Fruit Beer Question...

[mjperry24]

Simple question, looking for simple opinions. I know there are a bunch of ways to do this.

Brewing a blueberry porter. Going to add blueberrys (frozen then thawed to room temp) in secondary.

I've read a few places that say temperature needs to be controlled a great deal, other places where it was never mentioned (condition at or around room temperature as normal, bottle, cold crash, etc.)...

Additionally, if I'm brewing a 5 gal. batch, am I going to need a bigger secondary vessel than a 6.5 gal bucket? Assuming these are fresh fruit with no sugar added... Just trying to get a feel for how much of this will ferment, etc.

 

[huge1s]

My first batch was a peach hefe. I fermented the secondary at the same temps as the primary and it came out great. One tip that I wish I would have done is to put your fruit in a bag when racking onto secondary. This will prevent a lot of junk from getting into your bottles/keg. Also, the 6.5 gallon is fine for a 5 gallon batch. Well.... wait.... how much fruit are you adding? I had 5 lb. of peaches and it was fine.

 

[birvine]

I would think you'd be ok, but keep an eye just in case.

B

 

[mjperry24]

My first batch was a peach hefe. I fermented the secondary at the same temps as the primary and it came out great. One tip that I wish I would have done is to put your fruit in a bag when racking onto secondary. This will prevent a lot of junk from getting into your bottles/keg. Also, the 6.5 gallon is fine for a 5 gallon batch. Well.... wait.... how much fruit are you adding? I had 5 lb. of peaches and it was fine.

Probably adding 5-6 lbs.

What kind of bag do you reccommend? I was planning on filtering when I bottled or reracking to a tertiary... but this seems like a much more convenient option...

 

[birvine]

Try a paint strainer bag as used in BIAB. I didn't even think to do that with my raspberries yesterday. Next time!

B

 

[huge1s]

Probably adding 5-6 lbs.

What kind of bag do you reccommend? I was planning on filtering when I bottled or reracking to a tertiary... but this seems like a much more convenient option...

You should be fine in terms of head space with that much fruit. I thought I remember reading that blueberries do not add much flavor and you need to add a ton of them to get that flavor, you may want to check on that before adding.


I bought a nylon bag last time I ordered ingredients.... but I have heard the paint strainer bags work great.