I plan on adding about 3 pounds of fresh raspberries to a cream ale that I currently have fermenting. My plan is to puree and pasteurize the raspberries and add them to the secondary.
I know the sugar in the raspberries will cause fermentation to kick off again. My question is how much more alcohol will that contribute to the beer?
My thought on measuring this is to take a hydrometer reading prior to racking to secondary and then taking a hydrometer reading after racking on top of the raspberries. The difference in the two should be the sugars added by the raspberries, so i'll take that difference and add it to the OG. Once fermentation is complete, the difference in my adjusted OG and the FG should be the number I use in calculating alcohol content (or letting beersmith do it for me).
One potential problem I see here is that not all the sugars from the raspberries will mix with the beer during the racking process, leading to a miscalculation of the added sugars.
Any thoughts on this?
I know the sugar in the raspberries will cause fermentation to kick off again. My question is how much more alcohol will that contribute to the beer?
My thought on measuring this is to take a hydrometer reading prior to racking to secondary and then taking a hydrometer reading after racking on top of the raspberries. The difference in the two should be the sugars added by the raspberries, so i'll take that difference and add it to the OG. Once fermentation is complete, the difference in my adjusted OG and the FG should be the number I use in calculating alcohol content (or letting beersmith do it for me).
One potential problem I see here is that not all the sugars from the raspberries will mix with the beer during the racking process, leading to a miscalculation of the added sugars.
Any thoughts on this?