Blueberry Weizen NEED HELP Please!

[geologyguy]

Well a buddy of mine showed me how to all-grain brew. It's been one day and created a recipe that I want to brew in a few weeks.
I want to run it by you all since I have never made a all-grain recipe from scratch.

So I want to add some blue berry in the secondary but kinda scared. Any opinions and the amount to add?

Also i am going to mash at 150 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 minutes. Is that good?

Below is my recipe.
Thank for your time.

Style: Weizen/Weissbier
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 2.30 gal
Post Boil Volume: 2.08 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.75 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 4.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 19.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 72.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type %/IBU

6 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 63.2%

2 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt - 6 Row (Schreier) (1.8 SRM) Grain 26.3 %

1 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 10.5 %

1.00 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop

1.00 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop pkg

1 pkg Weihenstephan Weizen (Wyeast Labs #3068) Yeast

1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Dry Hop 6.0 Day Hop


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 9 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 11.88 qt of water at 162.5 F 150.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 0.47 gal water at 168.0 F
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[prandlesc]

Well, it's like cooking anything, the more flavor you want, the more you add. I'd add a pound of berries and lightly crush them - enough to split the skins.

 

[geologyguy]

Well, it's like cooking anything, the more flavor you want, the more you add. I'd add a pound of berries and lightly crush them - enough to split the skins.

Okay. But do you think my mashing is right?

 

[Snisup]

Is this a 5 gallon batch? Are you doing partial boil?

 

[geologyguy]

Is this a 5 gallon batch? Are you doing partial boil?

It's a 5 gallon full boil

 

[Snisup]

Ok.. Then you're going to be sparging with a lot more water. You're BS printout says 2.3g boil. You might want to go back and fix that to get your proper volumes. It will effect your hop usage as well.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I've not had the opportunity to brew with blueberries yet, but from what I understand, you need to use a lot of them to get any flavor. I believe somewhere in the 1-1.5 lbs per gallon is what you should be shooting for.

As far as the mash temp, 150 will be all right, but might be a little dry. If it were me, I'd mash at 152 the first time through and make adjustments on future batches, unless dryness is what you're looking for. Also, keep in mind the the sugar from the berries will add to dryness as well.

 

[Snisup]

I just bottled a batch of Strawberry Wheat that finished at 1.007 from adding the fruit. I used 1lb/gallon and it's just barely noticeable in the aroma and you have to be very imaginative to taste the strawberries.

 

[LLBeanJ]

You should check out this thread...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/first-fruit-beer-334892/

I think you'll find it helpful.

 

[geologyguy]

Okay thank you all for the advice. I might just leave out the blueberry sense this is my first alone all-grain.

 

[geologyguy]

Ok.. Then you're going to be sparging with a lot more water. You're BS printout says 2.3g boil. You might want to go back and fix that to get your proper volumes. It will effect your hop usage as well.

Okay i am still new to this. So if I want to boil 5 gallons straight from sparge how much water should i use?

 

[Conan]

If your fermenter volume needs to be 5 gallons, boil at least 6. I account for 13% boil off over an hour which is about 1.1 gallons.
You'll want to strike with a water:grain ratio of 1.25-1.5 quarts/ pound. So, using your recipe of 9.5 lbs and 1.3 qts/ lb you'd strike 3.09 gallons. You'll lose 1-2 qts/ pound of grain, so count on at least a gallon loss, likely more. We'll assume 1.5 gallons lost to grain. From your first runnings, then, you can reasonably expect 1.59 gallons into the kettle. To reach you full boil volume of 6-ish you need 4.41 gallons of sparge. Assuming you batch sparge, you can either single (single of [4.41+ loss to tun]) or double ((4.41+loss to tun)/2) sparge. Either way is the same process, but double you do it twice.

From you last question I understand you want to no-sparge, correct? Some folks do this with decent results. I haven't, but the volume principals are the same as above. Just add your initial strike and all sparge volumes together, however you shouldn't have to account for "loss to tun" more than once. By the way, I'm referring to the wort you simply can't remove from the mash tun, which is not the same number as grain absorption.

