Fruit and Fermentation affect on Carbonation

[KBrew9]

So, I was just trying something new with real fruit during the fermantaion process, and being relatively new to Brewing, I didn't think about the effect it might have on Carbonation.

After 1 week of conditioning, everything seemed normal. It had a nice smooth taste and the Carbonation was a little low, but nothing out of control.

After the 2nd and 3rd week however, the carbonation was off the charts. The pressure was incredible, and it was even difficult to purposely flatten it after oxygenating the yeast. If I shook it up for 2 seconds I think I could have killed someone. It also has a bitter seltzer water taste to it, and all of the flavors from the malts/fruits are pretty much null at this point.

My question is, could the sugars from the fruits contributed to the carbonation in addition to the sugar that I added to double its potentcy? or is there some other explanation?

Thanks!

 

[MalFet]

I'm confused. When did you add the fruit? When did you bottle? You let the fruit sugar full ferment before you bottled, right?

 

[Revvy]

What did you do? I'm a bit confused. In order to carb with anything, you have to take into consideration the amount of sugar present in whatever it is you are using. If you added fruit, AND sugar, you probably over carbed.

I've been using a lot of alternative things for carbing and I have some formula info here about how to go about figuring it out. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/#post1030376 (midway in that post is a description of priming with Jaggery mollases)


The other thing to realize is that you have to make sure your fruit or whatever is sanitized, or the reason you age gushing is infection.....

 

[sjbeerman]

I'm confused. When did you add the fruit? When did you bottle? You let the fruit sugar full ferment before you bottled, right?

I'm glad I'm not the only one confused here. I think the OP needs to try that post again.

 

[mrussell345]

Bitter taste seems like infection, did you use Pectic Enzyme and Campden Tablets?

 

[KBrew9]

Kind of obvious I'm new to brewing huh? haha. Perhaps this should have went into the beginners brewing section, but I'll try and break it down better for you.

I added the Fruit as I started the fermentation process. Revvy answered my question I think though, I didn't calculate the sugar present in the Fruit for the overall carb. Thats why I'm thinking it came out so potent.

I did anticipate an increased fermentation time so that all the fruit sugars could be broken down, but I wasn't sure how to monitor it effectively, so that could have also been a problem.

Baby steps in my brewing knowledge ha. Thanks for the answer.

 

[MalFet]

Kind of obvious I'm new to brewing huh? haha. Perhaps this should have went into the beginners brewing section, but I'll try and break it down better for you.

I added the Fruit as I started the fermentation process. Revvy answered my question I think though, I didn't calculate the sugar present in the Fruit for the overall carb. Thats why I'm thinking it came out so potent.

I did anticipate an increased fermentation time so that all the fruit sugars could be broken down, but I wasn't sure how to monitor it effectively, so that could have also been a problem.

Baby steps in my brewing knowledge ha. Thanks for the answer.

Kinda sorta right...but I don't think that is what happened. If you added fruit at the start of fermentation, the fruit's sugar would have been consumed by the yeast along with the malt sugar. When you bottle, you add a small amount of extra sugar to kick up a bit of fermentation again. It is possible that your beer just wasn't done fermenting. Unless you take a gravity reading, there's no way to know that your fermentation has finished or not. But, for this one, my money is on an infection from unsanitized fruit.

 

[KBrew9]

Yeah, I agree with that. This was my first ever batch and my sanitation practices were not up to par for sure.

Would it be a good idea to use fruit in a secondary fermenter so that the yeast can go through the attenuation phase before coming into contact with the fruit? Or really any kind of flavor addition with sugars in it.

 

[Revvy]

I'm still a wee bit confused. Did you add fruit at bottling time? If you added the fruit at fermentation, and the beer was finished fermenting when you bottled, that shouldn't really matter, that's not really factored into the amount of co2 being generated in the bottle during the carbonation period.

 

[KBrew9]

I'm still a wee bit confused. Did you add fruit at bottling time? If you added the fruit at fermentation, and the beer was finished fermenting when you bottled, that shouldn't really matter, that's not really factored into the amount of co2 being generated in the bottle during the carbonation period.

