Adding raw fruit post fermentation just hasn't worked out too well for me...

[m_c_zero]

I've done several batches of beer and added raw fruit (frozen mostly) after the primary fermentation has completed. I've done several strawberry blondes in which I've added 4-5 lbs of frozen strawberries to the beer for a week after primary fermentation. The result is a delicious strawberry flavor, but a butt load of off-flavor that I can only perceive as tannins, very bitter. I most recently did a watermelon ale to which I added 3-4 lbs of cubed watermelon for about a week. The first few days sampling it, it tasted amazing. Bright crisp watermelon flavor. After a week, it tasted like strange caramel/vanilla combo.

Anyway, can't really pin down what I'm doing wrong. Maybe leaving the fruit in the beer too long? How do you guys/gals do it? Juice the fruits? Concentrates?

 

[seckert]

curious about this as well, so i hope someone chimes in. My Chili PA I made was great for the first 3 weeks or so of drinking, but now it is changing and not for the good...

 

[frankjones]

Same here. I did a strawberry blond over fresh strawberries and it was OK. Then tart. Then very harsh tasting.

 

[m_c_zero]

I've heard that the skin is what provides the tannins, but I'm not sure on that. Also, I do know for a fact that the "fruit" flavor fades fast. I do a coconut porter quite often and the coconut flavor really only lasts for a couple weeks then fades out.

 

[Mongrel]

I've had great results with wild blackberries. I go with about 8 lbs for a 5 gallon batch, and let the beer sit on the berries for about a week. I pick the berries at the end of every summer, and then freeze them until I'm ready to use them.

 

[bzwyatt]

How much hops are you using?

I made a peach beer and hopped it according to a belgian pale ale, don't really remember how much, but it was kinda bitter, especially in contrast to the peach flavor/sweetness. It clashed.

I'm going to make anther and put like... 1/2 oz of the lowest AA noble hop I can find.

 

[dlester]

Your beer spoiled from rogue yeast and contaminants. Fruits have wild yeast and bacteria that will eat all the remaining sugars and spoil the beer. Try heating the fruit to 165F° and hold for a few minutes, then add it to the secondary. This will kill almost all wild yeast and bacteria. You may consider adding Potassium Sorbate to stop the yeast from eating through the remaining sugars from the fruit.

Good Luck,

 

[Rockn_M]

I'm a big fan of extracts.

 

[dlester]

I've heard that the skin is what provides the tannins, but I'm not sure on that. Also, I do know for a fact that the "fruit" flavor fades fast. I do a coconut porter quite often and the coconut flavor really only lasts for a couple weeks then fades out.

I had the same experience. I have postulated that the coconut is a heavy substance, which settles towards the bottom of your keg. As you drink the beer, being drawn from the bottom, the coconut is used up first, but fades because there is very little remaining coconut in the upper layers of the beer in the keg.

Just a theory,

 

[m_c_zero]

Your beer spoiled from rogue yeast and contaminants. Fruits have wild yeast and bacteria that will eat all the remaining sugars and spoil the beer. Try heating the fruit to 165F° and hold for a few minutes, then add it to the secondary. This will kill almost all wild yeast and bacteria. You may consider adding Potassium Sorbate to stop the yeast from eating through the remaining sugars from the fruit.

Wouldn't the alcohol in the already fermented beer kill this stuff off?

 

[m_c_zero]

I've also heard of people dunking their fruit in StarSan, may be worth a shot...

 

[seckert]

I had frozen my peppers...then soaked them in vodka to kill off the nasties, I would have pasturzed, but i was afraid of drawing the heat out of the peppers by heating them. So I doubt i had a sanatary issue, I am more inclined to think i had the issue with the flavor being too close to them bottom. Especially since mine isnt a bad taste, just a weaker taste...like it is fading away.

 

[m_c_zero]

I can buy that theory. Maybe it's best to bottle these types of beers instead?

 

[dlester]

Wouldn't the alcohol in the already fermented beer kill this stuff off?

I am not sure MC Zero. Although you have a good point, the fact remains that wild yeast, mold and bacteria could be resistant to alcohol up to a point. However, that point is unknown for us Homebrewers. Therefore, I wouldn't risk it unless your up in the high abv range similar to wine.


Cheers,

 

[dlester]

I also agree with using starsan and vodka to sterilize. Especially if you want to avoid burning off some aromatics. I would add you should wash or soak them with a bit of soap first. Either way, there's a lot of good ideas.


Cheers

 

[Toga]

I am not a fruit beer expert by any means but I have done many with great results. I have tried the starsan method, vodka soak, freezing, and I found pasteurizing works best to kill off the bugs and wild yeast and does not harm the flavor and does not effect the aroma of the fruit prior to adding it to your beer. You will loose some or quite a bit of aroma due to fermentation and the aging process.

My process:

1. Wait till beer is 80-90% done fermenting before you prepare your fruit.

2. Puree the fruit with a blender and pasteurize in a bit of water slowly heating to 160 degrees and holding the temp for 10 minutes. I put it on my stove at a very low temp setting and bring it up to temp over the course of 45 minutes to an hour while watching tv.

3. Rapidly cool mix.

4. Strain through a sanitized strainer to remove seeds if using raspberries. (tannins reside in the seeds)

5. Add to primary or secondary if secondary is your preferred method.

6.Wait two weeks.

7. Keg or bottle.

 

[Topher79]

I made a Watermelon Wheat with 10 lbs grain and only 3/4 oz hops total. I added fresh watermelon to the secondary this past Saturday. I scooped out all of the fruit of a whole watermelon (came out to about 3/4 gallon), pureed it (seeds and all) in the blender, boiled it for 4-5 min, cooled it, then added it to the secondary. As usual, the yeasties scarfed on the new sugars and I had a decent fermentation until Wednesday. I did use a 6 gal carboy in anticipation of fermentation kicking back up. I'm kegging it tonight and am interested to see how it turned out.

