Fruit additions and ABV

[Strong_Brews]

Every summer I make a raspberry blond. It’s super simple I make a blond ale (5%abv) then when primary is done I addd a flat of raspberries from the farmers market (rinsed in vodka). Fermentation kicks back up for a week or two then it’s done.

Is there a way to guesstimate the abv after the raspberries are fermented? I usually just say it’s 5% but it has to be more. How much more… no clue.

Would love to sort out how many points the OG would go up per lb of raspberries.

I also did a side by side last year of farmers market vs Costco raspberries. I was the only one that could tell the difference.

 

[hotbeer]

Pound of raspberries is said to have 18 grams of sugar. That's just from a simple internet search. Might or might not be correct though.

sugars in a pound of raspberries

So you can add that into your beer recipe software and get a estimate. Of course we don't know whether those sugars are all fermentable by beer yeasts. But you can assume it's somewhere in a range.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Looks like raspberries have a sugar level of 9 brix, so 9% of the weight of your raspberries will be sugar, that should be completely fermentable. You should be able to confirm actual brix level with a refractometer and one piece of the fruit. And 91% of the weight of your raspberries will just be adding to the volume of your resulting beer. My hunch without doing actual math this early in the morning, is you can safely say it adds somewhere between 0 and 0.5% abv to your beer.

 

[Kickass]

Something to consider is the volume of juice. There’s sugar in the berries but its diluted with the liquid. Therefore, if the SG of the berry juice is less than the OG of your wort, you’re actually “watering down” your beer. I’d guess your probably not adding any additional ABV to your beer.

Edited for poor punctuation and grammar.

 

[Strong_Brews]

Something to consider is the volume of juice. There sugar in the berries but it diluted with the liquid. Therefore, if the SG officially the berry juice is less than the OG of your wort, you’re actually “watering down” your beer. I’d guess your probably not adding any additional ABV to your beer.

That’s an interesting point. We are assuming the OG of the juice is higher than the wort…

 

[Kickass]

If you measure the OG of the juice, and the volume, you can easily determine the “adjusted” OG for the entire batch.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

That’s an interesting point. We are assuming the OG of the juice is higher than the wort…

Fruit juice with 9 brix has a gravity of 1.036, which is most certainly less dense than a wort that made a 5% abv beer, so @Kickass is correct, the beer is being "watered down" with the fruit addition. But I doubt it's actually a measurable difference at the home-brew scale, relying on digital scales and aging eyeballs looking at tiny lines that blur together, etc

The real question should be: how's it taste with the raspberry addition? And if it's awesome, can you share the recipe/hops/etc?

 

[Strong_Brews]

Fruit juice with 9 brix has a gravity of 1.036, which is most certainly less dense than a wort that made a 5% abv beer, so @Kickass is correct, the beer is being "watered down" with the fruit addition. But I doubt it's actually a measurable difference at the home-brew scale, relying on digital scales and aging eyeballs looking at tiny lines that blur together, etc

The real question should be: how's it taste with the raspberry addition? And if it's awesome, can you share the recipe/hops/etc?

Makes sense.

Here’s the recipe, it’s super simple. Used the KISS method so the raspberries could be the star of the show.

Two Kings Brewing: Raspberry Rocket Sauce
7lb - 2 row
1.25 German wheat malt
1lb carapils
1lb flaked corn
1oz cascade @ 60
0.5 oz saaz @ 45
0.5 saaz @ 15
Wyeast 1056 or Omega Oyl004

@1.5 weeks Add 6-8lb raspberries (add right at the tail end primary).

Once fermentation is done you’re good to go. You will get all the raspberry flavor without the sweetness.
It’s great on a super hot day. Even won first and second in some comps. Enjoy!

 

[Strong_Brews]

Makes sense.

Here’s the recipe, it’s super simple. Used the KISS method so the raspberries could be the star of the show.

Two Kings Brewing: Raspberry Rocket Sauce
7lb - 2 row
1.25 German wheat malt
1lb carapils
1lb flaked corn
1oz cascade @ 60
0.5 oz saaz @ 45
0.5 saaz @ 15
Wyeast 1056 or Omega Oyl004

@1.5 weeks Add 6-8lb raspberries (add right at the tail end primary).

Once fermentation is done you’re good to go. You will get all the raspberry flavor without the sweetness.
It’s great on a super hot day. Even won first and second in some comps. Enjoy!

View attachment 851621

Almost forgot…

Use gelatin finings in the keg to get it crystal clear. First couple pints come out looking like pepto but after that its beautiful.