Can I add fruit to my primary?

[eightohhthree]

Quick Question-

I brewed a 5 gallon batch of American Wheat Beer, it has been fermenting in the primary for 2 weeks. I am going to take a gravity reading today to see how close I am to my target.

If fermentation is complete, I was thinking of steeping 2 lbs frozen blue berries in a mesh bag at 150 to sterilize, then putting the mesh bag into my primary for a week. Im not looking for blue berry beer, just a nice undertone. Does anyone forsee any issues with this method?

I am new to brewing, and my other bucket has an IPA in it already so I can transfer and rack on top of it (and Im not buying another bucket this second though I do plan to eventually).

 

[Priemus]

Ive done that, I also drop hop in primary, bottle straight from primary.

Someone will probably jump in and tell you I'm a terrible example, and they arnt wrong, but you can get away with it.

What you should do for the week while those blue berrys are in there is go get some tea bags or hop bags to tie over the end of your siphon when you bottle, thats something you cant get away with if your a primary only brewer

 

[eightohhthree]

Cool, Im just looking for something easy. I will be transferring to a bottling bucket when I bottle. Im hoping most of the crap will stay in the bag to minimize particles in my brew. I will skim out any that I can see and hopefully any small pieces I miss will fall into the bottom of the bottling bucket below the spigot.

 

[leotrace]

You could also soak your fruit in some vodka for a short while to sterilize it. Heating in a mesh bag also works well too!

 

[haynie91]

When working with berries I have also cooked them on the stove like you would cranberries at Thanksgiving and then added that to my secondary for 7 days before kegging. Created a nice Raspberry Bonde.

 

[eightohhthree]

I just steeped them in water at between 150 and 160 degrees for 15 minutes. I pulled the bag out with my tongs and gently stuck in in my primary. Since my berries were frozen, and they were submerged in hot water for several minutes, I hope all of the juicy delishiousness wasnt sucked of them. I didnt really think about it til I was pouring the water down the drain and noticed how awesome it smelled.

As I began cleaning my hydrometer, thermometer, and putting stuff away, I noticed my airlock has already started to bubble away... within minutes.

I don't want all of the ferment able sugars to get eaten up and leave me with a dry tart beer. Do you think this will happen? Should I just give it a few days and bottle this weekend?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[lumpher]

dump the water in too

 

[eightohhthree]

damn dude. I just dumped all of that water out probably almost 2 liters of it... I will know for next time.

 

[lumpher]

i dump the water in; that's why i suggest it. it adds some taste, and there's some sugars in it, so it won't lower the abv

 

[eightohhthree]

learning something all the time...

 

[ACbrewer]

i dump the water in; that's why i suggest it. it adds some taste, and there's some sugars in it, so it won't lower the abv

Any reason why you couldn't pull of some of the now beer and use that to sanitize rather than add another 2 liters of water to the brew?

 

[whyrat]

With frozen fruit, you don't really need to sanitize (you're dumping it into alcohol after all. If it's store bought I would sanitize the bag it came in (just star san or bleach solution) as there's no telling where that bag has been... But you can be fairly certain the fruit inside was packaged in a sanitary environment (they want as long a shelf life as possible). If using home-picked fruit, or if you just 'don't trust the man', you can thaw and re-freeze a few times and that will kill most of what could harm your beer.

If using whole berries, either throw them in a blender or cook them briefly to break them down and speed the process of flavor extraction. As others note, add the water too. I wouldn't pull beer out and boil it, b/c that would boil away some of your alcohol... Personal choice...

For future reference, you can throw the fruit in with your original boil (check if it's a fruit that may release tannins by boiling, may give you off flavors), or after cooling (the same time you pitch your yeast). But that's more if you want a heavy fruit flavor.

Two additional notes for you:
1) How fine is your mesh bag? Small enough to catch seeds? If not the seeds may sneak out and clog things up when you bottle. That's quite a pain, but you can just run through a finer mesh strain when you transfer to bottling bucket.
2) The fruit has fructose, which is fermentable. So you are adding some sugars and need to expect additional fermentation to occur. Just be aware your beer will be a bit stronger (not much), and may need some extra time to work that off even after you remove the actual fruit.

 

[eightohhthree]

Thanks for the info all. I really wish I had known some of this stuff before I added my fruit. I think I could have saved alot of my flavor. I was also concerned about adding frozen berries to my beer because of what it might do the the temperature. I didnt want to shock the yeast or something.

 

[dfc]

Don't throw fruit in with your boil. This releases pectin which makes a VERY cloudy beer.

 

[eightohhthree]

Yeah, I have read that. I wasnt about to do that. One thing I did learn before this experiment. Hopefully I didnt get rid of too many of the flavors when I steeped and tossed the water. Hoping to get a nice berry undertone.