The croisen has dropped on my Berlinerweiss (aka BlooBerlin, aka Blooberweiss still not sure).

So you know what that means? Primary fermentation is complete, and it’s time for phase two of the fermentation – racking the primary onto some pureed fruit!

I said I was going to do 2lbs of blueberry puree, and 1lb of cherry puree, so that’s the plan! Why cherry puree? to add some tartness to the 1-note blueberry and to add to the color of the final product. This will also be the first beer that I’m going to filter with official filtering gear, so this is going to be crystal clear when I’m done. After it’s carbonated, I might actually bottle it with a beer gun instead of kegging it – do a wax dip to add prestige and age it for a year or two. I fully anticipate entering this beer in a competition, because I have a feeling it’s going to be amazing.

I got my ingredients ready – the blueberry puree was the canned type from Vintner’s Harvest (free plug). I know I said I wanted to go the extra mile on each step – so I probably should have used fresh blueberries, but I also know that Vintner’s Harvest doesn’t slouch on their product. I have used their products in the past for mead, and it’s worked out pretty well.

The cherries though: those were fresh.

After a healthy rinse I started trying to remove the pits with the aid of a knife, but found that to be sloppy and a pain in the ass. I eventually realized all you need to do is pinch the cherry firmly between your forefinger and thumb, and 9 times out of 10, the pit will pop right out.

The cherry meat went into my ninja food processor (Free plug).

I thrashed it on the automated puree setting for a solid minute, and was left with this:

Looked ok:

I weighed it, and was just shy of 1 pound..  which is fine.

The cherries went into the freshly sanitized secondary carboy, then I weighed 2 pounds of the blueberry puree – which filled my weighing cup right to the brim!

Into the secondary it went!

Now it was time to pull the top off the primary, and see how everything was progressing with the fermentation.

Color was just about what I was looking for – a little hazy, but very light (see the hose in the shot below). Into the secondary with it!

I grabbed a sample from the runnings, and dropped it into my hydrometer tube. I was super happy to see it at 1.002! I usually see it closer to 1.010 when I run it into the secondary, so that either means I’m getting better at my craft, or I fermented a little hot – maybe a combo of both. The flavor on the pre-berry berlinerweiss was actually really good – super drinkable summery beverage. I almost feel bad for experimenting on the style before actually trying the style on its own, but experimentation is what makes this hobby fun.

Look at the color now – exactly the hue I was going for!

I cannot wait for this beer!

How long should I let it sit on the fruit? 1 month? 2 months?

aye yayae!