When to add fruit (or other ingredients) during the brewing process?

I am making a cranberry-wheat beer. Tried it last year and it failed. Epically! I completely under-hopped it. Last time I added the cranberries after the boil and during the cooling of the wort. I did go through the rest of the process and bottled it. It didn't come out good. 1 thing that struck me was the short amount of time that the cranberries were in the wort. It didn't seem like nearly enough time to add any flavor.

I am planning on adding them with 10-15 minutes left in the boil and then carrying them over into the fermenter for a week and then removing them during racking to a secondary stint in another carboy. Has anybody had any experience with something similar that can offer some suggestions and/or guidance?

Thanks!

Not sure about crannberies but I usually add fruit in the secondary

chickypad said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/adding-cranberry-wheat-ale-275618/

Click to expand...

Chickypad thank you for the link. It has given me the answer I was seeking.

The advice I got from the head brewer at Weyerbacher was to add the fruit most of the way through fermentation. The rationale being that with only minimal fermentation left to go, most of the volatile aromatics/flavors won't get blown off by CO2, and the yeast will still be active and more likely to ferment out all the sugars in the fruit.

I'll add it in primary after 7-10 days or if you like in secondary.
axeman9182 is right, you don't want to CO2 blows your cranberry's aroma. As for yeast, it is better to ferment maltose 1st and then simpler sugars since they could become lazy if they start with fructose/glucose..