Experimental Bramble Bitter - Use 'Em Up

[DeniqueCoelum]

Quick question on an experimental recipe - using up some malt from my store which was approaching its best before, plus some hop pellets. It's going to be a funny sort of bitter (using ale yeast), and I'm thinking of adding brambles (or blackberries as my English wife and readers from south o' the border refer to them). I was initially thinking of adding 150g into the boil (crushed, and in a cheesecloth bag) and then adding a further 50g after fermentation is complete and leaving them to steep for 48 hours. However, a fellow brewer mentioned that wild blackberries might introduce some funny yeast and do strange things. I thought that if I made the additions during the boil, and then after fermentation is done that that wouldn't cause any issues, but I thought I'd check and see what you folks thought. The whole thing might just be a bad idea!

 

[Clint]

Personally I wouldn't bother. I think from that small amount you'll get some colour and as you said the high risk of infection. Adding during the boil won't ruin it but I wouldn't add any at bottling. If you want a blackberry flavoured beer I'd use a commercial essence.

 

[DeniqueCoelum]

Personally I wouldn't bother. I think from that small amount you'll get some colour and as you said the high risk of infection. Adding during the boil won't ruin it but I wouldn't add any at bottling. If you want a blackberry flavoured beer I'd use a commercial essence.

That sounds like a plan for sure - ditch the fruit and use an essence.

 

[The Baron]

I am with Clint.
Too small of a amount to make any difference and the risk of wild yeast if not treated properly.
You could also use Brambling Cross hops which are supposed to give a blackberry/bramble flavour

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You could also use Brambling Cross hops which are supposed to give a blackberry/bramble flavour

Mostly blackcurrant - and there's only one "b" in Bramling! Nothing to do with brambles or the bird, Bramling is a village near Canterbury that was the origin of the Goldings parent of BX.

Going back to @DeniqueCoelum - it's always a bit of a lottery the whole wild yeast thing. It can work, but I'd tend to be cautious for the first time. Putting them in the boil won't be ideal from a flavour perspective unless you like blackberry jam, adding them at around 50C should be hot enough to kill any surface yeasts whilst not evaporating too much flavour.

I had a commercial blackberry mild once which worked quite well, from a brewer obviously playing with variations on the plum porter theme. But in general it's quite hard to get a good fruit flavour out of these things unless you're adding loads - for krieks Belgian brewers add 200-400g per litre of their (admittedly somewhat weird special cherries which are almost all pip). Jeff Sparrow in Wild Brews suggests somewhere in the 200g/l range as a starting point for fruit you don't know.

Freezing fruit and defrosting it can be a way to mush it up and release the juice.