Add fruit to primary or rack beer on top of fruit in secondary

I have been reading here that it is a "best practice" to leave the beer on the yeast in the primary for 1 month to let they yeast clean up and clear unless oak or fruit it being added. I'm making a NB Frambozen clone and want to add 2 cans of raspberries in heavy syrup(Oregon Fruit brand). It seems from the posts on HBT that adding fresh fruit should be done in a secondary fermenter. I have a buddy with a crazy expensive juicer, so I'm going to give him the cans to juice so can use the juice with heavy syrup. Can I just add juice/syrup to my primary once the krausen falls or is there an advantage to combining the juice/syrup with the beer in a secondary?

Thanks,
Nate

You're going to want to rack the beer off the yeast once fermentation is near completion and onto your fruit in the secondary. And don't worry about running the oregon fruit through the juicer, it's already pureed.

+1 to secondary. I've only done it once but it came out great.

Sounds good, I will rack to the secondary this weekend. The Oregon Fruit raspberry is fruit in heavy syrup from the grocery store not the Oregon Fruit can of puree -- just want to make sure that doesn't make much of a difference.

Thanks,
Nate

fwiw i've done it both ways and there's no problem whatsoever with adding the fruit to primary if it's a bucket. if it's a bucket then it's okay since you can minimize splashing and oxidation while adding the fruit. adding to a carboy causes mass O2 introduction by constantly splashing. that said, adding it to a bucket can save you time and beer. fruit in carboy = PITA

edit: duuhhhhh...i totally forgot you were referring to puree. just to go against the consensus i say just add it to the primary.

I've used the purée in both the primary and secondary. Bad results from the primary. Off flavors were present each time. Great results in the secondary. Blends very well and no bad flavor.

I have carboys, I will add the fruit to the secondary carboy and rack on top of that. Thanks for the advice.

EDIT: changed my mind at the last second and added to the primary. The Oregon Fruit raspberries in heavy syrup should be shaken while it is in the can to make the berries break up more so they can be easily added to the corboy with a funnel.

So the second krausen from the raspberries in syrup took off fast and was very strong. It is dying down now, but there is a lot of doink floating on top. I think I'm going to let sit in the primary for 3 more weeks then bottle. Thanks for the help.

When adding to the primary, the fermentation (if still going) will scrub the fruity goodness (flavor & aroma) moreso than if added to the secondary. Two of the main reasons i advocate in the secondary is 1) for the reason above, and 2) you don't have to sanitize fresh fruit as well (if at all) when adding to the secondary due to the presence of alcohol already in the beer.

I added the canned Oregon Fruit (raspberries in heavy syrup) to the primary after the first krausen was winding down. There was only an island of bubbles on top when I added the fruit in syrup. I think I should have had my buddy juice the canned fruit in syrup to get rid of the pulp. The pulp/berries is now floating on top. The second krausen appears to be completely done. I will find out how well it it work in about a month.

it's funny that with everyone saying go secondary that you chose to dump in primary container like i had recommended. it will save you time and beer. really! as stated, you definitely want to wait until primary fermentation is over so you have the alcohol to prevent any infection.

now that the fruit is in there you should expect the fruit to rise and fall slowly over time. just because you have floating berries now doesn't mean they'll be there in a few weeks (and vice versa). after a few weeks/months you will want to rerack to secondary just to allow all those last bits to settle out.

cactusgarrett said:

When adding to the primary, the fermentation (if still going) will scrub the fruity goodness (flavor & aroma) moreso than if added to the secondary. Two of the main reasons i advocate in the secondary is 1) for the reason above, and 2) you don't have to sanitize fresh fruit as well (if at all) when adding to the secondary due to the presence of alcohol already in the beer.

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How is a secondary different from the primary if the beers have fermented to the same spot?

brown_dog_us said:

How is a secondary different from the primary if the beers have fermented to the same spot?

