when pasteurizing fruit, is water then safe to use?

When pasteurizing fruit (the instructions I have say put fruit in 150 degrees water for 20 min), can I then dump the water in with the fruit?

Or do I need to boil the water for 10 min first, then let it cool down to 150, and then pour it all in?

Thanks.

You could dump it in. If the fruit is pasteurized, then you'd better hope the water that's pasteurizing it is too!

Unless you need it today I would just par boil, strain and freeze. You can even freeze it without par boiling. There is no need to actually pasteurize it.

WorryWort said:

Unless you need it today I would just par boil, strain and freeze. You can even freeze it without par boiling. There is no need to actually pasteurize it.

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can you explain more? what does freezing it accomplish? Why do you say you don't need to pasteurize?

Also, a second question is, before dumping into the fermenter, I was thinking of putting it all in a sanitized grain sack or something. should I crush the blueberries a little bit to allow flavor out, or should I leave the blueberries whole and let them naturally do their thing?

Freezing will kill bacteria, and also break down the cell walls, which lets the yeast eat at the fruit better. I just don't feel it's necessary to pasteurize, but there's no reason not to if you want to take the time.

This would also make crushing unnecessary, but you can still do that if you wish. If you can crush them easily, i.e. without making a huge mess, or introducing bacteria, then it will probably get you some more berry flavour. It's not going to be a huge difference though.

WorryWort said:

Freezing will kill bacteria, and also break down the cell walls, which lets the yeast eat at the fruit better. I just don't feel it's necessary to pasteurize, but there's no reason not to if you want to take the time.

This would also make crushing unnecessary, but you can still do that if you wish. If you can crush them easily, i.e. without making a huge mess, or introducing bacteria, then it will probably get you some more berry flavour. It's not going to be a huge difference though.

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Okay, freezing doesn't necessarily kill all bacteria, so there is definitely a possibility of infection without pasturization. Having said that, I normally will not pasturize fruit, I will freeze and thaw at least two times, which breaks down the cell walls allowing easier access for the yeast to ferment the sugars. I would recommend pureeing or crushing the fruit after freezing to allow the yeasties to have easy access to all of the sugars contained in the fruit.

If you add the fruit puree to the secondary and have a fermented wort/beer with an ABV above 5% then there is a lesser chance of infection due to the alcohol content, and the yeast will normally out-compete any nasties that may find their way into the wort/beer during racking to secondary. Of course, there is always a possibilty of infection, however, the plausability is considerably diminished due to the underlying factors of alcohol content, secondary fermentation, and yeast production.

I just did a fruit beer and was going to pasturize my fruit the same way you are planning. I did several hours of research as well as reading archived posts here. On my Blackberry Brown I decided to NOT pasturize it. Instead, I froze for about a week in a ziplock freezer bag, thawed, ran over the bag with a rolling pin to crush it up a bit, then added directly to the prmary AFTER high krausen (about 4-5 days after adding the yeast).

It sit in the fermentor for about two weeks with no odd growing things or late fermentation reactivation and has been in the bottle aging about a month now with no bacterial "ring" around the neck of the bottles. I would say I am pretty safe.

I'd like to dispell this freezing myth myth right now. Freezing absolutely does not kill bacteria. My wife is a Biochemist. Her lab keeps their bacteria strains frozen at -40F for storage. This prevents them from continuing to grow. That's it. They take these bacteria out of storage, let them come to room temperature and BOOM colonies like the wind. We're talking E.Coli, Strep, Staph, L.Bacillus(sp?), and many many other common bacteria. Frozen foods are sterilized before freezing. Again, freezing absolutely does NOT kill bacteria. All you're doing is putting it to sleep, so to speak.

I'v done 2 brews with fresh raspberries. Both batches I simply froze them to -10 in the chest freezer, thawed and put in 2ndary, then racked my beer on top of it.

Both times they turned white and sank with no infection. I'll do it the same way again.

Whatever works for you works for you. But its important that people don't think of freezing as a method of sterilization. It absolutely isn't. Bacteria that's on that fruit when you freeze it will most likely remain on that fruit once thawed. Why not heat to 150 then freeze? Most laboratories use -40c or -70c freezers to PRESERVE bacteria... your -0 or -10 freezer surely won't kill it.


Freezing and Food Safety

I think I read somewhere that campden can be used to kill off anything that's on the fruit. Then after a day or two on the campden you can rack onto the fruit in a secondary without affecting the yeast.

I haven't brewed with fruit yet but I've thought about it and I haven't heard of anyone just freezing fresh fruit to sterilize it. Maybe you’re getting the answer you were looking for but let me offer this as something that might be helpful. It comes from Sam Calagione’s Extreme Brewing:

“If you intend to use fresh fruit, the time to add it is toward the end of the boil… By adding it late in the boil, you capture more of the flavor and aroma and you also sterilize the fruit. This is critical since fresh fruit invariably has some small amount of bacteria of wild yeast present on its surface. If you wish to add fresh fruit during fermentation, for sterilizing reasons steep it in 180 F-plus water for at least 30 mins. And let it come back down below 70 F before adding it to the carboy. The later the fruit is added during fermentation, the more flavor and aroma it will contribute. Adding fruit post fermentation is not recommended as you want the yeast to eat the sugars from the fruit while the beer is still in the carboy. Remember, if there are available sugars in [the] extract post fermentation they can cause over carbonation in the bottle” (67).

Hope this helps

Interesting... most of the recipes I've seen say to add it to the secondary... but isn't this after fermentation is over?

Does this mean adding to the secondary risks over carbing the bottles?

jigidyjim said:

Interesting... most of the recipes I've seen say to add it to the secondary... but isn't this after fermentation is over?

Does this mean adding to the secondary risks over carbing the bottles?

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there is still some yeast in there when transfered to secondaty, they will consume the sugars in the fruit.

In the part that I was quoting Calagione is suggesting that adding fruit to the secondary can lead to over carbonation but not that it necessarily does. First of all, he suggests to add it late in fermentation, noting that the later you add it the more flavor the fruit gives off. This is probably why the recipes say to add it to the secondary. And if the yeast will do it in the bottle I don't see why they wouldnt in the secondary, maybe you could just let it sit on the fruit for a little extra time in the secondary, and don't wait too long to get the beer from primary to secondary.

Definitely make certain your beer has fermented out before adding any fruit. I just bottled my second blackberry ale this past saturday, and I allowed it to sit in the primary for 3 weeks before racking onto fruit in the secondary, I also allowed this beer to secondary for 19 days, I was shooting for 10 days, but life happened and I couldn't find the time to bottle when I wanted to. I'm positive there will be no ill effects form the longer time the beer spent on the fruit (actually hoping it will improve the fruit flavor). Secondary fermentation on this beer took place for about one week (5-7 days).

Schnitzengiggle, I’m a little confused about your post. You say you couldn’t get to the beer so it sat for over two weeks in the secondary, but then you end your post by saying that it only sat in the secondary for one week. Which is it man!?

Have you brewed something like this before? I can’t tell why you advise to let the beer fully ferment before adding fruit when you haven’t tasted your final product yet. And I know this is another topic, but why do you let it sit so long in the primary? Three weeks seems like a long time, especially if you are going to let it sit on fruit for a while in a secondary.