Don't fruit the beer - or the exact opposite

Ok, so I'm trying my faux lambic idea using Acidulated malt instead of souring the beer another way. I'm getting ready to move to secondary this weekend and want to 'fruit the beer.'

I have 2 batches of approx 3.5-4 gallons. In each secondary I want to fruit it up. I bought a 6# bag of Strawberries (frozen) and a 4# bag of mixed (Raspberry, BlueBerry, and Marionberry).

What should I do? I've heard that I can put them right in. I've heard that I must heat them. I've heard that heating them does bad things. I've heard that heating them is necessary to kill bacteria.

What do I do?

On a side note/joke: We're at Costco getting the fruit, and my roommate asks: "What the hell is a Marionberry?" My response: "A Washington D.C. crackhead?"

I'm getting ready to add some cherries to an IPA, so i'm in the same boat as you are.

From what i've read, unless you are using something like puree, it is best to bring the fruit up to 160 for 10-15 minutes. Cool it and rack your brew on top of the fruit.

I would do that even if using puree.

Do NOT boil the fruit, but heat it up to sanitize it. Frozen fruit is good, because the cell walls are ruptured during freezing. It is helpful to mash the fruit a bit, to get the sugars accessible to the yeast. If it doesnt seem to be clearing as you would like, add some pectic enzyme to the secondary, or tertiary.

Haha thats the only Marionberry that I have heard of either.

Keep us posted on your progress.

- magno

Ive only made a couple of fruit beers. Extract is so easy, and it actually tastes pretty damn good. But be careful, its so easy to overdo it


real fruit just seems liek too much of a hassle. make a strawberry shortcake with the strawberries.....and use extract in your beer

I've used extract in Cheesefood's caramel cream, and I just don't think extract does it right. I've also heard the extracts cause a medicinal flavor.

I am already committed to doing fresh fruit, so I just need to know HOW to do it.

Cocaine's a helluva drug

Maybe so, but how does it help this thread?

I used the Costco "Berry Medley" in a cider I just bottled yesterday. I seems to be lots better than the strawberry ale stuff I did last year. I guess I would rinse them to make sure to remove the chlorine from processing, then heat in water to pasturize/ break down. I mashed mine with a potato masher. It sure is PINK, and cloudy like wheat beer. Maybe I boiled it tooo hot ? I'll see in a couple weeks.

Rather than sweetening the pot of cider with sugar, I mashed malt, trying to retain some residual sweetness. FG was 1.002, so maybe 3 months in secondary was too long?

Marion Barry was the mayor of Washington D.C. He was busted on tape doing crack in a hotel room with prostitutes i believe. I might have made up the prostitute thing, but he really did get busted for crack. He then got re-elected.

The one guy said Marionberry, ha that's funny. get it now?

Damn dude, I didn't realize you were cracking a joke at MY joke. I didn't even think about it.

My bad dude, and if I came off as harsh, I apologize.

Oh, I didn't know if you knew what i was talking about. It's all good. Pretty funny though.

Nah, I go to other forums where people input phrases like:

<insert lame name/word/topic here> is a helluva drug

Just to increase post count and be an annoying ass.

jezter6 said:

Nah, I go to other forums where people input phrases like:

<insert lame name/word/topic here> is a helluva drug

Just to increase post count and be an annoying ass.

Click to expand...

It's a good thing that homebrewtalk.com isn't infected with post whores.











+1

the_bird said:

It's a good thing that homebrewtalk.com isn't infected with post whores.











+1

Click to expand...

Good thing, or we might get posts like this. (Gotta a long way to go to catch up)

MriswitH said:

I'm getting ready to add some cherries to an IPA, so i'm in the same boat as you are.

From what i've read, unless you are using something like puree, it is best to bring the fruit up to 160 for 10-15 minutes. Cool it and rack your brew on top of the fruit.

Click to expand...

This is what I usually do too.

When you add fruit to the secondary, the beer already has some alcohol from the primary fermentation. The alcohol will help prevent infection from taking place, so pasturizing is not as important. But I pasturize anyway. Better to pasturize than risk tossing 5 gallons of beer.

I would expect canned fruit purees to be pasturized before canning.

the_bird said:

+1

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I see your +1 and raise you a +2

How long in the secondary?

I put the fruit in after being heated to 180 and cooled to room temp on Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure if 1 week is long enough, or too long, that's why I figured I would post this after about 4 days to see if I should rack again.

What to do? If all else fails, I will likely rack over the weekend to the third and final clearing stage for 1 week before bottling.

Chimone said:

I see your +1 and raise you a +2

Click to expand...

I raise you a +3 keen frost sword of orcbane

Okay, utterly pointless post

i thought lambics were supposed to have an extended secondary, maybe even pitch more yeast in with the fruit, as you will pick up some more fermentables.

Lambics have an extended secondary mainly because of the Bretts. They take several months just to get going.

If he isn't using the Bretts, it only takes 1 - 3 weeks to ferment the fruit. But without the Bretts, its really faux.