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aha we're onto something

I found R.W. Knudsen juice concentrate in an 8oz bottle at Whole foods -- they have 4 flavors -- black cherry, blueberry, cranberry, and pomegrante. I bought a bottle of black cherry. The 8oz bottle says it is the equivalent to 2lbs of black cherries. Anyone use this before? I wish they had raspberry.

brown_dog_us said:

How is a secondary different from the primary if the beers have fermented to the same spot?

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I see what you're getting at and i agree - that's why i use the term "secondary" loosely around here (ie. secondary what? fermentation? fermentor? vessel?). In this instance, since primary fermentation would be complete, the difference is the huge amount of yeast you've got sitting on the bottom of the fermentor, if not using a secondary vessel.

As discussed in other threads, most people don't know of or use the secondary vessel/fermentation method "correctly" anyway. By that I mean typically people (myself included) transfer to a secondary vessel after fermentation is complete, as opposed to transferring to a secondary before completion of the primary fermentation.

I chose to add the fruit to the primary because it looks like jessup does a lot of flavored beers(frankencherry, blueberry brett, maple porter, and blueberry mead) as noted in jessup's footer --- and thus has more experience with this process.

HA! I'm sure the others who've suggested otherwise have some experience under their belt outside of their signature, though (myself included at least ~15 fruit batches).

cactusgarrett said:

I see what you're getting at and i agree - that's why i use the term "secondary" loosely around here (ie. secondary what? fermentation? fermentor? vessel?). In this instance, since primary fermentation would be complete, the difference is the huge amount of yeast you've got sitting on the bottom of the fermentor, if not using a secondary vessel.

As discussed in other threads, most people don't know of or use the secondary vessel/fermentation method "correctly" anyway. By that I mean typically people (myself included) transfer to a secondary vessel after fermentation is complete, as opposed to transferring to a secondary before completion of the primary fermentation.

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So you would add the fruit to the primary fermentor when fermentation was done? The only difference would be the dormant yeast on the bottom of the primary fermentor. I can't see the dormant yeast impacting the flavor.

Nope, the dormant yeast in a primary shouldn't affect flavor. I always add my fruit to the secondary. If I were not wanting to go through the extra (some would argue unnecessary) work of transferring to a seconday prior to the fruit, I would add it to the primary after fermentation was complete. I tend to wash and save yeast, so I harvest from my primary, fruit the seconday, and bright in the tertiary.

The one thing I'll never do, though, is add fruit during the boil or prior to/during initial fermentation due to sanitary reasons, as well as to not lose fruit flavor & aroma to the fermentation process.

I just sampled it and the frambozen dry and boring. The FG is 1.008. There are hints of raspberry and a linger bitterness, there is no sweetness at all. Maybe I should have mashed this at a higher temp then 152F. Or maybe a less aggressive yeast - I used Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. Any suggestions on how to recover this?

Add more raspberry?

Nothing to recover. Don't add the fruit to the primary fermentation next time?

It tastes like water and alcohol. I have heard of cider doing this. I will just have give another go in the near future. I think the sugar in the Oregon raspberries in syrup dried it out.

I haven't tried the fruit thing yet (in about two weeks), but the fact that you had krausen again makes me think that the yeast ate most all of the sugars from your rasberry... which is why you have little sweetness and flavor left, and an over powering sensation of alcohol.... all you did was mostly make more alcohol..

To those who know, is it safe to add my banana puree to the primary container if I wait a good two weeks or so after pitching yeast? I'm gonna add a vodka/banana puree to an IPA.. or possibly just a puree...

Or should I transfer the beer off of the yeast when introducing the fruit no matter what?

This is one of those subjects that is hard to get clear info on....

PS.. both my carboys will be occupied at the time, so I'll be fermenting this one in a bucket....

