added fruit to secondary on an extract brew

[Tim Schmidt]

I am a new brewer, i brewed a 5 gallon pale ale extract brew. Great fermentation on the primary for 3 days, then slowed down. siphoned to secondary at 7 days and added 2.5 pounds of mashed and blanched rasberrys. Fermentation has been very slow with a small bubble maybe every min. for the last 4 days. Should i expect the fermentation to be higher right now or be bubbling faster?

 

[IslandLizard]

There was really no need to siphon to a secondary. You could have just added the fruit to the "primary" fermentor to conduct your "secondary" fermentation in. Secondary fermentations are typically slow. Give it a couple weeks.

If any of the fruit is floating on the top, carefully swirl the fermentor or gently stir the beer every few days to submerge/dunk the floaters with beer. This helps prevent molds and other unwanted bugs to grow on the top of them by being doused with alcohol-rich beer.

At any cost prevent oxidizing the beer. IOW, avoid any air exposure. The smaller the headspace in a secondary, the better it is. 1-2 inches under the bung is about right.

 

[TwistedGray]

To answer your last question, no that sounds about right (re: berry fermentation). It will be a lot slower than your primary fermentation, and as IL said, give it about two weeks to be safe.

 

[Tim Schmidt]

Thanks.