fastricky

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I'm going to go the Campden route. Will be brewing up something in a week or so, so it'll be over a month before I can report back, but I will when the time comes.

Crash cooling won't work for me as I want to bottle, and if the bottles are stored at room temp, the remaining yeast will feed on the fruit sugar.

My main concern isn't getting an extreme fruit flavor, but moreso the quality of the flavor (sweeter versus dry/tart).

bruin_ale

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If you campden it, will there be enough yeast to carbonate in the bottle? Are you going to add more and if so how will you prevent that yeast from eating the fruit sugars you are trying so hard to preserve?

fastricky

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The campden should kill off all the yeast, so what I'll do is keg and force carb it. Then I'll bottle from the keg... no priming necessary.

Does anyone know if campden adds any off-flavors?

Before I start this project, I'm gonna call White Labs and make sure the campden will work as planned...

bruin_ale

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Thanks, makes alot more sense now.. I wasn't sure if you had the ability to force carb, so I was just making sure that if you were going to bottle it you weren't planning to bottle carbonate because you'd be creating bottle bombs or gushers at the very least.

dotsoj

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There are things other than campden that you can use, one being potassium metabisulfite. I have used it in making cider before but never in beer. It did not seem to add any off flavors, but I do not know the pros vs cons in beer maybe someone else can chime in.

SnickASaurusRex

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From my wine experience I don't think the Campden will kill off all the yeast in a healthy fermentation. At least not in the recommended dosage range. Potassium Sorbate is what wine makers use to stop fermentation. It will stop it dead in a day maybe two if you have a large colony. Wine makers use potassium or sodium metabisulfite (campden) to protect against oxidation and bacteria and wild yeast. They often add a dose every time they move the wine and at several time during the bulk aging stage. It is not known to kill the yeast off for wine makers.

I think you will just be delaying the fermentation if you use campden. This could lead to explosive results. Like I already said. Potassium Sorbate will stop the fermentation dead.

Another thing to concider is that you will be adding sulfites to the mix. In theory this will increase the perceived bitterness from your hops.

Good luck with this.

dotsoj

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Ha! I did not know they were the same thing, thanks for pointing that out.

fastricky

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SnackA... thanks for the info!

mredge73

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resurrecting 3 year old thread...

I attempted make a fruit beer without fermentation on the fruit and failed miserably.
I racked my beer on top of fruit and added potassium sorbate and left it in the fermenter for 2 weeks at 65F.
I guess I didn't do a very good job racking it off the yeast because it fermented down to dryness. Either that or I picked up contamination since I used a full pound of crystal in the original brew that finished at 1.010; now I am closer to 1.001.
It has a noticeable unpleasant smell/aftertaste. I cannot really put my finger on it but I know I have smelled that before somewhere. Maybe sulfur?
I went ahead and racked it to the keg and started force carbing it hoping extended aging will help.

I need some help identifying the smell/problem before I can come up with a proper solution. I have made fruit meads, blackberry wine, cider, and lots of beer successfully and I was confident that I knew enough to combine my collected knowledge to simply back sweeten beer with fruit. Seems that I was mistaking.

hopkid

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You may try freezing the fruit and also make sure you cold crash for a couple of days prior to racking on the fruit. Freezing the fruit should help get rid of any bugs on the fruit.