Question about fruit

[Flucky07]

I have a question about fruit. I am doing a wheat beer and i got 2 pints of blueberries to add to the beer. I also have blueberry extract before bottling time. My question is what will happen if i put the blueberries in the primary versus the secondary. I am going to keg this as my first beer in a keg so im going to add the blueberry EXtract to the keg when i transfer it to that.

Eric

 

[Monk]

I'm wondering about the same thing, but I'm a bit ahead of you. In 3-4 weeks, I'd be able to give you an answer. A few months ago I made a cream ale with apricot pureed and added to the secondary, with apricot flavoring added at bottling--just a few days ago I made a small experimental batch where I've added a lot of raspberries to the primary. My plan is to just do primary for the batch, add the flavoring to the primary a couple days before bottling, and allow the bottles to be the secondary. They'll sit for a month. I'm interested to see how they do with the addition in primary rather than secondary. (I guess you are too.)

 

[Flucky07]

I'm wondering about the same thing, but I'm a bit ahead of you. In 3-4 weeks, I'd be able to give you an answer. A few months ago I made a cream ale with apricot pureed and added to the secondary, with apricot flavoring added at bottling--just a few days ago I made a small experimental batch where I've added a lot of raspberries to the primary. My plan is to just do primary for the batch, add the flavoring to the primary a couple days before bottling, and allow the bottles to be the secondary. They'll sit for a month. I'm interested to see how they do with the addition in primary rather than secondary. (I guess you are too.)

Exactly what i am wondering...what is the difference via putting fruit in primary versus secondary. im guessing : adding to the primary may engage more sugars by turn increasing alcohol content, but show no signs of blueberry. And the secondary i believe i should get a more blueberry taste but no more alcohol percent to it.

Anyone share anything on this?

 

[Exo]

Why would yeast attack/convert your blueberries in primary but not in secondary?

 

[david_42]

You will get the same amount of sugars => ABV either way. The best thing to do with berries is freeze them first, then thaw and crush. This ruptures the cells and releases more flavor. If you add to the secondary there will be more trub to avoid while racking to the priming pail.

 

[the_bird]

I just bottled a brew I made with frozen raspberries. I added the raspberries to the secondary (they were frozen bags of organic berried purchased from Whole Paycheck, er, Whole Foods). Boiled them first, both to ensure sanitation and to further break down the cellular structure. The good news - the great news - is that a LOT of the flavor and aroma has been maintained after three (or maybe four, I lose track) weeks in the secondary. I had also added some Grade B maple syrup, also brought to ~ 180 degrees or so for ten minutes, which I can't directly taste but might be contributing to the brew's nice body. So far, I love this beer, I wish I made more - right now, it's almost like a desert beer.

But, what I would recommend, and what I would have done if I hadn't left the beer in the secondary so long already, is a week or so in a tertiary (spelling?) fermenter. Lots of trub, lots of floating bits of raspberries that were tough to keep out of the bottles. I ended up skimming some off the top of the surface in the bottling bucket with a sanitized spoon.

 

[cweston]

I'm going to be bottling my first ever fruit beer tonight--I did a little of both. Some berries added after the wort had cooled to 160 and dump in the primary, and a small amount of puree added to the secondary.

My guess (and it is totally a guess) is that fruit in the primary yields a more integrated flavor (beer + fruit), whereas fruit in the secondary yields a more distinctively fruit flavor overlayed on top of the beer flavor. I was going for the more integrated flavor, so I added most of the fruit pre-primary.

 

[budbo]

I've been told adding fruit to the primary will reduce the flavoring. The "violent" action of primary fermentation will "scrub" the flavor. It works in the secondary because it is going to ferment the sugars slower and not push the flavors out.

The question I have is why would you do both? I haven't tried but what do you gain from adding extract after flavoring with fresh fruit?

 

[Flucky07]

I've been told adding fruit to the primary will reduce the flavoring. The "violent" action of primary fermentation will "scrub" the flavor. It works in the secondary because it is going to ferment the sugars slower and not push the flavors out.

The question I have is why would you do both? I haven't tried but what do you gain from adding extract after flavoring with fresh fruit?

Well i got extract at the LHBS and they said to add at bottle time. I was at the store and picked up 2 pints of blueberrys just to get an idea of doing fruit in the secondary/primary. the 2 pints are prolly 1.25 lbs of blueberrys and didnt want to pay 60-70.00 for 5 lbs of blueberrys.

I am going to add them to the secondary after i freeze them and break them up and then i boil them???

Eric

 

[the_bird]

The boiling is probably unneccessary but it did seem to do a good job of even further breaking up the berries. I was basically adding chunky mush to the secondary. It may have added to the gunk that wouldn't sink, but since the flavor seems to have come out well that'll probably be the apporach I take next time.

Next time, I'll probably experiment with extracts, although I've heard bad things about the ones you get from the HBS (descriptions that included the phrase "cough syrup"). I'll probably go to Whole Foods and see what they have for natural extracts, the quality of their stuff I know will be top-notch.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I NEVER recommend adding fruit to the primary (EDITED). You should make a good beer first before adding flavors.

REASON: What if your beer doesn't come out right? You've just lost all that $$$ on fruit.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

I NEVER recommend adding fruit to the secondary. You should make a good beer first before adding flavors.

REASON: What if your beer doesn't come out right? You've just lost all that $$$ on fruit.

So you mean add it at bottling time?

 

[homebrewer_99]

So you mean add it at bottling time?

Oops, My bad...I edited my reply...I meant to say I dont recommend adding fruit to the PRIMARY, not secondary...sorry.

 

[clayof2day]

I just did a raspberry wheat and I waited till primary fermentation slowed, took a sample to make sure it was OK, then I added my crushed raspberries to the primary and gave it a gentle stir. Seemed like it worked really well. FYI, I only have a 5 gal. primary and I got a pretty strong fermentation from the fruit, so its a good thing I did it in the bucket, otherwise I don't think there would have been room for everything.

Matt

 

[Monk]

I've been told adding fruit to the primary will reduce the flavoring. The "violent" action of primary fermentation will "scrub" the flavor. It works in the secondary because it is going to ferment the sugars slower and not push the flavors out.

The question I have is why would you do both? I haven't tried but what do you gain from adding extract after flavoring with fresh fruit?

Flavor, man. I don't know much, but of this I'm certain: the natural flavoring addition definitely ups the potency of the fruit flavor. This can be good or bad, depending on what you like, I suppose. The Apricot cream ale I made had a real apricot punch to it, not just fruity, but apricot for sure, and a little tartness that I believe came from the whole fruit. Fruit beers I've made in the past (without the flavoring) had significantly less fruit identity. Good, but not the level of fruit flavor you'd find in a lambic, for instance.

 

[cweston]

A couple of thoughts about fruit in the primary...

Again, based on my one and only experience with fruit.

Having the fruit added at flameout and left in for the primary definitely produced a lot of fruit flavor, for me, anyway. I'm defeinitely skeptical of the "violent primary fermentation scrubbing away the fruit flavor" theory based on my experience.

About wanting to be sure the beer was good before adding expensive fruit. Yeah, I can see that. But every beer I've ever brewed has been good, so I guess I just don't worry much about that.

 

[mysterio]

I would be adding to the secondary purely to help avoid contamination. There will still be billions of yeast ready to ferment the fruit sugars. As the_bird says, a tertiary might be a good idea.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

Oops, My bad...I edited my reply...I meant to say I dont recommend adding fruit to the PRIMARY, not secondary...sorry.

OK, that makes more sense. Hey, you are 52 after all, I guess you're welcome to make a mistake now and then.