Adding Fermentables to the secondary

I have a Porter that I have in my primary and was going to do a secondary over some raspberries but was wondering how the added sugar will affect things.

So my OG gravity is 1.064 which is over the original recipe to start with. Let's say I have that in the primary for 2 weeks and it gets down to 1.020 (yep, WLP002 has a 63-70% attenuation).

When I move it to the secondary and add some oregon fruit raspberries, this will add more fermentable sugars I am guessing which would raise the gravity reading I am guessing.

How does this all play into the alcohol calculation?

Brew monkey says "One pound of fermentable sugar is approximately equal to 1% ABV in a 5 gallon batch" so I may be adding a percent or two to this batch with the added sugar if I am thinking correctly, but let me know if I am not.

Raspberries have very little sugar in them, maybe 5-6%. I've found that adding fruit lowers the ABV in most cases.

You might get a TINY bit of fermentation of the sugars in the fruit. Not enough to raise the ABV significantly. There is a huge difference between adding a pound of fruit and a pound of sugar.

Ok, thanks, that is what I was hoping to hear.

I should have known, it says something like 23g of sugar per serving and even if there is 4 servings/lb. I have about 2lbs so that equals out to about .4 pounds of sugar, not that much I guess.

In case you don't know, I suggest lightly crushing then freezing the fruit. The freezing will help break open the cell walls and release more juice. Make sure they thaw before adding to the beer though.

Edcculus said:

In case you don't know, I suggest lightly crushing then freezing the fruit. The freezing will help break open the cell walls and release more juice. Make sure they thaw before adding to the beer though.

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I did read about that, so I will have to empty out the cans, smash them a bit and then freeze.

Should I put the juice that is in the can, maybe even a little into the keg and secondary?

Yea, the juice would be fine. It would definitely add more flavor. In the keg might be good too if you want it really fruity.

Someone was telling me about a local brewery that kegged their blueberry beer with the fruit in the keg. He said the last bit was delicious because it had a TON of blueberry in it.

Edcculus said:

Yea, the juice would be fine. It would definitely add more flavor. In the keg might be good too if you want it really fruity.

Someone was telling me about a local brewery that kegged their blueberry beer with the fruit in the keg. He said the last bit was delicious because it had a TON of blueberry in it.

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Thanks, I think I will move in small steps. I have heard of people using the whole 49oz size ones for a 5G batch. So I will be using 30oz so I should be lower on the fruity scale that most to start with. When I keg it I'll taste it and decide if I should add some to the keg at that time.