I added the fruit at the beginning of the fermenation process, right into the fermenter.

 

[Revvy]

I added the fruit at the beginning of the fermenation process, right into the fermenter.

Then that's not an issue with carbonation, we all do that with fruit beers, primary or secondary. So now the issue becomes, how did you know,, if you knew, when fermentation was complete so you could bottle? And also how did you sanitize the fruit prior to adding it into the fermenter?

 

[KBrew9]

Then that's not an issue with carbonation, we all do that with fruit beers, primary or secondary. So now the issue becomes, how did you know,, if you knew, when fermentation was complete so you could bottle? And also how did you sanitize the fruit prior to adding it into the fermenter?

Being that I went into it pretty blind as a newbie, I followed the advised time from the extract I received (it came with the dry yeast)

I did not properly sanitize the fruit before hand, and I am definitely thinking thats what contributed to the off flavors.

But I am still curious, after 1 week of conditioning (in bottles), I didn't get any off flavors in the taste. Is there a reason why that could be?


*edit* to be clear, the off flavors and over carb came out in the 2nd and 3rd week of conditioning (In bottles)

 

[MalFet]

I added the fruit at the beginning of the fermenation process, right into the fermenter.

When you start a fermentation, your yeast will eat up all of the available sugar that they are able to, whether this sugar comes from malt, from fruit, or from popsicles that your toddler decides should go in with everything else. If you add everything right at the beginning, it will all ferment out. Once they have eaten everything, they will go dormant. If you add more sugar (again, malt, fruit, popsicles, etc.) it will wake back up and eat that sugar too.

It you bottle too quickly, you can accidentally bottle yeast that are still busy eating. As they ferment, they release carbon dioxide, which gets you carbonation. People often secondary with fruit for a variety of reasons, but the yeast doesn't really care one way or the other. They'll eat up whatever you give them wherever you give it to them.

If there is bacteria or wild yeast living on the fruit (particularly lactobacillus, pediococcus, acetobacillus, etc.), they will also eat the sugars, including a lot of stuff that the bacteria can't. This is what gives you gusher bottles. Fruit is notorious for causing this if added without properly using campden tablets, etc. There might not be any off flavors associated with a very minor infection.

This could really be either (or both) infection or premature bottling. In the future, sanitize your fruit and use a hydrometer rather than kit timetables to bottle. Right now, consider getting those bottles in the fridge or under a heavy blanket if you don't want glass knives flying around your living room.

 

[sjbeerman]

When you start a fermentation, your yeast will eat up all of the available sugar that they are able to, whether this sugar comes from malt, from fruit, or from popsicles that your toddler decides should go in with everything else.

Hmmm..popsicles in beer..thankfully my toddlers never did that..

I'm going to guess that it was bottled to early, but an infection is not out of the question either. Was this pureed fruit or...??

I know this is hindsight now, but I would stay away from making anything that requires extra steps, such as fruit beers or high gravity beers until you have the process down. I made many mistakes early on and I had to backtrack to make sure I had the process down first. Once you have the process down and you have increased knowledge of all this then the sky's the limit.

 

[KBrew9]

Hmmm..popsicles in beer..thankfully my toddlers never did that..

I'm going to guess that it was bottled to early, but an infection is not out of the question either. Was this pureed fruit or...??

I know this is hindsight now, but I would stay away from making anything that requires extra steps, such as fruit beers or high gravity beers until you have the process down. I made many mistakes early on and I had to backtrack to make sure I had the process down first. Once you have the process down and you have increased knowledge of all this then the sky's the limit.

Thats probably really good advice haha. Yeah, especially because I'm reading up on trying to get closer and closer to AG brewing, I'm thinking I'll probably get some more simple batches under my belt before getting too crazy.

Everyones answers were great, there was a lot that I didn't know here. That's got to be my favorite part of starting to brew, just the amount of information out there! Well... and drinking the beer itself of course.

Thanks again for the help, I'm going to work on comfortability with using a secondary fermenter, and making sure I have all the calculations in order to add some percision to it!