Adding Cranberry to Wheat Ale

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ASXL41

ASXL41

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So I know fruit beers can divide craft drinkers and homebrewers alike, but I wanted to give it a shot with a Wheat Ale kit I've done. I'm using the American Wheat Ale kit from Brewcraft and will be adding 3 lbs. of frozen unsweetened cranberries to the secondary.

Now I've read on websites and forums before about trying to properly add fruit. I was thinking of mashing the cranberries and adding it with some sort of cheesecloth/mesh bag. Another idea was puree the cranberries then just rack the ale on top of it. I'm hoping to get a slight cranberry taste, nothing too overpowering. And I wanted to have that slight red/pinkish color because my wife and I are expecting our first child (girl of course) in December and wanted to hand out a bottle of beer instead of a cigar.

Wanted to hear your suggestions or thoughts on what has worked for others in the past. Cheers!
 
In my experience fresh, unsweetened cranberries add sourness, but not what most people see as "cranberry flavor". Cranberries need a whole lot of residual sweetness to lend palatable flavor to a beer. Works well with a sweet mead or braggot, but I'd recommend using an extract at bottling instead of fresh fruit.
 
Can't help you on adding fresh cranberries per se. I did add the cranberry extract to a wheat beer. Turned out pretty good, but I will say that the 4 oz brewers best extract added just a hint of cranberry. Obviously no color though. I added this in the bottling bucket.

That batch is all gone, but I recently brewed a raspberry wheat using a few 15 oz cans of Oregon fruit (w/ heavy syrup). Gave it a quick 2 seconds in a sanitized blender and added to an empty carboy. Then racked the wheat from primary onto that for about 2 weeks. Turned out pretty tasty. If you are going to add cranberries to primary instead, I would wait for the initial fermentation to complete first, otherwise most of the flavor will get carried out by the initial ferm.
 
I'm going to be adding them to secondary. The wheat ale is in initial right now and has been there since Saturday. I'm going to rack it to secondary this Saturday and add the cranberries then.

Now I did hear about people adding sweetener to the frozen cranberries as well. I do have a fresh bag of Splenda that might work to help take away from the sourness.
 
I tried a cranberry wheat beer last year at this time. I used extract and like others have said, it gave a hint of a cranberry taste, but no color. I wish I had added more (2.5gal beer, only used half of the brewers best extract) of the extract. No color change though.
 
So I talked to my local homebrew shop and came with the following solution. I made a cranberry puree with 1.5 cups of Splenda and 3 pounds of frozen cranberries. Once fermentation is completed, I'm going to strain out the skins and seeds through a few strainers and into the bottling bucket. I'll be bottling on November 6th, so I'll let you know how it turns out and tastes before bottling.
 
I do this every year for Christmas. I mash them up a little and put them in a bucket and rack the beer on top of them after the primary fermentation is done. I leave them that way for 2 full weeks. Then I move the beer to a tertiary (sp?) for 1 week to clear a bit. Attached is a picture of last year's result. I use almost 5 lbs of cranberries, though. I like the color and the flavor it adds. :D

Cranberry_Beer.jpg
 
timdsmith72 said:
I do this every year for Christmas. I mash them up a little and put them in a bucket and rack the beer on top of them after the primary fermentation is done. I leave them that way for 2 full weeks. Then I move the beer to a tertiary (sp?) for 1 week to clear a bit. Attached is a picture of last year's result. I use almost 5 lbs of cranberries, though. I like the color and the flavor it adds. :D
Click to expand...

Any chance you could share this recipe? I was thinking about doing either a cranberry or sour grape beer and this one sounds excellent for the holidays.
 
mosquitocontrol said:
Any chance you could share this recipe? I was thinking about doing either a cranberry or sour grape beer and this one sounds excellent for the holidays.
Click to expand...

+1 on sharing the recipe. I was just skimming the internet looking for a Cranberry Hefe, and I am getting mixed answers as far as the end result.

If you just use cranberries with no sweetner, do you get a good round cranberry taste, or does only the tartness shine through?

I was thinking that I would make 1/3 of the fruit a mixed berry, and 2/3 cranberry to keep the end result from being too tart.

I am also curious to see how the batch with splenda comes out. I will be waiting to see.
 
mosquitocontrol said:
Any chance you could share this recipe? I was thinking about doing either a cranberry or sour grape beer and this one sounds excellent for the holidays.
Click to expand...
Sure thing. I'm at work and will have to wait until I get home to find the recipe in my folder. But I'll post it up as soon as I can. :mug:
 
Pdeezy said:
If you just use cranberries with no sweetner, do you get a good round cranberry taste, or does only the tartness shine through?
Click to expand...
I would say it's a fairly good round cranberry taste. But the tartness does shine through quite a bit. Which is actually what I'm going for. I love the tartness. I get lots of red color as well.
 
