Racking a wheat beer on top of frozen packaged fruit

[Canuck137]

Can I do it ? With raspberries? Plan is to buy a frozen package , rack my wheat beer on top of it, leave it for a week, and then bottle.

It seemed crazy to me until a friend who has been brewing for years and is really a pro recommended I try it.

So how about it? How do you guys add fresh fruit flavour to your beer? I have done the orange peel thing with the wheat beer and it worked well. This is the next level I guess haha. Cheers!

 

[yesjenks]

I'm not a pro, but raspberries can get messy. Think about all the individual pieces breaking apart.

 

[Meyre86]

Just did this with 6 lbs of frozen cherries for a sour cherry wheat. To be sure everything was sanitized and also to help release some of the juices/break down the cherries I put them in 2 gallon bags and let them sit in boiling water for a good 15-20 min, dumped the contents into my widemouth carboy, and siphoned my beer on top of them.

Unfortunately, like yesjenks said, fruit can get pretty messy, so once 2nd fermentation was done, I siphoned the beer into a 3rd container, cold crashed it in my keeper for 3 days, and then finally moved it into my corny keg to ensure it was clear. If clarity isn't an issue and you're bottling, you can probably skip the cold crazy/3rd container.

 

[Canuck137]

Couldn't you simply rack it to a priming bucket with a siphon with a netted bag around it? That's what I did before when I had a lot of additives in my fermentation pail.

My only concern was how clean the fruit would be.

He is a pro, and if he has done it, I have to believe its possible lol.

 

[Canuck137]

Just did this with 6 lbs of frozen cherries for a sour cherry wheat. .

Oddly enough this is the beer he was talking to me about recently. He made a sour cherry wheat beer... interesting. Sounded awesome.

 

[Canuck137]

Well for the record, it worked pretty well... Racked it on top of the Raspberries , although I did put them in a grain bag for easy removal. Had one of the beers tonight, its young, only one wk but I am very happy with it and no infection to speak of. Will try again with cherries!

 

[Meyre86]

Oddly enough this is the beer he was talking to me about recently. He made a sour cherry wheat beer... interesting. Sounded awesome.

A couple notes from the Sour Cherry Wheat I did.

SOURING PROCESS: I used White Labs WLP665 and kettle soured 1 gal of wort for 72 hours. This did not give nearly as much "sour" flavor in the final 5-gal batch as I imagined it would. Next time around I'm definitely either going to increase the amount of wort I sour or up time souring length.

CHERRY ADDITIONS: For a 5-gal batch, I used 2x 3-Gal bags of frozen, mixed red and tart cherries. If you're looking for a Kriek-style beer, this amount is probably right for you. I wanted more of a sour with a light/moderate cherry flavor, and this was WAY overboard. The cherries overpowered all other flavors of the beer. Next time around I'll probably cut the amount of cherries in 1/2 (3 lbs/5-Gal).