Lagering with fruit

[creekwaterbrew]

Hello all,

I have a 5 gallon “Kölsch” in primary that I was hoping to rack onto strawberries. I do plan on lagering this beer for two weeks and have heard conflicting theories on best practice for strawberry additions.

My original plan was 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks on 8 lbs strawberries, 2 weeks lager (off fruit), 1-2 weeks keg

The idea I am toying around with is 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks on 4 lbs strawberries, 2 weeks lager (off fruit), 1 week in keg with remaining 4 lbs strawberries, rack off strawberries for 1 week prior to serving.

My gut is telling me that I’m making life way too complicated and need to keep it simple. Feel free to tell me the same thing. I’m also wondering if it’s recommended to lager my fruit additions (combining lagering and secondary to kill two birds with one stone).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[hottpeper13]

Love the idea. Fermentation will kick off after being racked to fruit in sec. My .02 is , rack on fruit unless you have a big mouth type fermenter then I would carefully add it to primary like dry hopping. 2 weeks, then in a keg ( I lager in a keg ,cause fermenters don't fit in the chamber).
As for the fruit, I like to take fresh fruit clean it, mesh bag it, dunk it in my sanitizer bucket , put in zip lok and freeze it. If frozen just thaw and put in bag. My Kolsch is better at 4 weeks of lagering but you might loose some of the fruit flavor, which just means another tasty exbeeriment is happening.

 

[creekwaterbrew]

Love the idea. Fermentation will kick off after being racked to fruit in sec. My .02 is , rack on fruit unless you have a big mouth type fermenter then I would carefully add it to primary like dry hopping. 2 weeks, then in a keg ( I lager in a keg ,cause fermenters don't fit in the chamber).
As for the fruit, I like to take fresh fruit clean it, mesh bag it, dunk it in my sanitizer bucket , put in zip lok and freeze it. If frozen just thaw and put in bag. My Kolsch is better at 4 weeks of lagering but you might loose some of the fruit flavor, which just means another tasty exbeeriment is happening.

Ugh. I know I SHOULD lager longer than 2 weeks but I lack the patience required

 

[Jag75]

Ugh. I know I SHOULD lager longer than 2 weeks but I lack the patience required

Its definitely difficult. I lagered an Oktoberfest for 6 months once . I tried it a couple times at different stages.....just to make sure things were going good lol.

 

[bluue13]

Jumping on to this a bit as its just the question I had...

I'm brewing a cascara lager. If you don't know, cascara is the coffee fruit that is normally discarded during coffee seed processing. It has a nice rose hue to it and a hibiscus, tart, citrusy note.

I've had my lager in primary for 2 weeks and I'm ready to add the fruit. Its dried, so I'm wondering if it would be best to just toss it in a mesh bag and add it right to the primary so I don't move the beer off the yeast too soon... then fruit it for maybe 2 weeks, rack and lager.

How did the strawberries work out?

 

[Milkman1212]

Interested to know how these all turned out?! Particularly which lager yeasts were used and how well they did with your fruit additions. Hope all is well!

 

[bluue13]

Had my lager in primary for two weeks, took it down to 1.008, so I threw 1lb of the cascara in divided up in muslin bags.

Gonna leave it in secondary for another week, taste, and then lager it for a bit.