Adding fruit to secondary, how to sanitize the fruit?

[SteveM]

Mine is on its way. I racked to the secondary and added about 2.5 lbs of blueberries. I put them in enough water to barely cover them in a pot and heated them up for ten or fifteen minutes. They went a bit longer and a bit hotter than I had planned because I took a little longer in sanitizing my secondary. However, they are in since this afternoon and were bubbling away by nine o'clock. This is going to be some really blue beer.

 

[jro16]

Some people will eat anything bourbon flavored just to say they ate healthy.

When you refer to a "#5019-Wheat-2", what is the #5019. Is this a recipe from a certain book?

 

[casebrew]

Continuing saga of Strwberry Tart:

I racked to tertiary today. I used a racking cane with the red plastic end, and tipped the carboy. Not to much sediment, but at least two inchs of peels floating on top. I figured the end cap would plug up when the peels got that low, but a pleasant surprise: the peels are floating, and pretty airy. When the got to the cane, air came through and I lost my syphon- just as my 5 gallon caboy came to within 1 inch of the top! PERFECT! I just HAD to sample some to lower the level a couple inchs. Plenty of flavor, with a hint of sour, but not as sour as Simcoe would have made it. The peels tasted tart, but not of strawberry, I think I got all the flavor out of them. They were also very pale, almost white, so I got the color too. It's certainly red, but pretty cloudy, and wasn't getting better with the trub and peels. Dropped my Hydrometer on the concrete today, after 12 batchs, no readings til another trip to LHBS. I'll check back in a week...

 

[kevy_kev]

I planned on doing mine last night and when I went to check on the beer in the primary it was still bubbling about 1 bubble per minute and there was a good amount of foam on top still, although most of the yeast had fallen. I am waiting till at least tonight, probably more like wed or thurs. before i go to secondary with fruit.

 

[homebrewer_99]

When you refer to a "#5019-Wheat-2", what is the #5019. Is this a recipe from a certain book?

That's just my numbering system. It stands for 1) the 19th batch brewed in 2005, 2) it's a Hefe Weizen,3) and I only have 2 left.

If you look at the sig again you will notice they're all gone, but I really have 1 keg left.

I took a keg to TX with me this month and it got killed right off. I WILL DEFINITELY make this one again! A real winner.

Incidently, my recommendation is that BEFORE you add any fruit to a beer make sure it is good and drinkable before wasting your fruit.

 

[SteveM]

Nothing much to report on Monday night, but one lesson I take from this is, for blueberry beer, use extract! Mine looks like grape juice!

 

[Truble]

I ran into a small, but minor issue, in that in the time from when I decided to use the rasberries to last night, my wife inadvertantly used most of them, so now I only have about 10oz of them left. I needed to rack to the secondary since it was already in the primary for 8 days. I am going to get some berries today or tomorrow and add them to the secondary. The brew looked great though. My lightest brew yet, and it was already clear (posting about that too in another area).

 

[kevy_kev]

I racked last night on top of about a gallon of strawberry mush. 8lbs heated on stove for 20 minutes turned into a sludge. This morning I had a blowoff from the strawberries starting another fermentation. I took out about 16oz of beer using a turkey baster and am hoping there is more room now. It was bubbling at about a bubble every 2 seconds.
Ive got a question. Is this going to make the alcohol content go up with another ferment of the sugars in the strawberries?

I am thinking I am going to have to go to a 3rd carboy to clarify unless I just let it sit for a week or so longer. It was pretty cloudy and a lot of strawberry parts floating around!!

 

[SteveM]

Same issues, same thoughts - I may siphon it back to the primary, clean out the secondary and put it back in for a week or so to get more clarity. What a nuisance!

When I saw the fermentation fire up, the first thing I thought was that it would probably be a pretty strong final product. And you put in a lot more fermentable than I did.

 

[casebrew]

Re: alcohol from strawberries...

My 6# bag of frozen berries said "servings per bag 19. Calories per serving, 50."

SOoo, that's about equal to 1/2 lb of sugar... not much added alcohol... but it sure blew off at the 3 hour mark....

I racked Sunday to tertiary, not much clarity yet...

 

[SteveM]

By my count, we have two batches of strawberry, one raspberry and one blueberry all at more or less the same stage. This should be interesting reading for a while.

 

[kevy_kev]

yup and steve I am not that far from ya if you like strawberry and wanna trade a couple brews one day.
not sure where anybody else is.

 

[Lou]

i've got plans to start a strawberry pale ale about 2 weeks from now, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thread and, hopefully, learning something from you guys....
i'm also not too far from williamstown, nj and "philadelphia area".....

 

[bazeballdadx]

6 lbs. of smashed cherries put in secondary fermenter, siphoned a plain wheat beer on top of that... day 2 had all the cherry skins clogging up the blowout tube.

I'd definitely recommend racking to another 6.5 instead of a 5 gallon carboy if anyone else tries the same style and doesn't want to simply add the fruit to the primary.

 

[casebrew]

6 lbs. of smashed cherries put in secondary fermenter, siphoned a plain wheat beer on top of that... day 2 had all the cherry skins clogging up the blowout tube.

I'd definitely recommend racking to another 6.5 instead of a 5 gallon carboy if anyone else tries the same style and doesn't want to simply add the fruit to the primary.

I'm doing strawberry. I thought I made a plenty small batch of pale stuff for the base beer, but it blew the cork in 3 hours after adding fruit. That was having pureed with a potato masher, small peelings. I guess I'd run a harder skinned fruit like cherries or plums through a blender. Anyway, after a week in the secondary, I racked to a 5 gal tertiary, and filled it right to the top. Perhaps the carboy I used is 7 gals? It's from the swap meet, has no markings on it.

