is that this means 4-6 weeks that my fermentation chamber is going to be completely tied up with both of these fermenters (I _might_ be able to squeeze a third in there, but I kind of doubt it - I may have to experiment).

 

[edroberts]

The grain bill looks pretty good for this kind of recipe. The only thing I would consider is using some flaked wheat instead of the Carapils with the rye.

I've found that mashing high is usually a good bet when using fruit that will highlight the beer. It helps to maintain a bit of sweetness to pull more fruit out. The drier the beer, the more subtle the fruit tends to be IMHO.

As far as yeast is concerned, if you want that bready character, S-05 and Denny's Fav are certainly a good options, as would some sort of hefeweizen yeast. I'd probably stay away from highly foculant yeasts.

Good luck! It sounds like you are well on your way!

 

[ArcticBear]

Good luck. I can't wait to hear how this turns out

 

[jgerard]

I REALLY want to know how this turns out. After reading about a banana bread beer recipe I actually thought about a blueberry muffin. I hope this works out for you, I really want to try it! Best of luck.

 

[Anthrop]

Looks good, I'm looking forward to hearing how this turns out - I may have to give it a shot. I think backing off the rye was a good call, with 5% you should get a touch of that spice you're looking for without too much.

 

[HopSong]

I just now posted a thread in this forum about Torini flavorings. The company makes a blueberry syrup designed to add to drinks.. used in bars and coffee bars. Amongst them are both blueberry and cherry.

I'm certainly thinking of making a light pale ale and splitting in into two batches of 2.5 gals each.. one regular and one with a flavoring. But.. it's a bit off in time.

 

[stratslinger]

Brewed this up yesterday - went with almost the exact recipe, just went with two tweaks at the LHBS... The guy there, who's been very helpful with other efforts in the past, suggested backing off the biscuit to 2lbs instead of 2.5, and I had to substitute whitbread for the goldings, since they were out of goldings. From what I gather, that should be close, but possibly a touch fruitier - which should be just fine for a blueberry ale.

The brew day went fine, the only exception was my efficiency... Not sure if their mill has been tweaked, or if I just haven't paid close attention to efficiency on batches I've done when getting grains from them. I know that, when I get my grains from brewmaster's warehouse, I typically get around 73% efficiency batch sparging - but I have to keep on top pf BMW to make sure they ship my stuff on time. So I went local instead, and the crush was definitely inferior, and I think that knocked my efficiency a bit - 65%. It'll still be beer, just slightly less potent (which will likely be a good thing for a summer beer).

Both fermenters took off overnight (pitched the starter at high krausen) so I'm guessing that they'll be ready to rack to the fruit in 2 weeks, maybe 3.

 

[stratslinger]

Update: So, I let this rip in primary for about 2 weeks and it fermented out and cleared up nicely, so at that point, we racked each fermenter onto about 4 1/2 pounds of frozen blueberries. After trub loss, we got probably 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 gallons out of each fermenter, so it was close to 1lb berries per 1 gallon beer, which I've read is a good ratio. I thawed and refroze the berries a couple times to get the cell walls good and broken down beforehand.

Last night I pulled my first sample. Gravity is right about where I we guesstimating, though I do need to do a little research into how to better estimate the addition from the berries just to double check my guesstimates. However, I'm a little dissapointed in the flavor. It's definitely pleasant - the base beer came out nicely. The rye is subtle, but there. The biscuit, well, didn't seem to have the effect that I was looking for - no real bready notes like I was expecting, but it's still a nice flavor. The blueberries though... There's a faint note of blueberry in the nose, and an even fainter note of it on the palette. SWMBO and I have been sampling a few other blueberry ales in preparation for this one. One or two have been similar to this in their relative lack of blueberry character, while others have been really in your face with it.

I'm almost tempted to try to get some blueberry extract and add it to the kegs when I rack, but it feels like cheating.

Anyway, thinking about what I might do differently next time around, I considered maybe pureeing the berries. But I managed to fish out a berry or two with my thief, and there's absolutely no sweetness, and no flavor left to the berry - I'm pretty sure I've gotten everything out of those berries that I'm going to get. So, I think it's got to be down to either a different grain bill (maybe the rye, even though it seems very subtle, is still overpowering the fruit?), a different yeast, or more fruit?

 

[jgerard]

The one time I used blueberries I got mostly color and aroma, all the sweetness fermented out.

 

[archer75]

I just made a blueberry muffin ale a week ago. I'm already thinking next time i'll ditch the 2 row and go with marris otter. I used a can of blueberry puree I got at my LHBS. Still a way away from drinking it but i'll post more info on it then.

 

[stratslinger]

And another update... Kegged this a week ago, and added 1oz of brewers best blueberry extract - sadly, had to go the artificial route, as it was all the LHBS had. Just pulled a sample of the kegerator, and I'm very pleased. There's definitely some color contribution from the fruit, and both the slight aroma and flavor components that were present have been kicked up to more noticeable levels. I'm quite happy with the beer, though SWMBO says that she doesn't think she'd identify it as blueberry if she didn't know up front, though she says it's a delicious beer.

I'll be bringing a growler of this to a family picnic next weekend - should be interesting to get more varied input on it there.