Raspberry Ale

Hey yall, I am brewing a light ale for my wife, bascally using 7lbs golden promise and with only 12IBUs.... I want to add a hint of raspberry to it and have plenty or raspberries growing in my back yard, been freezing them this summer too. How much would I need to make a difference in the fermentor? Thanks again

Brewpilot

Drinking: Drowning Wasp Ale
Bottle Conditioning: Amber Wheat

I would think a pound or two to get just a hint. I've used three or four pounds to get a real bold raspberry flavor. This assumes a five gallon batch.

Pasteurize those berries, or you will have some funky bacteria/wild yeasts messin' with the brew.

I'm about to do a rasberry porter and I was going to do 2 lbs.

I think it was two pounds I did for a 2.5 gallon batch, and it was way too much for me. Could definately taste the fruit, it wasn't subtle at all (didn't help that the beer had a very low gravity). I heated the fruit to ~170 degrees for ten minutes to both pasteurize and break down the cells - this aspect of it worked very well. The frozen ones will already have the cellular walls broken down, so I'd use those, pasteruize them, add them to the secondary. You may want to consider doing a tertiary (sp?) fermentation, give the fruit particles an extra chance to settle out (getting a piece of raspberry in your beer is not pleasant, it has the texture of a loogie).

I put 2.5 pounds of raspberries in my light ale. I tasted it when I put it into the secondary and the raspberry flavor is very bold and tart. If I do this again I would add some non fermentable sugar to sweeten it a bit. Maybe a raspberry cream ale.
I used frozen berries and they gave up more flavor than I expected.

This is the first batch of mine the wife has tasted and likes and it's not even in the bottles yet :fro:

Once pasteurized, do you just put the whole berries in the secondary or do they need to be crushed a bit?