Fruit Beer Fermentation

[babar79]

Anyone want to give me your thoughts on should I rack my fruit beer to secondary? I'm not opening the single vs 2 stage fermentation, I've read enough of those.

Do you think that this recipe will benefit from being taken off the fruit after 7 days or to leave it the full 3 weeks?

Basic Wheat - extract
2.5lbs pureed raspberries

-Adam

 

[Altbier bitte]

I've never done a fruit beer, but I think I would let it get through visibly active fermentation, then rack it. You could thief a gravity sample in a week or so and make sure it's within a few points of your projected final gravity first. If nothing else, that's a lot of organic material to have in your beer for that long. Also, you might lose most of your raspberry flavor during this period - you might want to re-fruit in the secondary. Then you could call it twice fruited, and that's almost as good as triple hopped.

 

[LarryBrewer]

I would rack it sooner than later.

Re-fruiting sounds like a good plan. Normally you want to add the fruit in the secondary because the yeast is making a lot of gas which is carrying away some of the good stuff from the fruit.

 

[babar79]

Interesting thoughts.

I agree with getting it off the fruit. I was definitely going to wait for active fermentation to complete before racking it off. I guess I can finally use my better bottle that came with my kit.

About re-fruiting, do you think I should stick with the puree or go with whole berries? Either would be purchased frozen whole and then added thawed.

 

[Altbier bitte]

How are you sanitizing them? I honestly don't know about the whole/puree (I would guess pureed would be better because the flavor should be a little more accessible) question, but I know I'd hate to lose a batch to an infection. If they aren't packaged specifically for beer and labelled safe, I think you can soak them in vodka.

 

[babar79]

From what I have read freezing kills anything that could be an issue. I guess we will just have to wait and see. I will sneak a sample for testing and tasting when I rack it to secondary this weekend.

 

[Altbier bitte]

Chances are you'll be fine - beer defends itself pretty well. You've got the krausen early and the alcohol later, not to mention the hops.

 

[jmcnamara]

I just did a strawberry blond a few weeks ago.

I racked to primary, without any fruit. Then, about a week later I racked to a secondary. First though, I put 4lbs of (mostly) pureed frozen strawberries in the carboy. I definitely recommend letting the strawberries thaw some before putting in a blender. I also dry hopped with a very mellow variety (name escapes me).

I let that sit for about two weeks and bottled.

A week later it had a very fruity smell and taste, with a creamy mouthfeel. Unfortunately, it didn't age too well. I still have two 6 packs in the fridge.

Oh well. Live and learn from your (and other people's) mistakes. Good luck!

 

[BrewHop]

I have heard freezing works well to kill any buggers, just be aware that if you put fruit in secondary it may start fermenting again because of the sugars in the fruit. Happened to a friend of mine and he had to wait another 2 weeks to bottle...

 

[babar79]

I moved the batch to secondary and put in 2.5 lbs of frozen raspberries. I took a swig and it was already fruity. I think I might of over done it with the fruit. Of course I didn't taste before I started racking it.

This is going to be interesting. Another 1 1/2 weeks and I will bottle.