Adding fruit to an pre-existing recipe

I'm planning on a strawberry or raspberry blonde ale for my next creation and I want to keep it crisp and quaffable with the alcohol content in check. I've got enough bigger beers to do me for awhile, so I want something that I can enjoy a few of without flooring myself.

I plan to brew a blonde in the 4-5 ABV range as the base beer; either an AHS kit or Beirmuncher's Centennial Blonde (I've heard things). I'm planning on brewing a 5 gal PM partial boil batch and adding 5 pounds of fruit to the secondary for 1-2 weeks after fermentation. The fruit is high in sugar, how much of which is fermentable I do not know. I assume there will be a secondary fermentation when the yeasty beer meets the fruit. Which leads me to my question...

Will this effect the ABV or the beer and if so, by how much?

I've checked back through the archives and I can't find a thread on this topic.

EDIT: please ignore the typo in the title, damn edit feature doesn't let me get to it.

Let me start by saying I have no good advice here....but I'm interested to see what some others have to say! I've done some research on this subject as well, and just added raspberries to my wheat beer this past Saturday. I added the fruit to a wheat beer after 2 weeks of primary as mentioned above. Primary was completely finished when I racked to secondary on top of 3 lbs of raspberries. I had quite a bit of activity for about the first 2-3 days and now things seem to be done. I have no idea, however, how much 3 lbs of fruit influences the final ABV?? I'm thinking that the effects are minimal, but have no supporting evidence.... Anyways, just thought I'd share my current experience. Best of luck with your fruit beer!

Dan

actually there will be a second primary fermentation and a continuation of secondary fermentation when you add the fruit.

yes it will affect the ABV. most likely it will raise it. take an OG reading and a FG reading before you add the fruit. then take a SG reading after adding the fruit. add the difference to the OG. then once its fermented take another FG reading. use the second OG and FG to calculate your ABV.

at least i think thats how it works.

also think about using some pectic enzyme to prevent pectic haze.

TipsyDragon said:

actually there will be a second primary fermentation and a continuation of secondary fermentation when you add the fruit.

yes it will affect the ABV. most likely it will raise it. take an OG reading and a FG reading before you add the fruit. then take a SG reading after adding the fruit. add the difference to the OG. then once its fermented take another FG reading. use the second OG and FG to calculate your ABV.

at least i think thats how it works.

also think about using some pectic enzyme to prevent pectic haze.

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Tipsy, I'm not sure if this will work, as the sugars from the fruit and the beer will never really be in a uniform suspension for me to get an accurate OG reading. The gravity reading I get right before I get when I rack onto the fruit and the gravity reading I get before I bottle may be the same rading, but sugar will have been introduced and turned into alcohol between those points.

Somebody on here will give you the actual amount of fermentable sugars in the fruit...but I know the ballpark is it MAY and its a big MAY raise the OG like .001 per something like 5 lbs


I'll see if I can find the post where they told me the actual numbers...

I looked into this before when I did a cherry wheat. Yes, it will absolutely raise the ABV of your finished product. I remember finding a chart that showed the general sugar content of different fruits, but I didn't save it. I don't think raspberries specifically had a very high sugar content, but strawberries did. The other thing I think I remembered reading is that certain fruits don't come through well in a beer, and strawberry was one of them, so you would need to add a lot more to get the flavor.

You wouldn't be able to take a gravity reading to determine the sugar added from the fruit though. The sugars wouldn't mix well from crushed fruit or puree by just racking on top of them as you normally would. Since you can't get the sugars dissolved out of the fruit and into the beer, your gravity reading wouldn't be accurate. The only way to get a decent estimate is to find the sugar content of the fruit per pound and calculate the added gravity points from there.

If you can't find that information, I would suggest to go a little low on initial gravity. Maybe 3.5-4%. Depending on how much fruit flavor you want you can add more or less fruit, but 1lb of raspberries would probably be a good starting point for a mild fruity flavor.

Daparish said:

but sugar will have been introduced and turned into alcohol between those points.

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thats why you add the change is SG the fruit caused when adding it like i suggested.

Here it is
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/sugar-content-raspberries-669/

I know first hand Cherry and Orange come through...but Blueberry is very very weak.

I'm allergic to Strawberries so don't know about them.

Thanks for posting that Jay, looks like I'm remembering that entirely backwards. Raspberries are actually higher in sugar than strawberries. I'll have to make sure to actually save that this time...

So yeah, at 9.5% sugar, even if all of it is 100% fermentable, you're talking about 1.5 oz per pound (someone check my math, it's been a long day). That's less than you'd even add to prime bottles with.

TipsyDragon said:

thats why you add the change is SG the fruit caused when adding it like i suggested.

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I understand, but I won't be mixing the fruit sugar into the beer evenly, it will simply leak from the crushed fruit into the beer over a certain time frame. there is no way to accurately measure the SG I don't think.

I juice my fruits and take a gravity reading before and after to get a gravity adjustment. I understand your issue with suspended solids, but that's why I juice instead of adding it as a puree.