Fruit additions

So, I've been racking my brain and trying to see if I could figure this out and also didn't see any threads specifically about it.

Racking onto fruit in a secondary seems to be the standard, but I don't see why not just put the fruit into the primary. Is there any reason for the standard secondary racking that I'm missing?

Thanks!

Fruit aromas are typically very delicate. Active fermentation takes a lot of the aromas and carries them out of the beer with the C02 that's bubbling off. This is why you dry hop after active fermentation is done & add fruit after most of the fermentation is done. The fruit will cause some new fermentation, but it won't be as robust as primary fermentation & you'll be left with more fruit aroma.

mvhsbball22 said:

So, I've been racking my brain and trying to see if I could figure this out and also didn't see any threads specifically about it.

Racking onto fruit in a secondary seems to be the standard, but I don't see why not just put the fruit into the primary. Is there any reason for the standard secondary racking that I'm missing?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I know I have seen this discussed before here so try the search again. From what I remember one reason most seem to add the fruit later is to get as much flavor in the beer, but I am too new to using fresh fruit and have issues of my own. But that is for those who use a secondary, those who don't add to the primary, it is just a matter of when.

Right, when I said adding to primary, I meant waiting for fermentation to finish and then adding the fruit, without transferring beer into the secondary.

Sounds like there's no real reason to use the secondary then? Just wait until fermentation's over?

mvhsbball22 said:

Right, when I said adding to primary, I meant waiting for fermentation to finish and then adding the fruit, without transferring beer into the secondary.

Sounds like there's no real reason to use the secondary then? Just wait until fermentation's over?

Click to expand...

I think in theory this would be fine. I think the difficulty is in how you do it with without oxygenating your beer. If you drop 3+lbs of fruit into a beer there's bound to be some splashing that's bad for beer. When I do it in secondary, I put the fruit in first, then rack my beer on top. This causes relatively little turbulence. If you can find a way to get the fruit into primary with little disturbance, I think you'll also be just fine.

Taking into account the amount of yeast cake you will allready have the bottom of your primary moving to a secondary may be a better choice, as well as the aeration issues listed above. I would also recomend using a mesh bag to contain the fruit. I had considerable problems with free floating pulp. All in all I think the next fruit beer i try will be with a flavor extract instead of fresh fruit.