Flavouring First Hefe / Wheat (raspberry)

Hi folks. First time wanting to do a flavoured hefeweizen.

It has been in primary (basic Palmer recipe) for I think 9 days now. So I've been told to add raspberries (my fruit choice) in the secondary stage. I'll likely go with frozen raspberries. It is a 19L batch (Sorry, I'm Canadian--how Canadian of me to say 'sorry' first, hahaha). I'll have to look for some measurements/recipes to add the appropriate amount, but:

Do I want to wait on SG to drop lower/finish, or let the natural sugars ferment off at this stage---just wondering the tradeoff in flavour vs. fermenting too early.

Don't know the difference (since I haven't done this yet) between putting fruit in early secondary or later stage after ferm. is finished, in terms of yeast health/alcohol level/new sugar (fruit) to ferment.

Thanks for any tips.

-Jeff

I have done fruit in the primary, like at the same time as pitching yeast, and I have also done them in the secondary. Every time the fruit added before primary fermentation have had the best flavors.

I know it's always said that fruit should be added at secondary because a bunch of aroma will get scrubbed out by the CO2 and blah blah blah. I don't buy it. Putting it in the primary causes a lot of chemical and physical agitation and mixes the fruits in and breaks them down more. In my experience this has always resulted in much brighter fruit flavors than adding to the secondary...plus this way you don't have to do a secondary.

Thanks for the tip. I just assumed (from years ago doing a honey mead) that anything 'sweet' added in (not to say that sweet is the same as fruit FLAVOUR), gets pretty much dried out/lost by the fermentation process.

But it does make sense that the primary is the place where it all happens!

Thanks.

And seeing all these people with the Apfelwein in their tags, I'm going to have to do some up!!! Sounds yummy.

Jfriah said:

Don't know the difference (since I haven't done this yet) between putting fruit in early secondary or later stage after ferm. is finished, in terms of yeast health/alcohol level/new sugar (fruit) to ferment.

Thanks for any tips.

-Jeff

Click to expand...

Secondary is just a clearing vessel and to move the brew off the dead yeast for some aging. The amount of fermentation activity should be fairly minimal at that point anyways (at least until you feed it with more fruit sugars).

You shouldn't be in secondary until you're already at your FG anyway, so there's no early/later stages of secondary - the ferment should be DONE before it goes into secondary.

Recommended amount of fruit is ~1-1.5 pounds/US gallon of brew.