Kegging on 5 pounds of fruit

[xico]

Hi all, I'm working with my first ball lock keg and first cucumber addition to beer. My question is: Do I rack my beer off the fruit and carbonate or throw CO2 in with the fruit and hops?

I put 5.25 lbs thinly-sliced cucumber into a keg and three days later added some hops. The cukes are in a double-wrapped grain bag and the hops are in a fine mesh nylon hop bag. We got about 4.45 gallons of saison into the keg. I figured that it'd be best to pressure transfer the beer into a new keg for carbonation but I just wanted to check and see if I can carb it with cukes, hops, and all.

 

[Subdivisions]

Since everything is bagged up you should be able to keep it in there. I dry hop in the keg and leave it in there the whole time. Haven't had any clogging problems.

 

[xico]

Interesting, I assumed the pressure of carbonating the beer would make a mess of everything. I'm happy I asked, that's a lot easier! Thanks a bunch.

 

[SeeMont]

Sound like you have taken all the precautions of keeping the fruit contained. I brewed a huckleberry saison and had a bag leak. Plugged up the keg, what a mess. Suggestion, taste the brew at various stages to determine when the taste is right. Looking forward to hear more how this turns out. Good Luck

 

[pedalbiker]

If you can I would take the fruit out just to avoid a plug in the dip tube. Just my two cents

 

[xico]

It's a lot of cuke in there and was hard getting in empty. Hmm, I will have to think on this. A follow-up question. I have never force carbonated before and am unsure of the target volumes. If I want the beer to be at 2.7 volumes at 45F am I calculating based on the liquid volume or vessel volume also including the cucumbers?

I'm also worried about the dip tube getting clogged so I'll have to see how viable getting the bags out would be.

Thanks again for your input!

 

[xico]

Just to follow up, I'm bottling today and the beer is worth a rebrew. I like it but there are some things I would do differently. The cucumber aroma and flavor is great, 5.25# is not too much for a cuke forward beer. If you are looking for something subtle I would recommend 3#.

This beer was inundated by several firsts. First time on a new 15 gallon batch system, first time using Sorachi Ace for bittering, first time with cucumber, and first time force carbonating at home. Using 5500 watt electric element I lost more wort than on my former burner per hour. This means the bitterness came through stronger than I had wanted, almost as though I kept the bitter skins of the cucumber on.

Grain bill and yeast choice was great, I would use entirely different hops next time and split batch the beer to ferment at two distinct schedules. I kept the saison yeast muted at 66F but I'd like to see what happens when I ramp the temp to the high 70s at the end of primary.