You should be fine in adding fruit to the primary as long as you aren't going to leave it for an extended period of time. The main points i would worry about is not adding fruit during the primary fermentation, and removing the beer from the primary cake for long term aging.

nate_ive said:

It tastes like water and alcohol. I have heard of cider doing this. I will just have give another go in the near future. I think the sugar in the Oregon raspberries in syrup dried it out.

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Whether you add fruit during primary fermentation or during conditioning in a secondary vessel, you'll get "extra" fermentation. I'm thinking the reason you didn't get the fruit character & residual sweetness you were looking for is because the primary fermentation scrubbed all that away from the raspberries. I'm theorizing that once the yeast have slowed after primary fermentation, adding a little more sugar (fruit) won't be as detrimental to fruit flavors as if you were to add the sugar at the height of fermentation.

I think I need to mash a less fermentable higher gravity wort(154-156F 1.060) when making this. Then ferment the beer to the FG. Then bottle with the raspberry syrup to taste( use the fruit syrup-no pulp- as priming sugar) and check for carbonation every couple of days. Once it has the desired carbonation level, put the bottles in the dishwasher and pasteurized them so the yeast die -- leaving the carbonation and residual sugars.

I agree with the second krausen scrubbing the sweetness and flavor. Maybe I should have crash cooled after adding the raspberries.

The first krausen had fallen and there was only a few islands of bubbles when I added the fruit, so it looked like the conditioning phase was going on.

I could be very wrong about this, but it sounds to me that the syrup you added with the berries probably had a lot of sugar in it. This, I think, would wake the dormant yeast back up creating a higher level of fermentation then if you just added raspberries. Like I said I could be wrong, just a thought.

muse435 said:

I could be very wrong about this, but it sounds to me that the syrup you added with the berries probably had a lot of sugar in it. This, I think, would wake the dormant yeast back up creating a higher level of fermentation then if you just added raspberries. Like I said I could be wrong, just a thought.

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This is what i was trying to say. It's not the secondary krausen that's scrubbing the flavor/aroma - it's the actual vigorous fermentation. The krausen was a result of the high amount of sugar you added. By adding fruit you're going to get a secondary fermentation regardless, but as muse stated, a less vigorous fermentation will leave you with the residual flavor you're looking for.

cactusgarrett said:

This is what i was trying to say. It's not the secondary krausen that's scrubbing the flavor/aroma - it's the actual vigorous fermentation. The krausen was a result of the high amount of sugar you added. By adding fruit you're going to get a secondary fermentation regardless, but as muse stated, a less vigorous fermentation will leave you with the residual flavor you're looking for.

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I wasn't trying to say that the krausen fermented all the newly introduced sugars, but that the krausen was 'evidence' that the yeast was doing that... and the overpowering imbalance of alcohol was further evidence of that....

He didn't get the flavor he hoped for, because the yeast turned all the sugars in it to alcohol.. and the second krausen and strong alcohol taste is evidence of that...

Right - i'm agreeing with you. nate ive stated:

nate_ive said:

I agree with the second krausen scrubbing the sweetness and flavor. Maybe I should have crash cooled after adding the raspberries.

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and i just wanted to clarify that it wasn't the actual krausen scrubbing flavors away, but it was as you suggested - the presence of such a krausen was evidence of a very strong fermentation which did as such.

This was an interesting read as I just racked a wheat onto 3lbs blackberries and 1 quart of juice. I am curious how it will go. I alomst bought a few cans of Oregon mixed berries but I noticed that it was the same product the OP used and his experience has confirmed my doubts about using it.

nate_ive said:

I just sampled it and the frambozen dry and boring. The FG is 1.008. There are hints of raspberry and a linger bitterness, there is no sweetness at all. Maybe I should have mashed this at a higher temp then 152F. Or maybe a less aggressive yeast - I used Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. Any suggestions on how to recover this?

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I am guessing you sampled out of your fermentation, not out of a properly conditioned bottle. NEver judge a beer until its had time to condition.

The frambozen was in the primary for a month. If there was any real flavor at all, I would have bottled it. I started a brown ale yesterday. I'm going to split this batch and bottle half as frambozen and half as brown ale. This is my plan.