 

[unionrdr]

I finally did the first FG test on the watermelon hefe I brewed on 8/3. Light amber/orange color, slightly misty. Aroma of a slightly sweet hefe. Taste was a bit bitey, with little watermelon flavor on the back. A bit organic tasting at that. I added the 3C of watermelon juice I buzzed in the blender on the smoothie setting & strained twice at flame out. I figured that'd pasteurize it. Maybe have to try adding to secondary next time for more watermelon flavor? More juice?

 

[Topher79]

Maybe have to try adding to secondary next time for more watermelon flavor? More juice?

I added a whole watermelon to the secondary because I knew it would take a lot of watermelon to give it the flavor I was looking for. I have always added my fruit additions to the secondary to not mute the flavor of the fruit out. I'm hoping to clone 21st Amendment's "Hell or High Watermelon". I'll report back on the flavor when I rack it to the keg tonight.

 

[unionrdr]

I used 3C of juice from a sugar baby that actually produced 5 3/4C of juice. I guess flame out addition isn't quite the way to go here? I'll have to try secondary next time.

 

[Flakk]

In my last strawberry blonde I added 6lb of "fresh" strawberries to the primary for 1 week after fermentation that I froze for 1 week beforehand, no other sanitizing treatments. Just inspect the fruit before you use it, make sure none of it is starting to turn.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Topher79]

Well, I racked the Watermelon Wheat to the keg this weekend, and it's exactly what I was going for. A good wheat beer up front and a nice watermelon taste at the end. The FG went from 1.009 to 1.008 from the secondary fermentation.

 

[unionrdr]

On the first FG test of my watermelon hefe, it had a bit of a bite to it. I'm thinking I should've taken out the seeds before pureeing the melon to strain into juice. I'll test it again today to see if it's any better tasting, but I kind of doubt it. We'll see. Mine's a hair darker than yours...

 

[Topher79]

I added seeds and all into mine.....no bite detected, just a sweet watermelon taste. If you added it in the primary though that might be why, or it could be your recipe and yeast. I used 50/50 American white wheat/@ Row and 1056. I always treat my fruit additions like a dry hop in the secondary, so the flavors don't get muted going through the primary fermentation. I hope yours turns out good!

 

[unionrdr]

Me too. I used a simple kit from morebeer for this experiment. May change to PM later. It was the German Hefeweizen extract kit.
6lbs Bavarian plain DME
.5oz Northern Brewer bittering hops
3C sugar baby watermelon juice
WL300 Hefe ale yeast
I added the 2X strained watermelon juice to the kettle @ flame out. I figured it'd get pasteurized that way, since pasteurization happens in seconds @ 162F. And it was still boiling hot.

 

[zmanzorro]

I just kegged a fruit Hefeweizen. I added some fruit in the boil and then more frozen fruit in the secondary, and no funny after tastes. I think it depends when you add the fruit. In the secondary, there's already alcohol to fend off the bacteria.

 

[unionrdr]

You could be right about when to add the fruit/juice. But it's kind of a bitter, tannic sort of flavor. I thought maybe the seeds added some tannins?

 

[zmanzorro]

Ah, that could be it. I was working with peaches and cherries that I de-pitted.

 

[Topher79]

I added the seeds, pulp, and all to the blender and pureed away! I then boiled, cooled, and added the "slurry" to the secondary. I didn't have any off tastes at keg time, but we will see how things turn out after the batch is carbed. I am not sure where the off flavors could be coming from. I did get a "seedless" watermelon, which had far less seeds than a regular watermelon, so maybe that is why I didn't get the bite you experienced.

I'd rather be safe than sorry when adding fruit to the secondary without pasteurizing/boiling, as there are wild yeasts and bacteria in fruit, and if you used a whole watermelon, (like I did) there may be too many nasties in the fruit for the alcohol to overcome.

 

[unionrdr]

The small watermelon I used had very few if any mature seeds & I added it at flame out. Should've been enough to pasteurize, which happens in seconds @ 160F. The wort was hotter than that at that point. But the disturbing part is the Volumes of co2 for carbing a bavarian hefe. 3.06-4.04! I don't like chancing bottle pressures that high, so I decided on 2.8 volumes co2 just to give a little safety margin. We'll see what it's like after being bottled a couple weeks. Hoping to bottle it today.

 

[m_c_zero]

I ended up juicing a small seedless watermelon and threw that in the keg and man did it make a difference. It's a good beer now when before it was pretty terrible, though the flavors I had previously did make a good backbone for the watermelon juice.

 

[unionrdr]

I bottled my watermelon hefe 3 days ago. We'll see what the final verdict is in a couple weeks.

 

[ross_daly]

next time anyone brews with a fruit, keep whatever is left over and give it a dose of yeast slurry. I fermented a quart of watermelon on my last batch. I added the bulk to secondary, and put a bunch of us-05 in the mason jar with pure watermelon juice in it. In the end the beer tasted more like watermelon than the watermelon juice did! I'm a big believer in using fruit for secondary unless you are making a wine.

 

[seckert]

I kegged my mango hef last weekend. I have to say that I think it came out pretty good. Not as much mango flavor as I was going for...however it is still there.

 

[Dixon9717]

Split my blonde into 2 secondaries. Added 4 lbs frozen mango to one and let that sit for 2 weeks then bottled. The reason for the split was to compare what the fruit did for the beer. Sample at bottling tasted really good mango flavor was just about right. Hope it don't change much.


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