Calculating ABV when adding fruit to secondary

[hughes_brews]

I am making a cherry wheat which is currently in the primary. I plan to add the cherries to the secondary. Since this will add more fermentables, how do I factor this in when calculating ABV?

My OG is 1.052 and will take another reading before racking to the secondary.

 

[FlyingHorse]

Fruit contains very little sugar.

So for every pound of cherries you add to your secondary, the most you'd get (assuming you extracted ALL the sugar, which you won't) would be about 1/8 pound of additional sugar. In a 5-gallon batch, that's 1-2 gravity points, max.

Fruit Sugar Content Acid Content
%of fresh weight %of fresh weight

Lime 1% 5.0%
Avocado 1 0.2
Lemon 2 5.0
Tomato 3 0.5
Cranberry 4 3.0
Red Currant 6 1.8
Grapefruit 6 2.0
Guava 7 0.4
Cantaloupe 7 0.2
Strawberry 7 1.6
Raspberry 7 1.6
Blackberry 8 1.5
Papaya 8 0.1
Apricot 9 1.7
Watermelon 9 0.2
Peach 9 0.4
Black Currant 10 3.2
Pear 10 0.1
Honeydew 10 0.2
Orange 11 1.2
Plum 11 0.6
Blueberry 11 0.3
Gooseberry 11 1.8
Passion Fruit 11 3.0
Prickly Pear 11 0.1
Mango 11 0.5
Pineapple 13 1.1
Pomegranate 13 1.2
Apple 13 0.8
Cherry 14 0.5
Kiwi 14 3.0
Persimmon 14 0.2
Fig 15 0.4
Grape 16 0.2
Banana 17 0.3
Litchi 17 0.3

 

[cheezydemon]

Add the fruit, guess the amout of fermentables in milligrams.

Use the formula: OG/FG + some fermentables = slightly more alcohol.

Divide your final number by 3 and add it to your abv.

This only works if you are bottling in 16 oz soda bottles.

Good luck , we are all counting on you.

 

[cheezydemon]

Sorry, that was my evil twin brother.

I don't think it is possible to calculate, and in the end does it really matter?

Good question though.

 

[18DPA]

I just racked my first fruit beer to my keg. Ball park on the ABV was about 5.5%. I'm a pretty simple guy and beer tools wasn't playing nice with my recipe. As for taste its still flat but was a very promising. Just a hint of fruit and still a good solid beer taste. One note because I'm picky or what ever I probably lost almost 3/4 of a gallon at the bottom of the carboy syphoning out without getting the fruit solids.

It was my first try at the fruit beer biz. During Boil I added 1 lb puree apricot. I just blended the hell out of 5 lbs of fresh apricots until it poured.

I put the other 4 lbs, untreated with anything, in the freezer. I read that freezing causes the cell walls to lyse (break) and releases more of the goodness and little bits of panther. Then I put the 4 lbs into the bottom of my carboy and racked on top of it for a secondary fermentation.

I read a bunch on here and the consensus was that the alcohol already in the beer from the primary fermentation would kill any yeast and bacteria in the 4 lbs.

WARNING WARNING. Use a huge 1" blow off tube for secondary fermentation because the beer will spit up about 1/2 the fruit. It clogged the 1" blow off!!!

I'm working on calculating the ABV but I'm thinking around 5.2-5.5

Shoot me a PM if you have any questions.

 

[Oventoasted]

Raising this post from the dead because im curious if anyone has had any recent experiences or information they would like to share.

im about to do my first fruit additive and am also curious to how you calculate the ABV in the end.

 

[imasickboy]

Fruit adds very few gravity points. Take sweet cherries, for example. Their potential, per pound, per gallon is 1.005. So you would need 5 pounds in a 5 gallon batch, and need to extract 100% of the sugar from those cherries, (which is highly unlikely, and probably impossible), to gain a measly 5 gravity points. Unless you're dumping in straight fruit juice, you should probably accept that fruit is added to beer for flavor, not for an ABV boost.