Adding Fruit Puree

Hi guys, going to try something for the wife. She likes the Chocolate Milk Stouts, she would like an addition of cheery flavoring. I am thinking of picking up a Northern Brewer or Brewers Best Chocolate Milk Stout kit and adding 3 lbs of cherry puree. I have never added fruit before. From what I have been reading I should add to the secondary to the bottom and rack over from the primary and no stirring. What do you guys thing, want to do as simple as possible. Also do I need to pitch more yeast in the secondary because of the sugar coming from the fruit.

thanks

Yup, that's one way of doing it. For aging, secondaries should be small enough to limit headspace to a minimum, typically in a carboy, 1-2 inches under the bung. But when using fruit, fermentation will kick up a bit, so leave some extra room, maybe half a gallon, or a little more. Don't use buckets for secondaries, generally, because of the large headspace.

When racking prevent bubbles and air being sucked down, as it will oxidize your beer, and keep the output end of the hose under the beer so it doesn't splash.

Alternatively you could forego the secondary and just add the fruit to your primary fermentor, as long as there's enough space. If not, siphon some beer out. That way there's no need to rack, reducing chance of infection and oxidation as at least some of the CO2 will remain in the headspace. It guarantees there is good healthy yeast available too. Now harvesting "clean" yeast, if you want to do that, will be somewhat harder, but is not a big deal. Generally secondaries are not needed unless you want to bulk age longer than say a month or 2, which I don't think you want to do here.

You want to add the fruit when primary fermentation has finished and the beer is at or near it's FG. Of course use immaculate sanitation practices.

Why not compound the recipe yourself and buy the ingredients at your LHBS?

What is your fermention vessel?

i just did the same. I made a 10 gal batch of Centennial Blonde Ale, and split it into 5g of Blueberry blonde, and 5g raspberry Blonde. Froze the fresh picked fruits for a few days, let them thaw and dumped into bottom of secondary carboys and racked the blonde on top.

They bottle conditioned for 3 weeks, and worked out great! good luck, it sounds like you're on the right path!

cheers,

Thanks for the info guys. Island Lizard, I don't have a local home brew store, I think the closest one to me would be Louisville Kentucky which is 3 hours away. So if keeping everything in the primary, after about a week I add the puree and let it set another couple weeks there, then bottle. Is this correct? I plan to use Vintners Harvest Cherry Puree from Northern Brewer unless anyone knows of a better source. As for my fermentation vessel I use several pails and for a secondary i have a couple PET carboys.

and thanks again

Wow, we're so spoiled here, hard to fathom not having a brew store nearby.

Vintners Harvest is a good product, made by Oregon Fruits. Peel the label off and dunk in or spray with Starsan before opening.

With buckets I prefer NOT to lift the lid anymore unless utterly necessary, mainly to keep the headspace intact. You want to prevent infection, and a wide open bucket and the rim area are key problem areas.

Whenever handling the lid, even when not removing it, sanitize the rim area well by liberally spraying Starsan underneath, twice. I even use a small washcloth soaked in Starsan and mop the bottom of the lid's groove and the area around there, as well as the top and around the grommet area. You could then remove the airlock as well as the grommet (don't lose it!), and feed the cherry puree through a funnel. You may need to use a sanitized straw to poke it down.

If you really need to remove the lid, follow the sanitation instructions above, pry the lid off and wipe the rim area with a Starsan soaked, but not dripping, washcloth. You'll lose all the CO2 in the headspace instantly, but many brewers here have had no problems with that, as long as everything remains sanitized. Turn the AC off. Do not open your fermentors in dirty or dusty areas, near open windows, or where grain is stored or milled, or flour is in the air. Baking bread and cookies has to wait until your fermentors are closed up again. Resanitize the rim and lid before snapping it back on.

When all is done, and racking to your bottling bucket (or keg), put a small bag made of piece of voile or a fine mesh hop sack (sanitized!) around the bottom of the cane/siphon to prevent transferring fruit sludge.

Good luck!
It's gonna be a delicious Chocolate Cherry Milk Stout, like a cordial.

I just cooked up one last summer ale last night and I wanted to try adding raspberry to it to see if it makes it a little better or not. My local brew shop said to do primary and add it when I put it in secondary, I have a BYO that has a clone recipe that says primary for 4 days add fruit then go 7 more days, then put in secondary.

I was thinking about the BYO way, any thoughts on that

oldstyle244 said:

I just cooked up one last summer ale last night and I wanted to try adding raspberry to it to see if it makes it a little better or not. My local brew shop said to do primary and add it when I put it in secondary, I have a BYO that has a clone recipe that says primary for 4 days add fruit then go 7 more days, then put in secondary.

I was thinking about the BYO way, any thoughts on that

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Add fruit after (primary) fermentation has mostly completed. Then let sit on the fruit for 2 weeks or longer. You don't need to rack to secondary unless you want to harvest your yeast, or let it age on fruit for more than 4-6 weeks. You may want to carefully stir your yeast up a bit (rousing) after adding the fruit.

Secondaries in these cases usually cause more trouble, and are generally not needed or even preferred.

IslandLizard said:

Add fruit after (primary) fermentation has mostly completed. Then let sit on the fruit for 2 weeks or longer. You don't need to rack to secondary unless you want to harvest your yeast, or let it age on fruit for more than 4-6 weeks. You may want to carefully stir your yeast up a bit (rousing) after adding the fruit.

Secondaries in these cases usually cause more trouble, and are generally not needed or even preferred.

Click to expand...

Thanks I am going to give that a try