Thanks for sharing Tim. That's close to what my Cranberry Wheat looks like now in the carboy. I didn't think about doing a third stage of fermentation for clarity. I might do that with this batch as well. I had one week of just running the wheat ale in fermentation and now it's in the two week secondary with the puree. I'm really looking forward to tasting the end result on this batch. I did go with 1.5 cups of Splenda to get some sweetness in the batch. I didn't want it too tart personally. I included a photo of the carboy the evening after I added the puree and mixed it up a bit.

298446_10150371460148324_674523323_8158908_928898531_n.jpg
 
Ok. Here's the recipe I used. It's basically just a very simple wheat beer with a bunch of cranberries in the secondary, so you can obviously play around with the grain, hops, etc. Here goes:

1 lbs Crystal Malt 20°L
1 lbs Belgian Cara-Pils
8 lbs Liquid wheat extract
1 oz. Cascade pellets (~5.5 %AA) 60 minutes
1 oz. Saaz pellets (~5.0%AA) 15 minutes
.5 oz. Saaz pellets (~5.0 %AA) 1 minute
~4.5 - 5 lbs fresh cranberries
Neutral yeast. I usually use Safale.

Steep the grains at around 155-160 degrees for 30 minutes.
Remove the grains and bring to boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the liquid extract.
Put back on heat and bring back to boil, then add the first addition of hops.
Boil as normal. Add to primary carboy/bucket as normal.
Once primary fermentation is done, heat cranberries in a sauce pan just enough so you can crush them a bit. I just use a potato masher. (may need to do a couple of batches) Add the cranberries to a fermentation bucket. (I tried it in a carboy one time. I'll never do that again. Cranberries are way to hard to get in and out.)
Rack the beer on top of the cranberries and let it sit for two weeks.
Rack the beer into a tertiary (sp?) and let sit for another week.
Bottle/keg as normal.

Edited to add yeast:
 
ASXL41 said:
Thanks for sharing Tim. That's close to what my Cranberry Wheat looks like now in the carboy. I didn't think about doing a third stage of fermentation for clarity. I might do that with this batch as well. I had one week of just running the wheat ale in fermentation and now it's in the two week secondary with the puree. I'm really looking forward to tasting the end result on this batch. I did go with 1.5 cups of Splenda to get some sweetness in the batch. I didn't want it too tart personally.
Click to expand...
No problem. And yeah, I always do a third stage with my fruit beers. Helps a lot with the clarity.
 
timdsmith72 said:
No problem. And yeah, I always do a third stage with my fruit beers. Helps a lot with the clarity.
Click to expand...

Awesome! Makes sense too because this is really hazy right now and it's full of cranberry bits. Anything to help prevent getting cranberry skins in the bottle, the better.
 
timdsmith72 said:
Ok. Here's the recipe I used. It's basically just a very simple wheat beer with a bunch of cranberries in the secondary, so you can obviously play around with the grain, hops, etc. Here goes:

1 lbs Crystal Malt 20°L
1 lbs Belgian Cara-Pils
8 lbs Liquid wheat extract
1 oz. Cascade pellets (~5.5 %AA) 60 minutes
1 oz. Saaz pellets (~5.0%AA) 15 minutes
.5 oz. Saaz pellets (~5.0 %AA) 1 minute
~4.5 - 5 lbs fresh cranberries
Neutral yeast. I usually use Safale.

Steep the grains at around 155-160 degrees for 30 minutes.
Remove the grains and bring to boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the liquid extract.
Put back on heat and bring back to boil, then add the first addition of hops.
Boil as normal. Add to primary carboy/bucket as normal.
Once primary fermentation is done, heat cranberries in a sauce pan just enough so you can crush them a bit. I just use a potato masher. (may need to do a couple of batches) Add the cranberries to a fermentation bucket. (I tried it in a carboy one time. I'll never do that again. Cranberries are way to hard to get in and out.)
Rack the beer on top of the cranberries and let it sit for two weeks.
Rack the beer into a tertiary (sp?) and let sit for another week.
Bottle/keg as normal.

Edited to add yeast:
Click to expand...

Nice, I will be doing a variation of this for Christmas.

