Fruit Hefeweizen Tips

I'm planning on brewing a fruit hefeweizen soon and was hoping for some general guidance. I've never brewed with fruit before and I haven't found any solid guidelines to follow yet. Can I just take a basic hefeweizen recipe and add fruit to the boil and the secondary? Should I use real fruit or fruit extract or a little of both?

I suspect you will be happier with real fruit or fruit puree.

You can add fruit in the brew pot, primary, or the secondary.

In the brew pot, you add the fruit after you remove the pot from the heat and the temperature drops to 160F. Let it sit at 160F for 30 minutes and then cool the rest of the way. Transfer the fruit to the primary.

You can pasteurize the fruit in water and pectic enzyme by bringing it to 160F for 30 minutes and then puting it in the primary. Since you are doing a hefe, you could probably get away with not using the pectic enzyme because it will be hazy anyway.

Finally, you can do the same thing and add the fruit to the secondary and rack the beer on top of it.

I do the secondary method. There is less of a chance of infecting the beer with wild yeast or bacteria because there is already alcohol in the beer when you add it.

Also, you get about 1.008 to 1.010 points of gravity per pound of fruit per gallon of wort.

Sweet! My current hefe is almost gone so it's time to crank out another one. A fruit hefe sounds awesome.

I have always added extract at bottling and haven't had any issues with taste. That being said I have never tried the reciped with fresh blueberries so I don't have a comparison on what difference there would be.

Fruit beers are quite tasty. I have made several along the way, using real fruit, fruit puree and fruit juice. By far, I have the best success with real fruit. However, you need a lot of it; about 10# (at minimum) for a 5 gal. batch. I have added it during the last 15 min. of the boil, in secondary, and even about 3 weeks before bottling (with the juice). I have a Lambic that I'm drinking now that I added frozen juice concentrate (100% juice) to it and it is probably the best fruit beer I have ever made.

I think I'll toss some into the end of the boil and a lot into the secondary. I've heard that this causes more krausening. Will it cause enough that I should use a blowoff hose or rack to a large secondary? Thanks for the tips

I also read somewhere if you use frozen fruit, some of the cellular walls are broken, therefore providing more fruit flavor.

I've done it twice, both turned out really good.

I think the idea of 10# for a 5g batch is way off. Even at just over 1#/gallon, it was quite a bit of fruit flavor, and most people would say 1#/gallon is too high.

I would say between 1/2 and 1# of frozen fruit per gallon would be a good starting bit for a very fruity (noticable) brew. For something like the apricot flavor in Magic Hat, that would be WAY too much fruit and would overpower the brew.

Frozen is great. I heat mine up for 15-30 minutes at 160 just to kill any nasties and rack the secondary over it. You will need to use a full size secondary, as that much fruit puts the volume very high. If you try to squeeze it into a 5g carboy with 5g or brew, it will be right up to the top.

Over the summer, we did a strawberry hefe by racking the beer onto the (sanitized) fresh fruit in secondary. The bulk of the sugar in the fruit will get fermented this way.

This fall we did a pumpkin weizenbock and mashed the pumpkin (to convert the sugar). Tasty, but we all decided we'd brew a different style for the next pumpkin beer.

Never used extract or added fruit at bottling (we were concerned about making bottle bombs if we didn't know just how much sugar we were adding via the fruit).

uselesslogic said:

I think I'll toss some into the end of the boil and a lot into the secondary. I've heard that this causes more krausening. Will it cause enough that I should use a blowoff hose or rack to a large secondary? Thanks for the tips

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if you are making a hefe with hefe yeast, you should use a blowoff, that yeast is crazy

Since i had a slow gusher last batch, i've made it my rule to use a blowoff on hefe's till they slow down.

I made a raspberry hefe this summer and it came out great. I added 4# or 5#of frozen raspberries at flameout and let them steep for 15 min. Cooled the wort and proceeded as usual.

Tart raspberry flavor and color, but not overbearing. I'd definitely make it again.

I agree that about 1lb of fruit per gallon will probably get you all the fruit flavor you want and maybe too much. I've used as much as 1.5 lbs/gallon.

One thing I forgot to mention, if you use something like peaches, you'll want to skin and pit them first. Or if you use something smaller, like cherries, just pit them. If you're doing something will really small seeds, like berries, then don't worry about it.