I'm going to use the Oregon Raspberries in Heavy Syrup as the priming sugar for the frambozen. I'm going to put one can through the food processor then strain it through my hop bag and pasteurize the syrup at 160F. Cool the syrup, add it to the bottling bucket, and rack 2 gallons of brown ale into the bucket then bottle. The Oregon raspberry can says it is 3 servings and it has 28grams(1oz) of sugar per serving so I should get almost 3 oz of priming sugar from the syrup. Since the syrup is used for priming, there is no place for the raspberry flavor/aroma to ferment away too. I'm not looking for a dominate raspberry flavor, so I this should give me what I want. My brown ale started at 1.046 OG and I'm using Windsor yeast(rumored to be less attenuative and more fruity) at 66F. I wanted to mash at 156F for more unfermentable sugars but I got 153F. I think that should be pretty solid though. I will report my results. The air lock is bubbling away after less then 12 hr and it smells pretty good.

PS. I have a mead (MAOM) that is 2 weeks in to a 2 month ferment. I used the Oregon combo berry. I tasted the leftover pulp from the honey/fruit pasteurization and it had great flavor.

m

What about adding campden tablets to the beer after fermentation is complete (killing the yeast), then adding the fruit (primary, secondary, who cares?), then force carbing and bottling with your Blichmann bottle filler?

Wow, that was fast. Primary fermentaion is already done. The krausen has fallen. I'm going to let it sit for another 12 days then bottle.

So most of you fruit beer brewers are leaving your beer on the fruit for ~10-14 days in a secondary? I've got a Belgian strong ale that I racked onto 6.6 lbs cherry puree about 3 weeks ago. The ABV% was 14% at transfer to carboy. I added a different strain of yeast to dry it out a bit more as it was still too sweet. There is activity still going on in the carboy (imagine that after adding yeast and fruit ) and I will be probably leave it another 2-3 weeks before moving to tertiary for clearing.

This is my second fruit beer. I put the fruit in the primary the first time, and I did not care for the final product although my friends tell me they liked it (go figure...free beer)

I took a sample of my brown ale tonight. It has a specific gravity of 1.020(OG of 1.046 @ 65F). So the brown ale is about 3.5% ABV -- 56% attenuation - windsor yeast. It tastes really good -- I was hoping for more of a malty flavor -- I have what is probably a brown English mild. I'm pleased so far. I'm going to give it another week then bottle with the raspberry syrup. Although there is no green beer taste, so maybe there is no reason to wait to bottle...anyone with an opinion on this?

I played through this debate and read tons of fruit addition posts when trying to make a frambozen esq beer, I opted to use European Ale Yeast to Help the Malt stand up against the Fruit. The first time I steeped grains and made a 5 gallon batch of brown ale, pitched and let it go for 4-5 days then I added about 2lbs of fresh frozen raspberries that were shaken and refrigerated in a ziplock with a half campden tab for 24 hrs to the primary carboy. After 10 days I racked to a secondary carboy and let it clear for a few weeks before keg conditioning for 2 (I got impatient).

Other than completely throwing off my liquid measurements and losing some beer,as i didn't think my plan all the way through, the beer was delicious, the malt was able to stand its own against the fruit.

It is a pain to rack in between the fruit and the trub though.

I tried a slightly different process to fix volume a few week ago, if you want to check it out find Kasey's Framboozled in the recipies. I'll let you know how it turns out, it gets racked Sunday

I bottled half the brown ale with the Oregon raspberry syrup and the other half with inverted sugar syrup yesterday. The leftover flat frambozen tasted really good, the raspberry flavor is at a level I like --- very balanced with the mild brown ale's malt/carmel character. Now it just depends on how the bottle conditioning/carbonation affects the beer. I will post my results in a week or two. So far, the beer from this attempt is way better then my first frambozen attempt.