Maybe next fruit beer I'll split the primary into two carboys for the first few days? Then I might as well try an eight gallon batch, for the same labor.

The way everybodies seems to have a rousing secondary I think yeast like fruit. perhaps there is a 'yest food' yet to be found? Ph? antioxidents ?polyphenols? minerals? fertiliser? Or is it just plenty of yeast left from the primary?

 

[SteveM]

So we can add in a cherry brew as well.

Lou, I am in Broomall - so we are no more than ten or fifteen minutes apart. I will be happy to swap out a few. Williamstown is not quite as close but an opportunity could arise.

 

[Truble]

My fruit is getting added tonight. I was hoping to do it last night, but I had school, and then had to get some work done after that...I have settled on 2.5# for my rasberries.

 

[SteveM]

Updated count: Two raspberry, two strawberry, one cherry and one blueberry.

 

[Lou]

is anybody using pectic enzyme in their fruity brews? i'm particularly interested in hearing about the fruity pale ales, not so much the wheat beers, as cloudiness is desirable in a wheat ale....

 

[kevy_kev]

I am not using pectic enzyme, but I did not boil my fruit and read that the enzymes only react/release when boiled. I was looking closely last night and it is still bubbling at about 1 bubble every 10-15 seconds and is very cloudy.
I really hope it clears up!

 

[Truble]

My fruit did not make it in last night .....too many work and non-brew related things that needed to get done. Hopefully tonight. Also, I am thinking now of using black rasberries instead of red...

 

[Lou]

i'm also not planning on boiling my fruit, so i was thinking of not using the pectic enzyme...supposedly strawberries are very low in pectins, so maybe it won't be an issue. let me know how it turns out

 

[SteveM]

My blueberries, as noted above, were inadvertently allowed to boil. I guess I will have some clouding, but I don't object strenuously to that anyway. On the other hand, if there is a way to fix this during secondary (or tertiary) fermenting, I am interested.

 

[casebrew]

I thawed my 6# of frozen strawberries in a pot with a quart of water, mashing them as they thawed. Once they were steaming, and a few bubbles, I turned them off and let them cool. I figured I didn't want to cook them, just thaw and pasturize them. Aand, I think frozen/processed foods are sanitizes in chorline anyhow- this from a friend in that business.

I racked to tertiary on Sunday, but it's still cloudy. With my usual beers I can start to see a clear layer at top after a day er so. No stratification yet, no sediment in bottom. Strawberies aren't supposed to have much pectin in them, and chill haze isn't my problem- yet...

 

[Truble]

Just finished adding my rasberries, but I goofed and let them get to a boil, so I am assuming that I will have some cloudiness, which is too bad because the ale I added them to was the clearest I have brewed yet. On the plus side, I think that the color change gave it a nice hue, and it smells great. I had to remove some beer for the berries to fit into the carboy, so I put that in the fridge so that I can sample it cold. I can't wait for this stuff to be done.

 

[Truble]

So far so good, though I do not think that I added enough. I want a light berry flavor, so I was afraid of adding too much, and in the end, I chickened out and only added 2# of red rasberries. I think next time will need more, but I am pleased with the product. I was shooting for a light bodied/crisp ale with taste of berry, and that's what I got! For kicks, I took a gravity measurement of the beer after adding the fruit, however, and there was no change, and I did not get a spike of fermentation...was this due to the low amount of fruit that I added? not too concerned as long as it tastes good since the primary fermentation was right on the mark.

Next time I will have a gallon jug sanitized and ready to take the overflow so that I can add it back to the beer at bottling. I just forgot about the displaced volume due to the berries, and ended up wasting/drinking it.

 

[kevy_kev]

how long does everybody plan on keeping their fruit in the secondary for? It will be a week tomorrow for me and I am thinking I should take them out soon and rack the beer to tertiary to clear and then bottle so I can get this done sometime soon.

i know I know patience but it looks so good.

 

[SteveM]

That's what I did and I think it was a good idea. I lost maybe a half gallon because of the loose trub on the bottom and the fruit floating on top* but I think it will make a better beer in the end. There was an awful lot of gunk in there. I think that getting all that out now, and bottling in a week or two, I will be a good move to help make it clearer. Bottling around all that goo would have been a frustrating experience.

I used Irish Moss in the original brew (which I have not used before) and made it pretty pale, and the results to this point were startling. The color (mine is the blueberry) in the siphon tube was sort of a slightly reddish salmon pink and very clear. The smell was amazing. I can't wait to have one.

Oh, and I added maybe a half cup of dextrose just to give the yeast something to do this week, and to add a bit more alcohol content.

*I used some rice solids in my basic brew to keep the flavor light and I always get this kind of loose, poorly compacted trub when I use them. Plus, I think using lighter, less acidic hops will also contribute to this.

 

[Truble]

I am going to leave it on the berries for another week, then rack to a tertiary for a few days prior to bottling.

 

[kevy_kev]

most of the berries on top have turned pink and the beer is still pretty cloudy with a good inch+ of junk on the bottom and not a bubble out of the airlock for the last couple days.
Tonight I am going to rack to tertairy, to get the berries out, after a week, and hope to clear up and bottle on the weekend. It will be 3 weeks this saturday since the wort was made and put in the primary where it sat for 9 days, then in secondary now for 7 days. Tertiary for 5-6 days then the bottles until April, then finally drink! just in time for spring!