Fruit Beer - Cold Crashing/Fruit in Secondary

[bondra76]

I'm making an Epic Brewery clone of their brainless raspberries, which is a raspberry wheat.

Currently, the beer is in secondary with yeast killed off with campden tablets and potassium sorbate. There is raspberry puree and wine soaked out chips in the carboy.

I'm about 4 days away from kegging this beauty, and I just have a few questions on last steps...

I've been told by both Epic themselves and other brewers that in order to gain an aroma of the fruit in the beer I should put frozen fruit in the secondary a few days before it's done. I'm planning on doing that today. I'm going to boil the bag first.

I guess my main two questions are these -

1) Should I cold crash and put the frozen raspberries in at the same time? I am thinking that might diminish my chances of infection, but it might take away the aroma effects if the beer is not at a somewhat (50+) warm temperature.

2) I plan to clear with gelatin, which is something I have never done but this beer is very dark and I want to lighten it up. I have never done it before though - I'm guessing I put it in one day and keg the next? Also, if my beer is cold crashing with the gelatin, is that an issue? I there a certain temp I need to use for the gelatin? I know some people debate about whether or not gelatin strips away flavor - if it does, I'm ok with that. Please don't hijack my thread with that argument

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

 

[therechopper]

Curious what you ended up doing and how it turned out? I am about to rack onto blueberries in the secondary and then cold crash after it is finished. Wondering if you had any advice.


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[bondra76]

Be glad you wrote - I ended up with a sour raspberry wheat.

After that fiasco, I did some research on the internet and this page really helped me out a lot. I'll be following these instructions next time. I will ALSO probably be conducting any future fruit secondaries in 38 degree temps so that I can possibly somewhat prohibit yeast growth/activity.

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/679-fruit-brew-part-2-techniques

For fresh fruits, remove the stems, leaves and pits or seeds. Wash the fruit thoroughly. If you want, you can use commercial produce-washing products such as Fit, although this isn’t necessary. You should reduce the fruit to small pieces by one of several methods: Mash the fruit with a potato masher, chop it with a food processor or cut it up with a knife. Place the fruit in your secondary fermenter and siphon beer on top of it. It is also important that the fermenter is sealed tightly. If air can get in, microorganisms can grow on the top of the floating fruit. (This is what happened to my ill-fated cherry beer.) It is usually best to use a large bucket — one with some headspace — as a secondary fermenter, as some foaming may occur when the yeast begins working on the fruit sugars.

One way to minimize the risk of contamination from fresh fruits is to take a page from the winemakers’ handbook and sterilize the fruit with sulfur dioxide. Winemakers do not sterilize their “wort” by boiling it. They sterilize their “must” by treating it with SO2 (often in the form of Campden tablets). To sterilize a “mini-must,” mush your fruit into a slurry in a sanitized bucket. Add enough water so that it’s basically a thick liquid. Add one crushed Campden tablet for every gallon of your “mini-must” and let sit, loosely covered, overnight. During this time the SO2 will kill any microorganism in the “mini-must,” then diffuse away. The SO2 also acts as an antioxidant, preventing browning of the fruit. The next day, add the now-sanitized “mini-must” to your fermenter.

Cheers - let me know how yours turns out. I do think blueberries are a LITTLE sour but if you follow these steps I think you'll be ok. One random question - are you killing your yeast off before secondary? For Epic's brainless fruit beers, I've been told they kill off the yeast for raspberry secondaries, but they keep the yeast active for peach or cherry brews.

 

[therechopper]

Thanks! I will let you know. I wasn't planning on killing off yeast before secondary, but I am not looking for a bold fruit flavor either. Something subtle. Trying to figure out Sweetwater's Blue for the wife.


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[chawn]

Interesting. I've made fruit beer twice, once with apricots and once with strawberries. I pureed the fruit, gently stirred it into the primary on day 4 of fermentation, let it finish for 10 more days, then cold crashed. I added nothing other than the fruit and neither tasted rotten.

 

[Dixon9717]

I made a mango beer last summer and just added 4lbs frozen mango from Costco. Thawed and puréed in sanitized blender. Racked secondary on top of fruit for 10 days. No worries of infection. Nice mild mango flavor.