Fruit Beer Mixed Berry Hefe

Steeping Grains (25min)
.5 lb German Pilsner Malt
.5 lb Red Wheat

7 lbs Wheat LME
1.0 oz Hallertau (60min)

Added to secondary (3 lbs)
3x 12 oz bags of mixed frozen berries (straw, raz, blue, black berries)
1x 12 oz bag of frozen rasberries


This beer was a request from the girlfriend to make something fruity for the summer. It has definate berry flavor but isn't comepletely overpowering. Its a little more berry than I like and I think next time I will go with 3 bags or 36 oz of berries to mellow it a little more. Otherwise very drinkable fruit beer and I'm happy with the first attempt at one.

Sounds like a good summer beer to please the gf. I'm working on an extract ruby red (grapefruit) Hefe right now. I added the zest of 4 grapefruit in the last 5 min of boil an froze the fruit. It's been fermenting for 4 days now. It's time to decide how much fruit to put in. Any thoughts?

I've never used much citrus. I would probably taste it after primary fermentation is done and see if it needs it, the zest may be as much as you need. I've read, not done, but read citrus doesn't ferment and taste all that great. I would probably run some searches on citrus in the secondary and see what you come up with.

It's not the best pic but it's the best I could do with my phone.

CPORT... What king of yeast did you use?

White Labs Hefeweizen Ale WLP300

Just a couple quick questions. How much end product does that recipe come out to and how long does the two fermentation steps take each?

If I remember correctly I got a full two cases. I put the fruit in on day 7 mainly becuse I was going out of town. It did create secondary fermentation and in my 6 gallon Better Bottle and I had to use my blow off tube. I would recommend at least a 6 gallon vessel for secondary of about two weeks. It also made a ton of gunk I would seriously consider using a tertiary fermentor for a week or two and rack it off the fruit, there were a few bottles with some funky stuff.

Since its primarily my g/f that drinks the stuff there is actually some left in the basement and I had some the other day it has melded together much better than the last time I had some a few months ago.

how did you add the fruit to the secondary? did you crush the fruit and put it in with the beer, or just put the fruit in as is?

I don't care for secondary fermentation much -- could I add the fruit the middle of primary fermentation? I know that it risks the chance of infection, but I really don't have the space to do any secondary at the moment.

ConAcide said:

I don't care for secondary fermentation much -- could I add the fruit the middle of primary fermentation? I know that it risks the chance of infection, but I really don't have the space to do any secondary at the moment.

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that's what I did for my cucumber mint saison. I sliced up my cucumber with a knife and cutting board soaked in starsan. Then very quickly dunked all the pieces before adding them, just to be safe. Worked great. Just be sure not to splash them in too much in order to avoid oxidation. Though you should get an additional mini fermentation from the berry sugars so thatll help

ConAcide said:

I don't care for secondary fermentation much -- could I add the fruit the middle of primary fermentation? I know that it risks the chance of infection, but I really don't have the space to do any secondary at the moment.

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It is best to do a secondary when adding fruit. There's not really a risk of infection when adding frozen fruit. The cold would kill any bacteria and your adding the fruit after fermentation so the alcohol from the beer is usually enough to prevent infection

I did a cucumber mint saison where I added 4 while cukes in the primary it worked fine. I only do secondaries for mixed wild fermentation s