Cold crashing w/ fruit

I’ve had pretty good luck cold crashing with US-04 on my apple ciders. I’ve been checking the gravity until it gets down to where I want, then rack into a secondary and cold crash. Then I normally just keg it and I can get the fermentation to not start up again. Now, I’d like to get some fruit flavor into one of my ciders by adding some fresh fruit to the secondary. I’m wondering if adding the fruit will jumpstart the fermentation, even though I’ll have cold crashed it and keep in the fridge. The reason I go to the trouble is because I don’t want to add anything to kill the yeast (Camden, sorbate). I’ve added fruit to the primary but all the flavor just gets scrubbed off. Anyone had any experience with this sort of thing?

Easiest way imo would be to brew your cider a bit stronger than you want it with some extra sugar, and then add the fruit in juice form when you rack to secondary, so it'll be sweet and fruity, still at the ABV you want (as adding the juice will dilute it,) and you won't have to worry about any pulp etc. If you cold crash when it's clear, it shouldn't ferment again.

Are you bottling or kegging? Have you racked your ciders dry and added priming sugar previously, or bottling/kegging sweet ciders?

RobWalker said:

If you cold crash when it's clear, it shouldn't ferment again.

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it will almost definitely ferment again

admittedly, i've never cold crashed - pasteurizing all the way if you're after sweet, sparkling ciders

ummm...... why give dodgy advice on it then?

Yes, my guess was that it would probably kick off again. Still, I'm wondering if there is a way to impart the fruit taste (using fresh fruit) without having to kill the yeast. I can force carb the cider so I'm not concerned about that. It's just that everything I read about killing off the yeast seems to impart flavors that I want nothing to do with. I simply want the fruit essence imparted into the cider. And I won't use extracts.

I've had good luck cold crashing raspberry ciders. I add about a pound of raspberries, pureed in the blender. I do it a few days before the crash. That way the raspberry pulp drops to the bottom with everything else the crash. If you do it in the secondary, it can be a real PIA to get the pulp out. I've done about a dozen kegs this way over the past several years, never had a problem with fermentation starting back up.

Sorry but I’m not sure I follow you. You say you add puree a couple of days before you cold crash but that it’s not in the secondary? Are you adding at the end of fermentation, in the primary? I should say, a couple days before the gravity is going to be to the point at which you want to cold crash it? If you are doing it this way, does the raspberry flavor not get scrubbed off or is it late enough into the fermentation that you still get good flavor? I’ve really never added fruit to anything so this is all foreign to me. Still, I’m wondering if it is possible to cold crash at the point I want, then rack it into a secondary on top of a fruit puree, and re-coldcrash it so that it doesn’t take off again. Literally, not have it out of the fridge more than 20 minutes.

Right - I crash between the primary and the secondary. The secondary is just to let it clear some more and to make sure it doesnt start back up. A lot of times I just skip the secondary and go straight to keg after the crash.

Yep, I add the raspberries when its just a tad sweeter than what I want. Not too much sweeter because the raspberries will add some sugar on their own. 3 or 4 days is plenty of time to get the flavor.

I've tried adding raspberry puree after the crash, and that works well taste-wise, but for some reason its harder to get the pulp out that way. I dont know why, maybe its just the juice that I use, or maybe having the yeast present does something to make the pulp settle out better. YMMV. Good luck!

I see. So you only use 1lbs of berries for 5 gallons? Also, when you say it’s harder to get the pulp out if you add the puree straight to the secondary, do you mean that you have trouble picking up too much of the puree when you’re racking into the keg? I’m going to give this a try here soon. Pitched some US-04 onto 5 gallons of juice about a week ago.

When I get the raspberries from the store, I use 3 of the 6oz containers, so just a bit over a pound. For the past couple years, I've been getting them from a friend and just eyeballing it. I suppose it depends on the berries, but my experience is that if you use too much (which I've done) then the raspberries will completely overpower the apple taste. OTOH, its still pretty good and the ladies will crush a keg of raspberry cider in no time, no matter how much or how little you use.

Yeah, exactly . The first few times I made raspberry cider, I added the puree to the secondary. A good bit of the puree stayed in suspension and seemed to be attracted to the siphon, no matter where I positioned it. I tried putting some cheesecloth over the siphon, which helped, but it would get gunked up, so I would have to change the cheesecloth several times during the rack. Adding a few days before the crash seems to help compact the pulp.

When I crash, I siphon twice - once before the crash and once after. Before the crash, the pulp usually stays on the top of the carboy. Sometimes a bit gets sucked into the siphon, but not much, and it always falls out with everything else on the crash.

Ahh, now I got you. I was wondering what you meant. SOLD....Guess I'll add it towards the end of fermentation then. It does sound like a pain. So you think just a few points above of where I want it to finish then? I'm thinking the raspberry may lend itself more to the drier side.

Damn, I let it get down too far. I just checked the gravity and it's already at 1.010. That's about where I wanted it to finish. I just added about 14 ozs of raspberry puree to the fermenter. I guess I'll have to crash it on Sunday. I'm afraid if I do it tomorrow, the raspberry flavor won't make it through. Oh well, guess it'll just be a little more dry than I intended. Still better than under 1.00.

You're probably good - the raspberry will bump it up a few points, so depending on how fast its fermenting, you could still end up at 1.010

This is pretty good, I would say. The residual sweetness is excellent with the raspberries. I'd say next time I would try to leave it around 1.010 and possibly add a little more berries. Overall, this is really good though.

I'm not experienced with adding fruit myself, but maybe it you could add mashed berries in a muslin bag to the secondary? Periodically turn/squeeze bag?

You could do that if you want but pureeing them and adding straight to the secondary worked pretty good. I cold crashed it and racked it off the yeast cake. It's pretty clear now and it will be crystal when I add gelatin to the keg.

I want to add raspberries to a 1 gallon batch I started 10 days ago. How would you recommend I do this? I'm currently still in primary with a gallon of cider from an orchard and 1/5 a pack of cote de blancs yeast. Should I puree some berries and add them soon? Then cold crash 2 or 3 days then rack to secondary? How long should it sit in secondary before I bottle it?

Sorry I'm very new to this. Any help would be great!