Adding Fruit to Lacto only brew

[BeansNFrankes]

Hey everyone!

This is my first ever "wild" brew. I sour mashed 5 gallons and when it hits its designated pH I am going to boil it and pitch it over Wyeast 3711. I plan on adding fruit to the batch in secondary.

With most wild brews containing Brett, I know that the longer you wait to add fruit the better (12-18 months). Would it be detrimental to add this 2 weeks after primary fermentation like I do with a normal beer? From my readings and from reading American Sour Beers, I found no indication that it would be detrimental to the brewing process.

Thanks for the help in advance, I searched and could find nothing. Also, been lurking for a year and finally found something worthy of posting about!

 

[mitchard]

Nope, go for it. Once you've boiled it, the lacto is dead. At this point, you're basically just adding fruit to a "normal" Saccharomyces fermented beer. The consideration with Brett in the mix is that it'll continue fermenting over the course of months and months, which won't be the case without Brett present. As long as the gravity is stable, you'll be fine to package.

 

[Barley_Bob]

I did a lacto only berliner weisse. After a 2 week primary (pretty sure it was 2 weeks), I split it three ways, bottling 1/3 as is and then racking 1/3 onto blueberries and 1/3 onto rhubarb.

It turned out great! The blueberry portion was amazing! But I was drinking it just a few weeks later.

If you're really going to bulk age 12-18 months, you can expect that you're going to lose some effect of the fruit every day it's aging. By the end, you'll likely have very little fruit flavor or aroma. The reason fruit is typically added at the end is to achieve maximum impact from it.

So, you can add fruit after 2 weeks. Whether or not you want to is subject to what you're making and hoping to achieve.

 

[BeansNFrankes]

Thanks guys! I figured such, but was just checking. Barley_Bob, how many pounds of blueberries did you put in? I was thinking about doing a blueberry/blackberry sour.

 

[Barley_Bob]

Oh ****, let me look.

...

I did 3lbs of blueberries to 2gal of beer. And it was great!

 

[jsvarney5]

Thanks guys! I figured such, but was just checking. Barley_Bob, how many pounds of blueberries did you put in? I was thinking about doing a blueberry/blackberry sour.

I'm interested as well. Im about to do the same with my berliner this weekend. One with peaches, one with respberries and one with blueberries.

 

[jsvarney5]

Oh ****, let me look.

...

I did 3lbs of blueberries to 2gal of beer. And it was great!

Awesome, thanks!

 

[Barley_Bob]

Man, now I want to do another berliner!