Adding Fruit

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RandalG

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I know it's common practice to add fruit to the secondary after the primary has finished. Recently I got the Paragon Apricot Blonde kit from NB and they said to add it 2-3 days into primary and let it finish then move to secondary to clear. The beer turned out very good. I was just wondering is there a reason why this isn't more commonly done.
 
I do not use a secondary, typically. Each time I've added fruit it was to the primary after fermentation was complete (between 7-10 days after pitching.) It is my understanding that if you add fruit to your fermenter while your airlock is bubbling you can lose the fruit aroma. It is also my understanding that kit instructions are not always the most accurate guides for how to make the best beer. If my understanding of fruit aroma is correct, your beer may have finished fermenting in the 2-3 days before you added the fruit so your finished product was as you expected.

Hope that helps.
 
How do you add berries? Steep them in water and dump it in?
 
I made a cherry wheat a few years ago and simply racked the beer onto the fruit.

I have a current batch that has been fermenting strong since Sunday and I plan to add the cherries tonight right into the bucket where its fermenting. I plan to stem and wash the fruit and add them to a large paint straining bag and weigh it down.

Plan is to leave them for about 6 days and then move to 2ndary to clear. At that point if there isn't enough cherry flavor I will add more.
 
I know it's common practice to add fruit to the secondary after the primary has finished. Recently I got the Paragon Apricot Blonde kit from NB and they said to add it 2-3 days into primary and let it finish then move to secondary to clear. The beer turned out very good. I was just wondering is there a reason why this isn't more commonly done.

I just brewed this kit last night. I also have a strawberry wheat that I brewed about 2.5 weeks ago. I racked my wheat over frozen strawberries that I'd heated to 160 about 10 days after it went into primary. With this apricot blonde, I was planning on adding the fruit puree after 7-10 days as well.

Glad to hear your's turned out well. Hoping mine does as well! :mug:
 
I added a can of apricot puree about 3 days into primary. I even called NB to make sure it wasn't a typo on the instructions. I should have also mentioned the kit also calls for adding 4 ounces of apricot extract at bottling/kegging. I was afraid that was going to be too much flavoring but it wasn't. I suppose that could have added some aroma I may have lost in primary but it smelled and tasted great and was well received by everyone who tried it at a party I had a few weeks ago. While at the LHBS I did notice different extracts say to add different amounts per 5 gallon batch so all extracts aren't created equal.I have found that out from my own experience as well. But I have to say for apricot the one can/four ounce combo works pretty well.
 
I've only used fresh fruit but I've been told, by people much more knowledgable than myself, that using both real fruit and extract flavoring often provides a more natural flavor than you can get by using either on their own. Someday...
 
I've only used fresh fruit but I've been told, by people much more knowledgable than myself, that using both real fruit and extract flavoring often provides a more natural flavor than you can get by using either on their own. Someday...


Using both is what I was planning on doing. :)
 
Using both is what I was planning on doing. :)

I just tasted my apricot ale, and I wasn't impressed. I got a lot of alcohol, but only a little, if any, apricot. I put 72 oz's of apricot puree in the secondary
8 days ago, and got a lot of initial fermenting activity for two or three days, and now even if I agitate it, the airlock doesn't even move. I will leave it alone for 2 or 3 days, and see if has cleared or not. If not I guess I wait a little longer. I had planned on having to use apricot flavoring, at least a little, to fortify the flavor at bottling . The other day I had a chance to taste apricot flavoring from a company with the name of Brew-something and was blown away by the "strong" clean flavor it had. Oh well, at least I tried to make a flavored ale using real fruit. As long as the beer tastes like apricot, and doesn't taste phoney, the missus will be happy.:fro:
 
My Apricot Blonde turned out very flavorful. I think you will see that after you bottle and let the beer condition for a couple of weeks in the bottle, more apricot flavors will come out! The problem I had is that I didn't wait long enough from when I added the apricot puree until when I racked for bottling as I don't think the second fermentation had gone all the way through. So now my beers are waaaaaaay too carbonated?! Oh well. Lesson learned I guess. But the beer still tastes really good and it's a very refreshing summer ale!
 
do you sanitize the fruit before adding or just toss it in? if using fresh berries do they need to be crushed first or is whole the way to go? i recently came across some blueberries and i'm looking for a way to use them for evil (aka my brewing process)

your pal
THE CAD
 
I don't know for sure about blueberries, but I used fresh strawberries in a wheat beer I made earlier this summer. I cut them and then froze while the beer was fermenting in primary. Once fermentation was done, I took the strawberries and heated them to about 120 degrees to kill off any nasties that might have been lingering, although I have heard that I could have just let them thaw and add them to my beer. I do think I got more flavors out of the strawberries by heating them up though so I would do it again and it's better to be safe...
 