But you should be aware that skins, pits, and seeds can impart more tannin flavors into the beer.

I made a strawberry Hefe once and I thought it was OK but my friends and wife keep telling me that I need to make it again.

I just made a basic Hefe and then I took 6# of berries and and brought them up to 170* for 30 minutes and then stuck them in the frezer until they were down to room temp. Put them in the carboy and racked onto them.
If you do this USE A BLOW-OFF TUBE.. That think took off and blow the cap off the carboy and berries all over the place.
I left in on the berries for 2 weeks then keged and drank it. If I do it again I'll keg it and let it sit for a month then drink. It got better as it aged.

Ok, so lots of opinions on amounts.

If I wanted to do a hefe that had a real subtle berry addition, should I go with about half the recommended amount? I think I'll try something like 3lb of a raspberry, blueberry, strawberry mix for a hefe with a hint of a wildberry flavor. Just a hint.

What do you do to sterilize them? Boil them at 160 for 30min? And for the secondary method, do you just pour the wort on the freshly boiled whole fruit in secondary, or should you mash up the fruit or puree it first?

GaryA said:

I have always added extract at bottling and haven't had any issues with taste. That being said I have never tried the reciped with fresh blueberries so I don't have a comparison on what difference there would be.

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I did a blueberry hefe once. I used 5lbs of blueberries in a 5 gallon batch. Diddn't shine through. was tasty but blueberry isn't a very assertive flavor. go 10 lbs! =) I pasturized and mashed up the blueberries with a potato masher! Last summer my hunny bunny picked 20lbs of blueberries and hinted how happy she would be if she could drink something alcoholic with them. Might have to re-visit my blueberry hefe again soon! Maybe i'll go for broke and use all 20lbs in a tiny 5 gallon batch!

NitrouStang96 said:

Ok, so lots of opinions on amounts.

If I wanted to do a hefe that had a real subtle berry addition, should I go with about half the recommended amount? I think I'll try something like 3lb of a raspberry, blueberry, strawberry mix for a hefe with a hint of a wildberry flavor. Just a hint.

What do you do to sterilize them? Boil them at 160 for 30min? And for the secondary method, do you just pour the wort on the freshly boiled whole fruit in secondary, or should you mash up the fruit or puree it first?

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3# for a 5g batch would probably give you a nice light hint of some fruityness. Note that with raspberries, it WILL tend to color your beer a little purple/pink. And it will leave a slight stain in your bucket that is hard to wash off but is probably harmless. I did mine in a bucket because I would hate to try and get fruit sludge out of a carboy.

Since you're doing a fruit addition to the secondary, I would think about putting it into a 3rd fermenter for a week just so you don't bottle directly off of the fruit, as you may get some bits in when siphoning to the bottle bucket. It gives another chance to let things settle to the bottom. If, at that time, there is not enough fruit flavor, you can put a few more pounds into the tertiary. It's easier to add a little later than it is to try and bounce back from over-fruiting.

They won't boil at 160, but yeah, that's the ticket. Get em warm enough to kill the bugs for 15-30. What I did for mine was to take a potato masher thingy and just crush them up. I didn't pulverize, just break all the skins and get things broken up so all the juices come out of the center.

FSR402 said:

If you do this USE A BLOW-OFF TUBE..

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Amen.

feedthebear said:

In the brew pot, you add the fruit after you remove the pot from the heat and the temperature drops to 160F. Let it sit at 160F for 30 minutes and then cool the rest of the way. Transfer the fruit to the primary.

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Has anyone tried this method?

I did a blood orange Hefeweizen this weekend. 20 minutes before end of boil in a seperate top on a half gallon of water I brought it up to 160 then turned the heat off and let the fruit steep in the water and cool. Then I dumped the water and fruit(in a bag) into the fermenting bucket with my wort then topped off.

If you check the blood orange thread in the photo section I posted some pics.

Did you use muslin bags? Is it ok to keep those in the primary fermenter?

Yes it was a muslin bag, I made sure everything was submerged in the pot that I got to 160. I see no issues with it in the bucket.

Great! I think this is the route im gonna take. Thanks!

I don't have a magic number on pounds of fruit, but I definitely agree on using a blowoff tube. My primary fermentation was crazy with Hefeweizen yeast.