There's another option for fruit beers, and that is extract. I use fruit extract from my LHBS on my wife's wheats and it tastes fine. There's no hassle (just measure and pour into the keg or secondary) and it costs much less than buying pounds of fruit. The process of adding flavorings doesn't have anything to do with the AG process since it's performed either in the kettle or in the fermenters.

And as one geologist to another....fruit beer? Really? (just giving you schist, I like fruit from time to time. ) Kyle

 

[Snisup]

In your case you would sparge with around 16 quarts of water to get to a boil volume of 6 gallons. That's assuming that you can boil that much and that you have about 1g/hr boil off rate.

You should changes your volumes around in beersmith to get the exact numbers. Making an equipment profile is important too. I tweaked my numbers for my ghetto 4g BIAB and everything always comes out really close.

 

[rico567]

As far as putting blueberries in a weizen, I have a proven recipe, but when I researched it I found out the same thing mentioned earlier in this thread- that it took a LOT of blueberries. So I just went with the blueberry flavoring in little bottles (I got mine from Midwest, its branded LG Carlson), and it worked out fine, about half a bottle in 5 gal.

 

[geologyguy]

If your fermenter volume needs to be 5 gallons, boil at least 6. I account for 13% boil off over an hour which is about 1.1 gallons.
You'll want to strike with a water:grain ratio of 1.25-1.5 quarts/ pound. So, using your recipe of 9.5 lbs and 1.3 qts/ lb you'd strike 3.09 gallons. You'll lose 1-2 qts/ pound of grain, so count on at least a gallon loss, likely more. We'll assume 1.5 gallons lost to grain. From your first runnings, then, you can reasonably expect 1.59 gallons into the kettle. To reach you full boil volume of 6-ish you need 4.41 gallons of sparge. Assuming you batch sparge, you can either single (single of [4.41+ loss to tun]) or double ((4.41+loss to tun)/2) sparge. Either way is the same process, but double you do it twice.

From you last question I understand you want to no-sparge, correct? Some folks do this with decent results. I haven't, but the volume principals are the same as above. Just add your initial strike and all sparge volumes together, however you shouldn't have to account for "loss to tun" more than once. By the way, I'm referring to the wort you simply can't remove from the mash tun, which is not the same number as grain absorption.

There's another option for fruit beers, and that is extract. I use fruit extract from my LHBS on my wife's wheats and it tastes fine. There's no hassle (just measure and pour into the keg or secondary) and it costs much less than buying pounds of fruit. The process of adding flavorings doesn't have anything to do with the AG process since it's performed either in the kettle or in the fermenters.

And as one geologist to another....fruit beer? Really? (just giving you schist, I like fruit from time to time. ) Kyle

Schist haha. Well I was going to make it for my mom and dad cause they love blueberry. But I might just keep it out this round. Thank you for all the information it sure helped. So if I am going to boil about 6 gallons in BS do i put 6 in the Est Pre-Boil Vol ?

 

[Conan]

I allow BS to calculate my pre-boil volume automatically based on my equipment parameters. Check out the screenshot below:

Under 'Boiler', set your final volume, top-up desired, losses (mine are zero because I use an IC and get nearly all of the wort into the kettle), and evap. rate. It will guess at cooling loss. For me, using the provided 6.32 gallons gets me 5.25 on the nose, every time- which leads to about 5.1 into the keg, and I don't have to worry about getting every drop from any part of my process.

As I said earlier and someone else reinforced, the blueberries aren't terribly difficult and don't complicate the mash at all- it's all in the fermenter (or the BK, depending on the recipe). I still encourage the use of extracts though. It's literally as simple as pouring an amount from the bottle into the wort. I guess at ~.25 bottles/ 3 gallon batch and it's about perfect. Anyway, it's up to you. Good luck! Kyle