Backsweetening an American Wheat with peaches- Questions on process

[NickThoR]

I brewed 5 gallons of an American wheat with Amarillo hops with the goal to have a really fresh fruit forward beer. Kinda like a Mango Cart from Golden Road or similar. There have been no peaches on the fermentation side, as i want a fresh fruit flavor, not a fermented peaches flavor. The beer is currently has finished fermenting and is at 1009. Id like to stall/reduce fermentation from kicking back up, so the plan is -


cold crash primary ( keep it cold the whole time to help avoid refermentation)
I dont plan to move to a secondary... my fermentors are tied up ( and im lazy)
add crushed campden tablets ( 5 crushed tablets?) wait 12 hours
add potassium sorbate ( 2.5 tsp?) wait 24 hours
add 3lbs-5lbs frozen and thawed pureed/campden-treated peaches
wait 2 weeks for flavors to infuse
transfer to keg
add a little peach extract if necessary.

Ive never backsweetened a beer before ( i have a cider) so im looking to see if these amounts and the timeline seems right. I appreciate your experiences/ comments / suggestions.

Thanks!!

 

[Yooper]

I brewed 5 gallons of an American wheat with Amarillo hops with the goal to have a really fresh fruit forward beer. Kinda like a Mango Cart from Golden Road or similar. There have been no peaches on the fermentation side, as i want a fresh fruit flavor, not a fermented peaches flavor. The beer is currently has finished fermenting and is at 1009. Id like to stall/reduce fermentation from kicking back up, so the plan is -


cold crash primary ( keep it cold the whole time to help avoid refermentation)
I dont plan to move to a secondary... my fermentors are tied up ( and im lazy)
add crushed campden tablets ( 5 crushed tablets?) wait 12 hours
add potassium sorbate ( 2.5 tsp?) wait 24 hours
add 3lbs-5lbs frozen and thawed pureed/campden-treated peaches
wait 2 weeks for flavors to infuse
transfer to keg
add a little peach extract if necessary.

Ive never backsweetened a beer before ( i have a cider) so im looking to see if these amounts and the timeline seems right. I appreciate your experiences/ comments / suggestions.

Thanks!!

I"ve never tried doing what you plan, but I am a winemaker. One of the reason potassium sorbate helps prevent refermentation is that it's done after fermentation finishes, AND the wine is racked off of the yeast. That's because k-sorbate doesn't kill yeast. Intead, it inhibits yeast reproduction. The sulfites are added as sorbate works better in the presence of sulfite.

What I'm saying is that the sorbate won't keep the yeast from fermenting the peaches, unless you've reached the alcohol tolerance of the yeast strain, since you've still got live active yeast in there and it doesn't need to reproduce. However, keeping it cold in the keg/fermenter would, especially if you do rack into secondary to infuse the peaches. The idea is that the yeast will be active but cold temperatures will slow it down so much that you'd probably be ok.

I would rack to secondary before adding the peaches in this case. Normally, I don't care and when I do a watermelon wheat, the watermelon goes right in too, but if you don't want fermentation to restart, you're probably going to want to rack the beer into the sulfite/sorbate and let that sit a day or so before adding peaches.

 

[hottpeper13]

Unless you have a peach tree or no a guy, might I suggest Amoretti Artisan products. I mix it with the priming sugar to get complete mixing and just prime the keg. Tastes like real fruit and no waste. No muss, no fuss!