bigbeergeek
Well-Known Member
I've never added fresh fruit to a brew before. Tomorrow I'm going to add 10 lbs of strawberries to my 2ndary, and I'm curious: has anyone ever tried chilling the secondary to 40*F, then pitching the fruit? I'm going to keg this after 10 days, and I don't want to restart fermentation and produce a dry or sour beer as so many other have. I bought fresh strawberries, soaked them (whole) in a light iodophor solution, hulled/sliced them, soaked them in iodophor once more for 60 seconds, let them drain for a moment, transferred them to a large sanitized container, froze the whole 10 lbs, and now it's thawing on the counter. The plan is to add the macerated fruit and juices to my pre-chilled secondary and hold everything at 40*F for 9 days, then keg. Chilling should help slow infection while lessening a full re-fermentation of the batch. I'll follow up with results in about 2 weeks.