Adding Fruit

[comicsandbeer83]

I am about to brew a wheat ale this week and am still undecided about what fruit to add to it. My question is regardless of what fruit I pick, should it definitely be added into a secondary fermentation vessel? or just after a week or so in the primary?

 

[sbhank]

It's going to depend on how you are imparting the fruit flavor. If you are using a fruit peel (like orange) you should add it in the last 15 minutes of the boil. If you are using an extract, I would add it to secondary. There is some debate about when to add fresh fruit/fruit purée. I've never done it so I'm not an expert but my understanding is that it depends on what type of fruit you are adding. Secondary is usually better than primary.


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[NortonBrewingCo]

I will be doing a fruit beer soon as well. If your beer is not going to be a high gravity beer than you should be ok without ever using a secondary. You have to be careful when using fruit as it can introduce some of the nasties that can spoil a good beer. If you just pour in extract then you are much less likely to introduce those creatures. If you don't use an extract, its probably best to pasteurize your fruit before adding. You definitely want to make sure that your primary fermentation has slowed to a crawl or is done completely before adding your flavor/fruit. If your still fermenting when you add fruit then you may lose some of the nose that a good fruit beer provides. You may also get by with just adding the extract to your keg when you rack or your bottling bucket. A very light stir in the bottling buck should mix your extract up sufficiently, but not a strong stir as you don't want to introduce any added oxygen before bottling. Good LUCK!

 

[schrader6]

I just made a pale ale and added 6 lbs of frozen strawberries to the secondary. It was in the primary for a little over a week and over two weeks in the secondary.

 

[sven11]

Out of curiosity, has anybody used fruit like raspberries or thimbleberries? I have access to a good supply of thimbleberries when they are ready late in the summer and I have thought about using those in a beer. From what I have read it seems typical to add the fruit to the secondary and then rack the beer in on top of the fruit for a week or so. Does that seem right?

 

[mculbertson20]

I added raspberry purée to the secondary. I was making a honey ale, and wanted a hint of the raspberry. The can from Northern Brewer is pasteurized, and tastes great.


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[mculbertson20]

I'm thinking if doing a wheat next and adding blueberries.


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[noladom]

I just brewed an ale and added blackberry purée from blackberries I picked in my neighborhood. These are the specs I followed from Midwest Supplies' website. I followed "school two" of adding the pasteurized purée to the secondary (I put it in a muslin bag before racking from primary then racked onto it.) here's the link that helped me out. Hope it helps. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/beer-fruit-amount.html side note: I haven't tasted it since adding the fruit and plan to keep it in secondary for at least 2 weeks. I also don't yet know what effects it will have on the gravity yet. I had hit my OG and FG targets before adding the fruit.


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[teachtim]

I've made three batches with added strawberries. Two were for the Succulent Blonde recipe that can be found under the recipe section of HBT and I also just made the Simple Heff recipe (also found here on HBT). For all three I added one whole bag of frozen, whole strawberries that I can get at COSTCO. Each bag is 5 or 6 lbs.
All three have turned out great. Beware they can make the fermentation get a bit wild depending on the temp you are fermenting at.

 

[pdietert]

Out of curiosity, has anybody used fruit like raspberries or thimbleberries? I have access to a good supply of thimbleberries when they are ready late in the summer and I have thought about using those in a beer. From what I have read it seems typical to add the fruit to the secondary and then rack the beer in on top of the fruit for a week or so. Does that seem right?

I made a raspberry pils a while back. Added the raspberries at 5 minutes after flame out and waited 10 minutes to begin chilling to pasteurize. Came out very good. No sweetness but plenty of raspberry flavor.

As I remember it was suggested that I freeze fresh raspberries first to break the druplet skin.

Freezing will not necessarily kill bacteria and wild yeast so either pasteurize or add to boil if using fresh or frozen fruit.

 

[thegreatmaibockaddict]

I made a chocolate raz wheat with fresh picked raspberries last Summer and made a Raz puree and added it to the Mash with excellent results FWIW

 

[beerdrinker]

Fruit + Wheat beers have become one of my favorite styles. I either use extract or frozen fruit and have done raspberry, strawberry, and cranberry.

When using extract I'll add the flavoring at kegging time. When using frozen fruit I let fermentation complete in primary then transfer the beer onto the fruit and give it about a week to pickup flavor before kegging.

With the raspberry and cranberry batches, sometimes it comes out a bit tart. I had one that was almost undrinkable, but I gave it a few months to mellow and it turned into one of my best brews.

 

[CanAusBrewer]

Has anyone had success using dried fruit like raisins or apricots? I am considering an apricot wheat (similar to St. Ambroise) and apricots are definitely not in season in Australia so I was thinking of trying dried fruit.

 

[Jsin]

Has anyone had success using dried fruit like raisins or apricots? I am considering an apricot wheat (similar to St. Ambroise) and apricots are definitely not in season in Australia so I was thinking of trying dried fruit.

Dried fruit works great. Just make sure that it is not oiled, sulfured, or treated with anything you don't want in you beer. I use about 4 kilos of apricots for 25 liters of wheat beer. I put them in my steamer to sanitize and hydrate them after chopping them. Rack the fermented beer onto them and let it sit 2 weeks.