When to add fruit to beer?

[Pabst Blue Robot]

I've been talking to a long time brewer about adding fruit to beer. He said that he's tried adding it to the primary, secondary, and even to the keg and liked the results of adding it to the keg the best. He just uses a strainer bag and plops it right in and racks on top.

I've been mulling over the idea of doing a 10 gallon American wheat for a wedding this summer and splitting it into to 5g batches. I have two bags of frozen fruit, 7 lbs of strawberries and 4 lbs of blueberries/marrionberries/rasberries. I think I'm going to follow his advice and add the fruit to the keg.

This brings up the problem of stabilizing. When I make wine, I use potassium metabisulfate to stabilize, but I usually allow a day or so for it to gas off and drop out the yeast before racking into bottles. So my question is, should I stabilize at the end of secondary, in the keg, seperately, or not at all? I want to avoid pastuerizing the fruit so I get the most flavor out of it. I also don't know really want it to start up a new fermentation with the fruit sugars in the keg. Options that I haven't considered?

 

[fshnne1]

i JUST DID A RASPBERRY CREAM STOUT ADDED RAS. IN THE PRIMARY 3 POUNDS THE TASTE IS WAY TO MUCH RASPBERRY TO TART, I THINK I WOULD BE GOOD ON A 100 DEGREE HOT SUMMER DAY BUT HERE IN MT WERE STILL HAVE SNOW

 

[Pabst Blue Robot]

We'll be serving this at the end of the summer more like than not. I've thought about doing a blonde ale for the strawberries and a stout for the mixed berries perhaps. Some pilot batches are in order!

 

[Dude]

The LAST place I'dd add fruit to a beer is primary. First, you are asking for an infection. With no alcohol to ward off wild yeasts, you are setting up for a disaster.
Second, the aroma will get scrubbed away by the CO2 production.

Secondary is best.

 

[Pabst Blue Robot]

The LAST place I'dd add fruit to a beer is primary. First, you are asking for an infection. With no alcohol to ward off wild yeasts, you are setting up for a disaster.
Second, the aroma will get scrubbed away by the CO2 production.

Secondary is best.

Agreed on the primary, but any thoughts on adding directly to the keg? There seems to be a vacuum of info about that.

 

[brewman !]

From now on I will be steeping my fruit and adding it to the secondary.

I make a honey lager, a cranberry ale and a ginger peach this winter and none of them have enough flavor. In my opinion, way too much is lost if the fruit is added to the primary. I think the CO2 washes away the flavor.

As far as infections are concerned, I am a winemaker and we ferment raw fruit all the time and I've never had a problem.

 

[lostnfoam]

i agree with dude. if you add to the primary, yes your looking for infection adn well all your really doing is add more natural sugar wich are simple sugar and get broken down very fast. im planning on doing a goose berry pale ale soon. im gonna use a large can of the fruit pruee it and when i rack i will rack on the fruit. now depending on the fruit you maybe looking at a lot of acid so you may not want to keep it in the seconday for long so you may have to transfer it again so you dont end up with a really tart beer unless thats what your going for.

 

[BarleyWater]

i agree with dude. if you add to the primary, yes your looking for infection adn well all your really doing is add more natural sugar wich are simple sugar and get broken down very fast. im planning on doing a goose berry pale ale soon. im gonna use a large can of the fruit pruee it and when i rack i will rack on the fruit. now depending on the fruit you maybe looking at a lot of acid so you may not want to keep it in the seconday for long so you may have to transfer it again so you dont end up with a really tart beer unless thats what your going for.

I just brewed a fruit, and pasteurized and added 6 lbs of it to primary. After fermentation was complete, there was still plenty of fruit flavor and aroma. I wanted to avoid having to do a tertiary which is a must if you add to secondary. I imagine fermentation will start up again in the secondary after adding fruit to there anyway, so I really see little difference, aside from the fact that it must be pasteurized before adding to primary. Use a lower attenuation yeast if you want more sweetness, and just because the sugars have been femented, doesn't mean the flavor is gone, you can still taste the barley right?

Although, I would probably pasteurize anyway, I wouldn't want to risk any chacne of infection after the care I go through to make my beers. Alcohol doesn't kill all bacteria or wild yeasts, take for example the ones that ferment residual sugars left over AFTER fermentation and turn bottles into bombs if unsanitary during bottling.

 

[Pabst Blue Robot]

Thanks for all of the input with experience in the primary and secondary. Has anyone however tried stabilizing and adding to the keg though? That's the option I'm most interested in.

 

[Pabst Blue Robot]

Well, for lack of info I went ahead and just gave it a try. I brewed 12.5 gallon of blonde ale (16lb pilsener, 1lb honey malt, 2oz EKG @ 60 min., Wyeast Kolsch @ 60 deg for 2 weeks) and added 6lbs of frozen strawberries to the keg with the 2.5 gallons of beer.

I crash cooled most of the yeast off and used a large fine mesh bag for the fruit and just threw it into the corny without any stabilizing or pasteurizing. I must say, this is by far the absolutely best fruit beer I've ever tasted.

The kegerator is set to 35 degrees and this beer probably won't last out the week, but the color is a nice bright red with intense strawberry flavor and aroma. For a 1040 beer at two weeks, this is fantastic. Nothing like the beers with fruit added to the fermentor, it's sweeter and has a far stronger aroma and more straightforward flavor. Also, the EKG earthiness compliments the earthy strawberry flavor nicely.

If anyone else is considering adding the fruit directly into the keg, I highly recommend it. I will try and report back on the changes in flavor as time passes if the beer lasts, though I fear that it will not!

 

[Hopleaf]

I put strawberries (8lbs) in the primary for my last fruit beer. I chopped them all up and put them in a gallon of water with crushed campden for 24 hours. beforehand.

I opened one of the beers up tonight and it gushed.. but I think I may have overcarbed them. Last week I openeed one and it was pretty good.