Critique My Process For Adding Raspberries

Ok- I've got my plan down and was hoping for some critiques...

This an AG 1-Gallon batch:

I'm going to brew a raspberry wheat. I'm following the instructions per the recipe and allowing it to ferment 5-7 days at 68 degrees.

Once the FG is met, I'm going to rack from the primary to a clean secondary.

At that point, I'm going to remove about .5 pound of frozen raspberries from the freezer and allow them to thaw out, spraying them all over with StarSan.

I'll then take a boiled and sanitized hop bag and slip it into my carboy, then drop the raspberries down into it.

I'll then let it ferment out for 2 more weeks and remove the hop bag/raspberries, leaving a clean, seedless beer

Thoughts?

I think this will work out great. I would use more raspberries. I use fruit purée at 3lbs 1 oz to 5 gal of beer and would assume assume fruit purée is more concentrated then whole raspberries. I put the puree into a secondary and then rack onto it. While most of the puree will be left in the fermentor some gets mixed in with the beer giving a stronger fruit taste and aroma. How strong of a raspberry flavor do you want. I always look for a very strong taste. Go closer to 1 lb of raspberries.

My girlfriend's grandmother gave us about 5-6 pounds of raspberries from her garden. I had them in the freezer for a while and made a raspberry wheat with them a couple months ago.

I'm sure many can object to my methods, but after two weeks in the primary, I simply racked the beer onto the thawed raspberries, with no other steps taken (in sanitizing or otherwise). I left it in the secondary for two weeks, then racked it again, to a tertiary for two weeks, then bottled as usual.

I let this carb for a month or so before I tried one, and I was extremely happy with it (as were all my friends). I thought the clarity was very good and the flavor was fantastic, with the raspberry coming through, and a little tartness. I found nothing bad with this batch.

I really have/had no idea how much raspberry to use. I'd like for it to have a nice raspberry aroma for sure. Think a pound works?

I've read that it's common to use 1 pound per gallon. I used a little more on mine because I wanted to have the raspberry flavor a bit more prominent. I had very good results with that.

Lgaddy44 said:

I've read that it's common to use 1 pound per gallon. I used a little more on mine because I wanted to have the raspberry flavor a bit more prominent. I had very good results with that.

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Thanks a lot for this advice. I'll use a pound minimum, if my hand slips and I dump in 1 1/4 lbs, I guess I won't complain, ya know?

If you're using store-bought frozen berries, you can probably skip sanitizing. Just add them still-frozen to the beer. They'll thaw out just fine in the beer, and thawing first actually opens the door to infection. You could add up to 2lb per gallon and just blend with your blandest bottled beer if it's too much.

All the sugar from the berries will ferment out, but the acid won't. That wouldn't bother me any, but if you want it more wine-cooler-esque, mash a little higher or add some crystal malt.

Did anyone swirl the secondary with the fruit in there. Similar to dry hopping