Freezing berries does not kill any pathogens if they exist on your fruit. Sometimes we get lucky and there aren't any on our fruit. I made my apricot puree' (from 1/2's in cans) then in my food processor, made it into a puree,' and put it into a zip top bag. Got all the air out of the bag, and set it into a pan of simmering (160F) water and let it pasteurize for 30 minutes. I then put it into my bucket, racked the beer in on top of the fruit, and then had another fermentation start. When two weeks have passed, I will rack it in tertiary until it is clear, and then to the bottling bucket it goes..
 
Nothing in a can is going to have any bugs but they could pick up some from a food processor that wasn't sanitized. Fresh fruit will ALWAYS have wild yeast and bacteria. Most of the time they can't compete with our brewers yeast but it is always worth the effort to kill as many as possible and make sure.
 
I knew that freezing alone wasn't going to kill all of the nasties which is why I heated my fruit before racking it to my beer. But I have heard many members in here that just add the frozen berries straight from their freezer with no problems. If you are racking the fruit post fermentation, wouldn't there be alcohol that could kill off the nasties in the fruit anyways?
 
While 5% ABV is enough to kill most bacteria, there are still oodles of bugs out there that can ruin your beer post-fermentation.

Most of those take a while to work so I guess if someone wants to add fruit straight from their freezer, they better drink it quick!
 
On the topic of blueberries, I brewed a 3 gallon batch of a wheat blonde with the intent of making a blueberry wheat. After a week in the primary, I went and got a pound of frozen blueberries. I let them thaw, crushed with a little sugar and water to get a good purée. I then pressed this through a strainer (to keep the skin and tannins out) into a pot and heated it up to pasteurize. I let it cool, then poured through a sanitized funnel into an inch diameter tube under the surface of the beer to keep it from aerating the brew. Airlock is back on and I'll let the blueberry ferment for another week before bottling. I also plan on using a blueberry extract at bottling to get a good, consistent flavor. I don't know how it's going to turn out yet, but after reading as much as possible about making blueberry beer on this site, I decided that adding fruit AND extract was the best bet. With blueberries at least, it's hard to get the aroma and flavor right with fruit alone. The yeast will ferment the blueberries until there's barely any flavor left, and too much can actually dry the beer out. I can't say this is the best method since its unproven, but I thought it was a good compromise. That being said, I know other fruits will give you different results.
 
Can I just dunk the raspberries in my starsan bucket for a minute? My plan was to crush them and add to primary at 7 days. That will b,e this weekend.
 
starsman20 said:
Can I just dunk the raspberries in my starsan bucket for a minute? My plan was to crush them and add to primary at 7 days. That will b,e this weekend.

You can. They will have a lot of air pockets that the Star San won't touch, but beer is pretty resilient. I'd give you 90% odds it would be fine. Heating to about 180F is the only way to be 100% sure though.
 
Can I just dunk the raspberries in my starsan bucket for a minute? My plan was to crush them and add to primary at 7 days. That will b,e this weekend.

This is exactly what I've done for a strawberry addition. Dunked a nylon bag full of frozen fruit into my 5 gallon starsan bucket a few times and then gently lowered it into the primary. It'll turn your starsan a little pink but other than that it worked fine.

The beer/yeasties will go to work on the fruit all on their own. No need to crush. After three weeks the berries will be soft, mushy, grey lumps and all the flavor will be in your beer.
 
Glad I found this thread. Doing a Cranberry Braggot this weekend from Sam Calagiones Extreme Brewing. The recipe calls for dried cranberries to be boiled to hydrate and then puréed and added late in the boil in a grain bag. Recipe gets a little fuzzy here but seems to imply that the cranberries be transferred over with the wort to primary but doesn't state that explicitly. Any thoughts? The purée contains the full amount of cranberries called for so I'm assuming that's the case but from what I've read sounds like its most common to add fruit after primary. Could add some extract prior to bottling if it needs maybe?
 
You can. They will have a lot of air pockets that the Star San won't touch, but beer is pretty resilient. I'd give you 90% odds it would be fine. Heating to about 180F is the only way to be 100% sure though.

180 will unleash the pectin and cause extreme haze. do 160 for an hour.
 
Here's what it looked like after 2weeks in primary (1 wk no fruit + 2weeks with fruit). Racked to secondary for clearing. Keg in 2 weeks.

image-3712495728.jpg
 
I think adding fruits make it more delicious, tasty and good looking.
I would like to add fresh fruits such as berries, grapes, strawberries,apricot, plum, and banana etc.
 

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