Fruit in the primary?

Howdy everyone...quick question:

This past weekend, I brewed AHS' Belgian Noel kit and made an addition of some sour cherries during the last 15 minutes of the boil, and added another pound of cherries in the primary fermenter. The yeast has started strong, and everything looks good so far. My question is, do I need to rack to a secondary at some point before the fruit goes bad, or is that more in the interest of clarity? If so, how many days should I keep it in primary?

Thanks!

Not to freak you out, but I did the exact same thing with mango (added 1 pound at flameout and additional 1 pound into primary fermenter) and the fruit spoiled in the primary after about 5 days.

So I racked to a secondary at 5 days (onto more mango) but it was too late. The beer was infected and I had to dump it - I even went ahead and bottled + waited for 2 months but it kept getting more sour.

My advice is to do any fruit addition in the secondary AFTER you hit your FG or the fermentation will scrub away all the flavor of the fruit.

Thanks for the response. It's been about 2.5 days. Maybe I can salvage the beer if I rack it tonight.

Here's the other problem...you should not rack to secondary until you're at (or very close to) your FG. You can potentially stress out the yeast and you won't have a full fermentation if you rack too soon.

I'm not saying you'll necessarily get an infection from the cherries - you may be fine all the way.

Are you in a bucket or a carboy? If it's a carboy, you can monitor the cherries to see if they start looking funky.

Bucket, so 'I'm blind, unfortunately.

Well, you may be completely fine and it could be the best beer ever. I hope that's the case. Please post an update as you're moving forward, cause I'd be interested to see what happens.

Will do. Thanks for the input!