Gravity higher going into keg than when put into secondary

[MeThirsty]

Hello!

I tried my stab at fruit beer. OG was 1.062.

I pasteurized the fruit with a two day vodka soak.
When racking to the secondary, before adding the fruit, the gravity was 1.017. One week with the drunk fruit, then racked into the keg i got a reading of 1.20..
Is this normal? I took the reading a few times trying to wrap my head around it, but i am but a padawon.

Please help me get a bit of education!!
Thanks guys.

 

[erikpete18]

Your fruit brought over some sugars, raising the gravity. I thought generally that the sugars in fruit were almost entirely fermentable, but I suppose that its possible that you didn't have enough yeast left in suspension after transferring to fully ferment out all the extra sugars. The other option is that there were some unfermentable sugars/compounds (pectin?) that raised it slightly.

Of course, there's also the chance that its not actually higher and this was just a screwy reading. Maybe the temps were a little bit different, or maybe there was enough CO2 in solution after the fruit to nucleate on the hydrometer and raise it a little bit. Since you're kegging, a little extra sugar won't hurt anything, and so long as it tastes good I would just RDWHAHB .

 

[SD-SLIM]

Hello!

I tried my stab at fruit beer. OG was 1.062.

I pasteurized the fruit with a two day vodka soak.
When racking to the secondary, before adding the fruit, the gravity was 1.017. One week with the drunk fruit, then racked into the keg i got a reading of 1.20..
Is this normal? I took the reading a few times trying to wrap my head around it, but i am but a padawon.

Please help me get a bit of education!!
Thanks guys.

Hello...pasteurization is the process of heating food for a duration of time, then cooling it immediately...soaking the fruit in vodka will sanitize them and start the extraction process. In regards to your question, when you rack away from your primary, you will still transfer a small amount of yeast, these yeast will continue to work resulting in a different gravity reading.