Using fruit in the secondary

While I’m impatiently waiting for the first brew to condition, I’m planning out my second.

It’s a Cream Ale kit. But because I eventually want to brew lambic style beers, I’m seriously considering experimenting with fruit. If I do it, I’m planning on blanching the fruit and adding it to the secondary.

Here are my questions:
1. When fruit is added this way, should I expect the secondary to behave like the primary because of the fruit sugars, only with a longer fermentation.
2. Should I expect the same sort of 75% drop in specific gravity from the beginning of the secondary fermentation to the end or will the drop be less because the fruit sugars are more complex?

I'm not in any rush to decide. I still have about a month before my cellar temp drops to where I want it to be for fermentation.

Doesnt fermenting fruit produce methonal correct me please .

If it does, there must be a way to deal with it. Wine is made from fruit.

Are you thinking about distillation of spirits, perhaps?

Traces of methanol are formed by the fermentation of pectins. Trace amounts of methanol are not a problem, i.e. in fruit beer and wine. Problems occur when the methanol and ethanol are concentrated during the distillation process, i.e. vodka, schnapps, etc.

Since methanol vaporizes at a lower temperature than ethanol, the way distillers handle it is by discarding the earliest portion of the first distillate.


(I'm a Scotch drinker. Triple distillation is my friend)

feedthebear said:

Here are my questions:
1. When fruit is added this way, should I expect the secondary to behave like the primary because of the fruit sugars, only with a longer fermentation.
2. Should I expect the same sort of 75% drop in specific gravity from the beginning of the secondary fermentation to the end or will the drop be less because the fruit sugars are more complex?

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1. It will, but to a lesser extent than your primary ferment.

2. No, but I don't think that the explanation related to the complexity of the sugars.

I've made many batches of fruit beers, and drank many more - I can't say there was no methanol in them, or even that there was a non-dangerous amount. However, I'm still walking upright and don't seem to have suffered any ill effects.

feedthebear said:

While I’m impatiently waiting for the first brew to condition, I’m planning out my second.

It’s a Cream Ale kit. But because I eventually want to brew lambic style beers, I’m seriously considering experimenting with fruit. If I do it, I’m planning on blanching the fruit and adding it to the secondary.

Here are my questions:
1. When fruit is added this way, should I expect the secondary to behave like the primary because of the fruit sugars, only with a longer fermentation.
2. Should I expect the same sort of 75% drop in specific gravity from the beginning of the secondary fermentation to the end or will the drop be less because the fruit sugars are more complex?

I'm not in any rush to decide. I still have about a month before my cellar temp drops to where I want it to be for fermentation.

Click to expand...

I just did a strawberry that turned out great, I put 8 pounds of frozen(thawed) berries in the primary and left it sit two weeks, racked to carboy for 3 days and bottled. It tastes great. I used a belgian yeast, I think 1055 liquid.

I'm thinking of using peaches, but in the secondary instead of the primary.

Do you think I should use a 6 gallon carboy instead of a 5 gallon?

feedthebear said:

I'm thinking of using peaches, but in the secondary instead of the primary.

Do you think I should use a 6 gallon carboy instead of a 5 gallon?

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I'm not sure, I just used a 6.5G bucket with no problems.

Why do you want to add it to the secondary instead? I used the carboy for a couple days just to let some sediment fall.

Its a practice experiment. I want to brew lambics and the recipes I've read for that style have the fruit going into the secondary.

If I screw up, I want to do it on a beer that doesn't take two years from brewing day to drinking day.

feedthebear said:

Its a practice experiment. I want to brew lambics and the recipes I've read for that style have the fruit going into the secondary.

If I screw up, I want to do it on a beer that doesn't take two years from brewing day to drinking day.

Click to expand...

haha, well I drank mine a week and a half later and it was good..

From what I recall don't you ferment the fruit by itself then rack the beer on top? For a lambic that is..

Sorry, I'm not trying to tell you how to do it, I just wanted to share what I did.

I’ve only looked at a few recipes. With those they weren’t fermenting the fruit first. They recommended the freshest fruit you could find.

What surprised me is that they didn’t even blanch the fruit first. They relied of the alcohol content after primary fermentation to kill any bacteria in the fruit.


From what I’ve read, that does seem to be one big difference between putting fruit in the primary verses putting it in the secondary. Putting it in the secondary seems to require more conditioning time.

If I decide to do this, I’m expecting:
1 week in the primary
3 - 4 weeks in the secondary
1 - 2 weeks in the tertiary
2 - 3 months in the bottle


I'll have to make something else while I'm waiting so I'm not tempted to break into it too early.

Edit: I just spent some time looking the harvest schedules for the local orchards. I might be able to get fresh plumbs this weekend. I’m not sure if I can wrap my stomach around the idea of a plumb ale. I’ve heard of it, I just don’t know that I want 4 gallons of it around the house.

Edit 2: Just found out that if I go this weekend I can probably still make the end of peach season.