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Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:59 pm
by timcress10
Good evening brewnowers! I've got a bit of a dilemma on my hand; I've brewed one of the Best Case beer kit recipes and added 3kg of frozen blueberries into secondary. I've done this a couple of times now (first time brewing it was back in June and the 2nd time was a few weeks ago, and was bottled today). Obviously any advice is moot at this point but it's become a bit of a popular brew for my friends and family.

I've pasteurized the frozen blueberries both times I've made it (it was unnecessary the first batch as I bought IQF berries, but Superstore didn't have any for the 2nd batch). I rack the beer right onto the cooled, pasteurized berries. Both times I've made the beer I've had a hell of a time siphoning in to my bottling bucket for bulk priming, and even had issues with siphoning into the bottles. My siphoning cane has a tendency to suck up the very mushy blueberries which plugs up the tubing, and if I'm not careful at the bottling stage will clog up my bottling wand too.

My question, then, is would it be worthwhile to simply add the pasteurized (or thawed berries if I'm able to get IQF berries)to a muslin bag and tie it off? Or is there something I could rig up on the end of the siphoning cane that would prevent any of the soft berries from getting sucked up? Today's bottling got so frustrating that my bottling wand was completely blocked and ended up having to be thrown out. Thanks for any advice or tips.

Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:10 pm
by oceanic_brew
Hey! I do a lot of my berry additions in a muslin bag.

You’ll find that some people will recommend racking into another fermentor on top of the bag of berries and then some will say just slowly lower the bag down into the beer. All depends on what you’re fermenting in I suppose. Either way you are exposing the brew to microbes and oxygen.

One could flush a vessel completely of o2 by purging starsan out of a fermentor with co2, drop the berries in and then keep on flushing, then rack the beer into it?

Seems like a lot of screwing around at the Homebrew level


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Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:41 am
by mthibodeau
timcress10 wrote:Good evening brewnowers! I've got a bit of a dilemma on my hand; I've brewed one of the Best Case beer kit recipes and added 3kg of frozen blueberries into secondary. I've done this a couple of times now (first time brewing it was back in June and the 2nd time was a few weeks ago, and was bottled today). Obviously any advice is moot at this point but it's become a bit of a popular brew for my friends and family.

I've pasteurized the frozen blueberries both times I've made it (it was unnecessary the first batch as I bought IQF berries, but Superstore didn't have any for the 2nd batch). I rack the beer right onto the cooled, pasteurized berries. Both times I've made the beer I've had a hell of a time siphoning in to my bottling bucket for bulk priming, and even had issues with siphoning into the bottles. My siphoning cane has a tendency to suck up the very mushy blueberries which plugs up the tubing, and if I'm not careful at the bottling stage will clog up my bottling wand too.

My question, then, is would it be worthwhile to simply add the pasteurized (or thawed berries if I'm able to get IQF berries)to a muslin bag and tie it off? Or is there something I could rig up on the end of the siphoning cane that would prevent any of the soft berries from getting sucked up? Today's bottling got so frustrating that my bottling wand was completely blocked and ended up having to be thrown out. Thanks for any advice or tips.
I do blueberry at least once a year. I out my berries into a secondary and carefully rack the beer on top of them, seems to introduce the least oxygen. When transferring I get a small muslin bag, and put over then end of my auto siphon.

I did it the other way before, berries in a bag, but I needed two bigger bags. This way I used one small one

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Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:32 pm
by jacinthebox
Dave sells these (sold out right now)...they may help
http://www.everwoodavebrewshop.com/product-p/35031.htm

Image

Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:33 pm
by jacinthebox
I may have one...but that may not help you due to location

Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:45 pm
by timcress10
Thanks for the replies folks! I'll give these all a try at some point or another.

How did everyone secure either the stainless filter or small muslin bag to the end of the siphoning cane?

Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:48 am
by mthibodeau
timcress10 wrote:Thanks for the replies folks! I'll give these all a try at some point or another.

How did everyone secure either the stainless filter or small muslin bag to the end of the siphoning cane?
Butchers twine I think for me

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Re: Fruit Addition Help

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:50 am
by oceanic_brew
The only time I tried the Muslin bag over the autosiphon the bag kept screwing with the siphon. That was my experience, it seems to work for a lot of people.


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