Adding Another Yeast?

[cmendo2005]

Hey guys I'm making a fruit beer, after my primary seemed to die down I added fruit to the secondary and racked on top of it, after a few days it seems there is no action still. If I add another packet of yeast would it affect my beer at all really or would it just essentially restart the fermenting phrase but this time with the fruit in it?

 

[Piratwolf]

Why do you want another round of fermentation?

 

[cmendo2005]

To ferment the raspberries, it went through primary fermentation but after I racked on top of the berries there been no action, is just the soaking without the fermentation enough?

 

[Revvy]

"action" is not a good indicator of anything...What do the numbers read? The only way to know what a beer is doing is with a hydro reading....

Activity, action, bubbles, even krausen can be affected by the envoironment just as much as it being caused by the yeast...so going by that is NOT reliable. Fermentation is not always dynamic...just because you don't SEE anything happening doesn't mean that the yeast aren't happily chewing away at whatever fermentables are in there....the only way to know comes from gravity readings, and nothing else.

Bubblling or lack of means nothing, take a gravity reading. If you want to know what's going on with your beer, then that's what you use. The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Thinking about adding yeast, or doing anything is tantamount to preforming surgery or prescribing medicine without using diagnostic tools to determine what is going on first.

 

[Delaney]

To ferment the raspberries, it went through primary fermentation but after I racked on top of the berries there been no action, is just the soaking without the fermentation enough?

Ive brewed several beers with raspberries in secondary. You're not going to get a krauzen, you'll know the yeasties are doing their thing because the raspberries will turn white in 5-10 days.

 

[Delaney]

"action" is not a good indicator of anything...What do the numbers read? The only way to know what a beer is doing is with a hydro reading....

you're forgetting he is talking about raspberries here...the hydrometer reading would be useless. Furthermore the raspberries are not going to affect his ABV by much if at all.

 

[Revvy]

you're forgetting he is talking about raspberries here...the hydrometer reading would be useless. Furthermore the raspberries are not going to affect his ABV by much if at all.

How would it be useless? It would tell him where his gravity is at? That's very important to know, and if he takes a reading a day or two later, and it's changed, he would know if he has fermentation or not....AND the sugars in the rasberries WOULD affect his gravity...you don't think anything gets fermented off of fruit?

 

[Delaney]

How would it be useless? It would tell him where his gravity is at? That's very important to know, and if he takes a reading a day or two later, and it's changed, he would know if he has fermentation or not....AND the sugars in the rasberries WOULD affect his gravity...you don't think anything gets fermented off of fruit?

Well, personally when I use raspberries, I rack onto whole raspberries in the secondary.

I believe it's logical to assume that a significant portion, if not most of the raspberries' fermentable sugars would remain trapped inside the cell walls of the fruit, and only released slowly as the yeast attack them... Therefore a gravity reading would not be accurate, because it would not be a homogeonous solution.

Maybe if you juice your fruit beforehand it would be more relevant, but I don't do that.

Also...look up the Brix for raspberries. They have a very low sugar to water ratio. I've used several pounds and had less than 0.1% ABV difference. Different fruits, different sugar contents.

 

[cmendo2005]

Yes I've taken the gravity and it won't change much if anything after the raspberries, but you guys are saying no action in the airlock, just leaving the berries in the beer will flavor it? They will turn white and it doesn't matter if there is fermenting or not?

 

[bighorn_brew]

You could add more yeast if you wanted. Either way you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference in the final outcome. There is more than enough yeast in suspension (in beer that is still cloudy) to ferment the additional sugar from the berries.

Add yeast if it makes it makes you feel better. If anything you might just speed up the process by a few days. My fruit additions do spur a minor secondary fermentation as evidence by active krausen, cloudy beer with yeast swimming/swirling.

 

[Delaney]

Yes I've taken the gravity and it won't change much if anything after the raspberries, but you guys are saying no action in the airlock, just leaving the berries in the beer will flavor it? They will turn white and it doesn't matter if there is fermenting or not?

Yeah man, just chill. Trust me, I've done like 5 or 6 brews with raspberries...

if you do a little bit of research, you're going to realize that the raspberries have so much more water than sugar, that the volume of water(from the raspberrie's cell walls) is added is going to negate the effects of the additional sugar, and will not affect your ABV% much, it might not at all. This is not the same for other berries/fruits, and varies a little bit depending on the variety and year. Look up the brix content. I looked into this before and if you calculate the sugar addition it's not worth scratching your ahead about...I would be more concerned about finding the correct #of fruit/gallon for flavour. Don't think about ABV with raspberries...with other fruits it might be a different story though.

They're just gonna float on top, some will float around, and some will sink...they're all gonna start losing their color until they go white, but you don't need to leave them that long. I usually rack off of the raspberries after one week and they are light pink, as if they had been bleached.

I think it's pretty important to sterilize your raspberries before racking onto them, because a lot of them float on top and are exposed to air. Seems like a high infection risk, so I always soak them for 24 hours in a campden solution.

I'd say if you had a primary fermentation, you are definitely going to ferment the sugars in the raspberries...Again, it's the flavour that counts because it's not really gonna do much for alcohol production, so who cares? I find that after 5 days on the raspberries I get the flavour I want. Ive done it longer with marginal differences in outcome.


Word of advice: tie cheesecloth or a hop bag around the tip of your siphon when you rack off the berries, or else you will have a hell of a time sucking up bits of raspberry.

 

[cmendo2005]

Great advice, really appreciate it thanks alot guys, do you generally leave it for a few days after your secondary with raspberries?

 

[Piratwolf]

Hey, cmendo, sorry if I came across like a tool with my question. I was thinking what you really want is flavor, not an super active fermentation. But These guys have covered it much better.