Fruit Additions

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Hopwater

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Seems like the general consensus is to add fruit when transferring to secondary. Makes sense.

I would like to avoid having any seeds in my bottling bucket when that time comes, and I think adding loose fruit to the secondary would make that difficult for some fruits (i.e. raspberries, blackberries, anything with lots of small seeds).

I have seen the threads with loose fruit in the secondary...just looks like it would be tough to get rid of all the little pulp particles and tiny seeds when transferring. Filtering/straining would promote oxidation I think.

Maybe it makes sense to put the fruit in a cheesecloth sack and put into the primary after its done going nuts? Let it sit for a week or two, then go to secondary for a short while? Maybe bottle directly from the primary?

Getting ready to add raspberries to a wheat beer in the near future, and trying to figure out the best way.

Thoughts?
 
If you have an autosiphon you can rubberband a fine hop sack (everything sanitized needless to say) to either the input or output end and it will filter out most anything. It will kick some yeast up if you have it on the bottom but if you let the beer sit in your bottling bucket for an hour or so before you bottle it will have settled to the bottom. I've never done this for fruit, but it works great for dry hopping
 
I put the fruit in a sanitized 5 gallon paint strainer bag from Lowes. I close it with a sanitized twist tie.
Keeps the beer pretty darn clean.
 
Do you have a juicer? I bought a power juicer from the goodwill for a buck. You could just juice the fruit and add the liquid to secondary.
 
A sterilized muslin hop bag or piece of cheesecloth rubber banded to the opening inside the bottling bucket works well to catch any stray seeds or fruit pulp that managed to make their way through the siphon.
 
Do you have a juicer? I bought a power juicer from the goodwill for a buck. You could just juice the fruit and add the liquid to secondary.


not so sure about using any powered devices to process...may release tannins from the seeds.

I want to let the pulp soak in the fermenter for a week or two so the sugars and flavors are used as well. An alternative would be to just use more berries and crush by hand and use only the juice. Worth considering - thanks!
 
Seems like the general consensus is to add fruit when transferring to secondary. Makes sense.

I would like to avoid having any seeds in my bottling bucket when that time comes, and I think adding loose fruit to the secondary would make that difficult for some fruits (i.e. raspberries, blackberries, anything with lots of small seeds).

I have seen the threads with loose fruit in the secondary...just looks like it would be tough to get rid of all the little pulp particles and tiny seeds when transferring. Filtering/straining would promote oxidation I think.

Maybe it makes sense to put the fruit in a cheesecloth sack and put into the primary after its done going nuts? Let it sit for a week or two, then go to secondary for a short while? Maybe bottle directly from the primary?

Getting ready to add raspberries to a wheat beer in the near future, and trying to figure out the best way.

Thoughts?


I've had good success adding the fruit to the primary after fermentation is complete (usually after about a week). Then leaving the fruit in the primary until I was ready to rack to secondary/bottling bucket, etc.

I also put all my fruit in a muslin bag as well for easy removal. My last peach wheat turned out the best of any fruit beer I've made using this technique. Good luck.
 
I used canned Oregon 15 oz raspberries. They were of the whole variety with heavy syrup. I zapped them in a sanitized blender for ~ 2 seconds to break them all open. Added to secondary, and racked beer from primary right on top. No mixing.

Fermentation started up again for 1 week or so. I let it go another 2 weeks. No strainer on my racking cane, and so far I haven't noticed any rapsberry seeds or pulp in any of my bottles. If I were kegging this batch, I would have gone with a strainer bag for extra insurance.
 
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