Thanks
 
lonepalm said:
Giving this a shot today!!
Click to expand...

Hey question....

If seen in other fruit recipes the addition of pectin enzymes, no mention of here. I'm planning on adding Irish moss, but is it necessary to add pectin since adding cranberries in secondary?

Thx
Jr
 
lonepalm said:
Hey question....

If seen in other fruit recipes the addition of pectin enzymes, no mention of here. I'm planning on adding Irish moss, but is it necessary to add pectin since adding cranberries in secondary?

Thx
Jr
Click to expand...
I've never done so, so I don't guess I'd call it "necessary."
I brewed my cranberry wheat yesterday! The timeline I have planned, it should be ready by Christmas Eve!! :ban:
 
ASXL41 said:
So I talked to my local homebrew shop and came with the following solution. I made a cranberry puree with 1.5 cups of Splenda and 3 pounds of frozen cranberries. Once fermentation is completed, I'm going to strain out the skins and seeds through a few strainers and into the bottling bucket. I'll be bottling on November 6th, so I'll let you know how it turns out and tastes before bottling.
Click to expand...

How did this turn out? I am thinking of adding cranberries to an American Ale this weekend by adding them to secondary.

:ban: HappyPanties
 
Bottled the Cran-Wheat a week and a half ago and tried a glass this past weekend. Came out incredibly well. Proper gravity and just enough sweetness/tartness.
 
Very cool, I may try your technique! I was worried about straining into the bottling bucket causing too much oxygen to enter the beer.
 
I really do not like wheat beers at all, but I am going to add some cranberries to half of a batch of BM's Centennial blonde this weekend. I'm going to use this method, seems to work pretty well.
 
This sounded really good so I had to try it:

2011-12-21_09-03-02_580.jpg


I took 5 gallons of my last wheat brew and when primary was done I racked onto 36oz of fresh cranberries (chopped in food processor). I used pectic enzyme in the secondary. After a few weeks on the cranberries, I racked again and cold crashed for a week or so.

It seemed a little too tart so I added 1lb of lactose when I kegged it. The cranberry flavor is there and a bit of color. I had it sitting on 30lbs gas last night and pulled a sample this morning. It still needs to carb more but I may have overdone it a bit with the lactose. It sort of reminds me of a pez candy.
 
My Cranberry wheat came out just like the picture above. I added 1.5 cups of Splenda and it came out a little sweet. Still really good though. Everyone that I shared it with really liked it as well.
 
What was the gravity after primary fermentation? I followed the recipe and had a OG of 1.049. This is my third batch ever, and my first wheat beer, so i'm a certified noob.

Transferred to secondary with 3lb of berreis after 10 days and the gravity was 1.024. It looked like it was bubbling pretty good the whole time in the primary too. Maybe I used the wrong yeast (Safeale -04). Anyway, I'm disappointed and want this ready by thanksgiving... I'm not sure what to do at this point.

I took a reading after the cranberries and some sugar was added and the gravity was 1.035. I'll probably check in a few days to see if it's continuing to ferment.

Say I messed up real bad in the primary with the wrong yeast, what can I do now to fix it? (fermentatables: 9lbs liquid wheat extract, 3 lbs cranberries, 2 cups sugar)

Edit: Yeah, I totally botched the primary. Well at least I just messed up and the beer is doing what it should. I guess I'm going to just pitch some Wyeast 1010 and see what happens with the cranberries in there too. Wish me luck!
 
If primary is over, no need to pitch a different yeast strain. They have already multiplied and would have a huge advantage fermenting the cranberries & sugar over a fresh smack pack. Just roll with a wheat beer fermented witih S-04. It won't be terrible, it's still beer afterall.

Welcome to the site!
 
Thanks for the advice.

I'm curious about the science behind this a little bit. So the wheat extract I bought was 65% wheat and 35% barley. My math suggests that the S-04 fermented all of the malted barley per usual, and processed as much of the wheat as they could but have plateaued because of nature of the strand. Would this be accurate? Or are the fermentables the same regardless of where they come from? And the recommended yeast just is just a little more conducive to the sugars?
 
Did you measure your gravity with a refractometer? They get distorted once you have alcohol in the mix. I didn't know and measured all my first batches with a refractometer and could never get below 1.018-1.024 FG. Then I read a thread on HBT and bought a hydrometer and all my FGs were right on target, so I now I just RDWAHAHB. Also, I use BeerSmith which has a tool to estimate %ABV if you measure the FG with a refractometer. Performs pretty well.
 

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