Treating frozen fruits

[Oberlutz]

I made an american wheat ale, splittet the batch in four parts after the primary and added different fruits in the secondarys. One part i didnt add anything so I could see how strong the impact of the fruits are. But now alle fruity beers are gushing.
My question is: how can I sterilize frozen store bought fruits?
Thanks in advance

 

[Jbrew]

I remember reading some where someone else had just racked on top of it in a secondary, but I'm not certain of that, hopefully someone else can chime in. As for gushing, do you mean your getting major blow off during the ferment? My guess is that its the extra sugars of the frozen fruit. Did you use frozen whole fruit? Or the fruit in the sugar water slurry, like strawberries in the bucket kinda stuff?

 

[Oberlutz]

Yeah I did rack it on top of the berrys in the secondary. No more like really foamy bottles, they almost empty themself when I open them. Hmm I did let it rest for 2 weeks at least bevore I bottled them. Yeah I bought whole frozen fruits but blended them to a slurry.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

How do your gushers taste? I trust you took a few gravity readings before bottling to be sure fermentation was done.

 

[Jbrew]

Agreed. Did you take consecutive FG readings to confirm fermentation was complete? How much priming sugar did you use?

 

[Oberlutz]

The beer tasted great, after 3 weeks it had a slight sour taste but it faded quikly away. *hough* I ditched the readings because the batches where getting really small. In total the beer was 4 weeks in the fermenters. I should tackle that on the next batch for sure. I used the same amount per liter as the one part without fruits. This part was perfectly carbonated.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Contamination would most likely give a sour flavor ( beyond tartness of fruit) it is very possible the fermentation wasn't finished, or as asked above perhaps you added too much priming sugar.

I would hope that commercial sealed frozen fruit would be sanitary, and when we sanitize the package and scissors we reduce adding unwanted organisims. Fresh fruit can be washed with starsan and if you thaw and mash your frozen fruit you could add campden and keep it in the fridge for a couple days before adding it to your fermentor.

Maybe others have a different process.

 

[CJ-3]

When dealing with fruit I use frozen, thaw it, put it in a sanitized blender with a little vodka and puree it. Rack on top. Thankfully no infections yet.

Unfortunately if your bottles are gushing and have a slightly sour taste it sounds like infection.