About Adding fruit to beer....

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RusslerRidge

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Hi all,

I'm brewing 5gal of amber ale and I was thinking I bottle half of it and then add some fruit into the bucket right before bottling the second half.

I've read that adding the fruit during bottling really makes it taste fruity compared to adding it during fermentation.

Questions: What kind of fruits do you recommend? how much fruit do I use? will this blow up mine bottles? and what else don't I know :confused:
 
Hello from Houston!

I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Are you just saying that you'll toss some fruit into your bottling bucket for the amount of time it takes you to bottle, that will do nothing. If you want to add fruit flavor to half of your batch, I recommend that you bottle half regularly and then rack the other half onto 2-3 lbs of fruit in a secondary fermenter until it has the flavor you desire (2 weeks?).
 
Ah thankyou for the advice HalfPint,

Yes I've read that if you put fruit in during first week or two of fermenting that it will have a subtle fruity taste,
whereas adding it later in the process will create a much fruitier taste because the fruit was less processed(less fermented?)
one person said he threw his fruit in the bucket during bottling and claimed it added lots of flavor compared with adding fruit during fermentation...

I have no clue, this is my 5th brew and first time experimenting with fruit.
 
RusslerRidge said:
Ah thankyou for the advice HalfPint,

Yes I've read that if you put fruit in during first week or two of fermenting that it will have a subtle fruity taste,
whereas adding it later in the process will create a much fruitier taste because the fruit was less processed(less fermented?)
one person said he threw his fruit in the bucket during bottling and claimed it added lots of flavor compared with adding fruit during fermentation...

I have no clue, this is my 5th brew and first time experimenting with fruit.
Click to expand...

What you've read is correct except for the part about the guy getting tons of fruit flavor by doing the bottling method. With that said, if that guy adding fruit extract/flavoring at bottling, that makes perfect sense. The deal with adding after primary fermentation is b/c with all of the Co2 coming out of solution, a lot of the fruit aroma is carried away, so adding after most of that is done will keep that aroma more present.
 
Maybe a real example will help. I make a cream stout and often add tart cherry to it. So I brew up the batch and let it ferment to completion (approximately 2-3 weeks). Then I rack half to a bottling bucket and bottle. The other half I rack into a smaller carboy onto cherry purée. The yeast kicks up again and starts eating the fruit sugars. Wait until that fermdntation is complete (1-2 weeks), then rack to bottling bucket and bottle.

Hope this helps!
 
I really like Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. I was thinking about doing this as well. I was told to put my cherries in the fermentor for a couple weeks.
 
i second pappers' example. i just kegged a blackberry cream ale. i fermented the cream ale as usual (about 3 weeks). i wanted the whole thing blackberry, so i put the 5 gallons of ale in a 6.5 gallon secondary and added in my blackberries, knowing it would start fermenting again. i let it go for 10 days, checked gravity (spot on), and kegged. it's cold-conditioning now, as per my signature :)
 

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