Racking off of fruit

[bovineblitz]

I just bottled a blackberry wheat and man, that fruit is annoying! I lost a little over a gallon because the fruit was too thick. With a muslin bag tied over my racking cane the flow completely stopped, but without it I was getting chunks of fruit.

Is there any way to combat this issue or do you have to just expect to lose a gallon to every 3-4 pounds of fruit?

 

[Priemus]

Never put real fruit in a beer before, but i've made wine with blueberrrys etc before, and when it came time to bottle I strained it through a vegtable strainer into another big pot first.

probably a small risk of oxydizing with the beer, but if its that last gallon you were otherwise going to dump, what have you got to lose?

 

[bovineblitz]

Never put real fruit in a beer before, but i've made wine with blueberrrys etc before, and when it came time to bottle I strained it through a vegtable strainer into another big pot first.

probably a small risk of oxydizing with the beer, but if its that last gallon you were otherwise going to dump, what have you got to lose?

I thought about doing that, but the blackberries were kinda... goopy? They had broken down to the point where I feel like they'd clog anything.

 

[Beernik]

When I fruit brew, I rack to a tertiary and let it sit for a couple more weeks. But it still results in beer loss.

 

[chask31]

I usually try to scoop the big pieces of fruit out since they wind up floating on the top.

 

[Revvy]

If you add fruit in a secondary, then racking to a tertiary will help.

 

[bovineblitz]

If you add fruit in a secondary, then racking to a tertiary will help.

Wouldn't you still lose a ton when racking from the secondary to the tertiary?

 

[no_borders]

i had this same problem, and i was thinkin if you put the crushed fruit into a mesh bag instead of just loose, i would think most of the pulp and chunks wouldnt be able to escape into the racking cane. i havent tried this yet but i cant see how it would make things any worse

 

[defenestrate]

Crash cooling helps bring the fruit fairly tight to the bottom. I just did a cherry lager with 3+ lbs and lost about a half gal

 

[Beernik]

Wouldn't you still lose a ton when racking from the secondary to the tertiary?

When you go to a 3rd, you are accepting that you are giving the fruit more time to settle out. So if you suck up some clumps of fruit or seed, it doesn't matter.

You end up losing more volume from the extra rack.

 

[ircmaxell]

I personally use a muslin bag to hold the fruit during fermentation (cherries on the last fruit brew, blueberries on the next). Then, I simply slide the racking cane next to the fruit. I had little to no particulates come into contact with the cane since they were all still in the bag. I lost less than 1/2 gallon out of a 5.5 gallon secondary. The tertiary fermentation cleaned anything that was moved over...

 

[JayInJersey]

I fruit my beers in the primary...about 5d to a week after pitching. Yeast seems to clean up that mess too while they are cleaning up themselves.

When I rack I usually sit the AS right on the trub and let it gouge a small hole in it. Then only my first 1-3 seconds of siphon has any trub in it...and I can rack it pretty dry. I brew 5.5 and can fill a corny to the Gas tube every time...sometimes I even have a little bit more in the vault for, um...let's call it "extended sampling"