Question about pumping juice into fermenter.

[HMD123]

I have about 3lbs of fresh cherries I was planning to pump into my fermenter before fermentation was complete. My question is are there any adverse affects to doing so?

 

[CJ-3]

A bit more info is needed. How will you be pumping cherries?

 

[ancientmariner52]

I'll bet you meant dumping cherries. If not, show us a video. Never seen a cherry pump in action.

 

[jtratcliff]

I've added cherries to a wheat beer before... Worked out alright. I added the cherries to a 2nd carboy and racked on top of them...

You might want to freeze them first then thaw to burst the cell walls and allow easier access for the yeast to the the fruity goodness inside...

I did not remove pits. I had a mild off-flavor that took a while to go away. I've always blamed the pits. But I never made the beer again to test my theory...

 

[HMD123]

I've added cherries to a wheat beer before... Worked out alright. I added the cherries to a 2nd carboy and racked on top of them...

You might want to freeze them first then thaw to burst the cell walls and allow easier access for the yeast to the the fruity goodness inside...

I did not remove pits. I had a mild off-flavor that took a while to go away. I've always blamed the pits. But I never made the beer again to test my theory...

I removed all the pits, ran the cherries through my juicer boiled it for like 2 minutes to get rid of any lingering bacteria.

Bottom of my fermenter has a collection ball, I've used it to dry hop before and was thinking of introducing the juice the same way.

 

[jtratcliff]

Hmm... I guess if your collection ball can hold all the juice, then it should work... I've only racked onto fruit.

I'm more worried about the boiling part... You might need to look into pectin issues. I think boiling can set the pectin, leading to a hazy beer. Not necessarily a problem if you're going for a chocolate cherry porter, for example, but if you're after a light colored, clear beer you might have more haze than you expected. I think there's a pectic enzyme that can deal with most of it.

I'm only going off things I heard or read a while ago, so I could have it wrong. But I think wine makers use use K-meta or Na-meta to inhibit early growth of the nasties, then the pH & alcohol of fermentation kills them off mostly.

So if your final beer needs to be clear, you should research pectin...