How much fresh raspberries?

SWMBO and I aren't huge fruity beer fans, but we like them occasionally. A friend is moving out of his house and leaving his huge raspberry patch behind. He offered us a many raspberries as we can handle and asked if I could make a raspberry wheat. Sure, I said. However, since I've never made a fruit beer, I have no idea what to tell him in terms of how much I'd need.

I've searched on the forums and have seen recommendations for 3 lb. for a 5-gallon batch, others saying 4 lbs., etc. Any recommendations? The rest of the recipe will probably be my favorite 60/40 blend of 2-row and wheat for an OG of 1.054. I'll ferment it with 1010 or maybe some Bell's house yeast for some added fruityness. Thanks all!

If you want a good raspberry flavor you need to go at least 1lb/gallon but probably as high as 2lb/gallon.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

If you want a good raspberry flavor you need to go at least 1lb/gallon but probably as high as 2lb/gallon.

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+1

IMO 1lb/gallon gives a hint of flavor so that is my starting point.

That's just what I needed. Thanks!

1/2 lb per gallon was not nearly enough...wish i had studied recommended rates before brewing

I'm going to piggyback off this - I'm planning a fruit beer myself (blueberry) and wondering what the best method everyone prefers to add fruit to tue secondary.

Many threads say to pitch the fruit frozen before racking to secondary, but I've been told by other homebrewers that heating the berries up and slightly crushing them to release more juice works best for flavor.

Thoughts? My goal (perhaps like he initial post) is to get as much flavor as possible from the real fruit.

1:1 in a stout gave me more flavor than I wanted...I froze the berries and thawed them in a few cycles to break apart the cell walls and then put them into my secondary and siphoned the beer on top of them. It worked well however depending on the beer, the sourness of the berries can throw a lot off. 2# per gallon would be a huge mistake. The flavor is there but the tartness makes it almost unpalatable. 3-4#/5 gallon batch would be the sweet spot I should think, less even for a lighter beer.

I'm going to go against the grain here and recommend less than the standard one pound per gallon. Raspberries produce a stronger flavor than other fruits, so depending on what you are going for, I would suggest being a little more cautious. I used a half pound per gallon in a Belgian wheat and it came out perfect. Raspberry flavor was bright and tart... Actually overshadowed the yeast, but I liked the result. Any more than that would have been too tart and overpowering, more like a raspberry spritzer.

brewingbryan said:

I'm going to piggyback off this - I'm planning a fruit beer myself (blueberry) and wondering what the best method everyone prefers to add fruit to tue secondary.

Many threads say to pitch the fruit frozen before racking to secondary, but I've been told by other homebrewers that heating the berries up and slightly crushing them to release more juice works best for flavor.

Thoughts? My goal (perhaps like he initial post) is to get as much flavor as possible from the real fruit.

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I just added my blueberries this week. This time around I had packed fresh blueberries with my vacuum sealer and froze them. I let them thaw a couple of days and then kind of smashed them up in the bag. The vacuum process had already kind of smashed them up a little too. Then I add the 3 lb. of blueberry mush to the secondary and rack on top. This method seemed to work pretty well.

I haven't made a raspberry beer, but this is my second time doing the blueberry wheat. I mentioned 3 lb. this time around because last time I made this I followed the somewhat traditional 1 lb./gallon rule. In the end I felt like that was too much. My beer was super purple and very tart. It eventually mellowed after some time in the keg and ended up being very good, but initially it was tough to drink more than a glass or so due to the tartness. I'm hoping backing down to 3 lb. for a 5 gallon batch will tone that down some while still having good flavor from the fruit.

You never know using fresh fruit, but my recommendation would be to start on the low end and if that isn't enough, bump it up for future batches. I'd much rather have a beer with too little fruit character than way too much.

Spaceman - thanks, that's helpful. I should've noted that I'm brewing a wheat beer base and then the blueberries in secondary. When you smashed your berries, did you do anything additional to sanitize/pasteurize or did you play it as the alcohol in the beer would take care of any issues? I've got a watermelon wheat in secondary right now where I took frozen pulp/juice and just tossed it into the carboy and racked on top of it. Seems OK, but I wasn't sure how that'd work if you thoroughly thaw out fruit to mash.

I don't do anything special to them. I'm sure you'll find varying opinions on here, but I've always just tossed them in. It's a risk, but I think it's a minor one.

I'm starting with fresh berries that I washed and then I vacuum packed and froze them. That's not enough to consider them pasteurized or sanitized, but it does a pretty good number on any beasties that may be hanging out.

Then I'm thawing them in the fridge, so I'm still out of the "zone" that would allow anything that may have survived to get a foothold.

Then I'm dumping a 5-6% beer on top of them, so like you said, anything that was hardy enough to get that far should have a real hard time with the alcohol.

And finally, with all that fruit juice, you'll get a true secondary fermentation kicked off and your yeast should out-compete anything.

For me, the small risk is worth it to maintain a fresh fruit flavor and not go through a pasteurization that may lead to at least some cooked fruit flavor. That's not to say something in there couldn't survive and infect the beer, it just seems real unlikely to me.

I just racked on top of the frozen berries. No problems.

I chop fruit (except for berries because they just turn to mush) then freeze. Thaw, add to a small amount of water and heat to 170F to pasteurize. Then add to beer.

Heating will cause pectin haze in the beer but I'd rather have a little haze than risk infection.

Having recently bottled a raspberry beer, make sure you put something on the end of the racking cane to filter out the raspberries. After sitting in the beer they break apart and get really mushy so they will get in your bottling bucket and clog your bottling wand. I figured that one out the hard way. It's not the end of the world if some of the fruit ends up in the bottle but if the wand clogs while bottling you have to try to take it apart and clear it without aerating the beer. You can buy one of those mesh filter sleeves or use a hop sack. Paint strainer-type bags will also work.

i use a coava kone that i have for making coffee. it's stainless with small, chemically-etched holes, so it does an amazing job letting the beer through while restricting the fruit