Fruit and SG

[mfp03001]

I have my first batch or a fruit beer in my secondary. Its a strawberry wheat (I was going to make a cherry wheat but I had an incident)

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of debate on when you should add your fruit I added mine into the secondary after 7 days in the primary. However I forgot to take a SG reading before I mixed it with the fruit (not that I am sure that would have told me anything related to my question) and I am very curious for some reason on how much fruit will affect the SG.

So here's what I did does anyone think this makes any scene? I know i used 2 lbs 10 oz of strawberries (after steams and bad spots were removed). So I looked up the nutritional fact for strawberries and found out they are about 4.6% sugar by weight. Which says I added about .121 pounds of sugar to my brew. So assuming 1 pound of sugar in 1 gallon of water will give a SG of 1.046; my .121 pounds in roughly 5 gallons of water will only give a SG of 1.0011. Or on a thousand point scale it only raised my SG one point which seems rather low to me.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

Adding fruit in the secondary will most likely not add anything as far as gravity goes.

In order to make your gravity higher, you would have to be adding sugars. You ARE adding sugars, but they aren't going to ferment since your yeast has already settled out and you've pulled the beer off of most of it anyhow. I could be wrong on this though. I'm not too big on the science aspect of brewing.

Adding fruit though should be done during the boil or in primary.

 

[Yooper]

I would never add fruit in the primary, or in the boil (boiled fruit would be like adding jam), and adding in the secondary is fine the preferred method. You will get some fermentables from the strawberries, but not a ton. As far as the exact amount, unless you took an SG reading after you smashed them and added them, you won't know for sure, but you'll get a little. They yeast is still there- it didn't go away- and will find the sugars in them.

After they finish up, you can rack off of them to bottle or keg.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

I would never add fruit in the primary, or in the boil (boiled fruit would be like adding jam), and adding in the secondary is fine the preferred method. You will get some fermentables from the strawberries, but not a ton. As far as the exact amount, unless you took an SG reading after you smashed them and added them, you won't know for sure, but you'll get a little. They yeast is still there- it didn't go away- and will find the sugars in them.

After they finish up, you can rack off of them to bottle or keg.

Can you give me some reasons why? I've always added my fruit to the boil and primary. It's never turned out bad, infact most have turned out great. Fruit is basically a flavory additive like hops or spices in your brew. Adding in the boil takes care of any wild bacteria. I'm not saying put it in for 15 minutes, but maybe 5 minutes so you don't lose all the flavor and aroma.

Adding it in primary is a great option because it allows the yeast to eat the available sugars. By adding it in secondary, after you've taken it off the yeast cake, you are going to stress what little yeast you have left. If you add it in secondary, and the yeast don't take care of all the sugars, you risk having a bottle bomb or overcarbonation.

 

[phatuna]

Suthrn, I'll take a stab. I believe that if you put the fruit into primary or the end of the boil, the fruit will ferment and it has a good chance of adding a wine like flavor to your beer.
By adding it to the secondary, you will get a little fermentation but not enough to fully ferment the fruit. Many people also use camden tabs to the fruit prior to adding to
2ndary which I believe dis-allows any fermentation to happen to the fruit.

 

[Brewmasters Warehouse]

I personally would not put fruit in the boil, because the boil would drive off flavors and aromas that I would want in the beer. I would not put fruit in the primary for the same reasons. All of the off gassing during the primary drive off the aromas, and the flavors will be reduced. This is the same line of thinking as to why people do not dry hop in the primary.

I would put fruit into the secondary because there would be little fermentation going on and the flavors and aromas introduced would be infused with the beer. There are more than enough yeast to ferment the sugars in the fruit pretty quickly. Fruit does have sugars but not enough (unless you use a ton) to make much of a difference in the overall beer.

My normal process would be to rack from the primary when I am 1-2 weeks from kegging into the secondary. Rack into secondary and put in the fruit right away. Wait 7-10 days and then rack to keg. I use the same process with dry hopping.

 

[Yooper]

I personally would not put fruit in the boil, because the boil would drive off flavors and aromas that I would want in the beer. I would not put fruit in the primary for the same reasons. All of the off gassing during the primary drive off the aromas, and the flavors will be reduced. This is the same line of thinking as to why people do not dry hop in the primary.

I would put fruit into the secondary because there would be little fermentation going on and the flavors and aromas introduced would be infused with the beer. There are more than enough yeast to ferment the sugars in the fruit pretty quickly. Fruit does have sugars but not enough (unless you use a ton) to make much of a difference in the overall beer.

My normal process would be to rack from the primary when I am 1-2 weeks from kegging into the secondary. Rack into secondary and put in the fruit right away. Wait 7-10 days and then rack to keg. I use the same process with dry hopping.

Yeah, all that, plus I don't like "boiled fruit" flavor. Also, I like clear beers. Boiling fruit sets the pectin, and causes pectin haze. I guess you could add some pectic enzyme to help it clear, but it's easier to just add it to secondary. The flavor is better preserved, the beer clears easily, and you don't get pieces of fruit clogging up the airlock. You can use less fruit, and get more flavor, by adding in secondary.

That said, I don't really like fruit beers anyway. I have a watermelon wheat on tap now that is very good, though. Most of my fruit addition experience is from wine making, or mead making.