When to add fruit?

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Good question, since I'm planning the same thing. I'm thinking to add them to the secondary.
 
There are a lot of different ways. In the Extreme Brewing book, most recipes add it either at the end of the boil, or if you boil them at a certain temp to pasteurize them, in the primary. But then a lot of people do it at secondary. You can also add flavoring in the bottling bucket.

I don't know what the flavor impacts of each method are - though depending on how hot the fruit gets maybe that's the biggest impact on flavor. I think as long as you give time for whatever sugar is added by the fruit to ferment out, it's probably ok.
 
Actually, check out this advice:
"It is important that the fruit is not boiled- this will release the pectins in the fruit which could cause haze problems in the finished beer."

http://www.breworganic.com/tips/tips_fruit.htm

you could try doing what they say.

Although this is true, the boil haze is the signature feature of McMenamin's Rudy Ale.

I plan on adding my blueberries to the weissbier post-ferment.
 
I am planning on adding frozen raspberries (thawed of course) after I rack to my secondary on a Raspberry Red ale I am brewing next. My secondary is a 6.5 gallon Better Bottle so i am a little worried that all that headspace is going to cause the raspberries to get moldy. Anyone have any suggestions or do you think I will be OK?
 
Mold = bad. I would heat the berries to ~170 degrees for 10 minutes, cool (covered), then add to the secondary and rack on top of them. That's my plan, at any rate. Good luck!
 
I made an american blood orange hefe and added my fruit to the secondary and it took quite a bit of fruit to actually get the blood orange taste in there. I added about a pound of fruit per gallon of beer.
 
I made an american blood orange hefe and added my fruit to the secondary and it took quite a bit of fruit to actually get the blood orange taste in there. I added about a pound of fruit per gallon of beer.

Did you do anything special to the fruit before you added it? How long did you leave it in the secondary and were there any mold issues?
 
I did nothing special...... cut fruit added into secondary. I figured the alcohol in there would take care of anything. I left it in there for about a week.
 
So I added about 2 quarts of blueberries with juice to the end of the boil. After about a week in the bottles, it had a good flavor. Now that it's been about a month, the flavor has all but disappeared.

Should I just add more to the boil?
Does adding it to the primary help the flavor last?
 
some use frozen blueberries then you don't need to boil to sterlize. Ask your LHBS but there is a product to get the pectin out (perhaps it's pectize or something like that)
that way you can boil and clear it out.

If you don't boil or use frozen you very well might get natural yeasts that could take over. It's hard to wash all that off.
 
I think as long as your fruit doesn't sit exposed to air for long periods, mold is not a problem? Perhaps just weighing down your fruit in a large steeping bag or something would work?
 
I've added cherries post-boil (let steep for 15 minutes so they are sanitized) as well as adding them to another batch in secondary. The first time I got a really harsh flavor, as the cherry sugar was converted by the yeast as well as the other sugars. The second time I got some of this, but not nearly as much as there wasn't enough yeast to really get going in the secondary. The first batch took 5 months to mellow out and be "good." Both were stouts.

Oh, and the second time, when I added to the secondary, I used the Oregon fruit puree, which is sterilized.
 
Im making a peach Hefe. and the base beer has been in the primary for two weeks now. Im trying to figure out when to add the peaches and how to go about it....

I have been told to either add the fruit to the secondary, rack the beer on top and cold crash immediately.... OR... To add the fruit to the secondary, rack the beer on top and leave it at fermentation temp for a week or two....

I was thinking of doing a combo of both of these.... Adding the fruit to the secondary, racking the beer, then leaving it at fermentation temp for a couple days then cold crashing for a week, then kegging.

how does this sound?
 
I've got a weiss in the secondary, bottling tomorrow, that I threw in a full lemon's worth of zest. Obviously much easier to handle than raspberries but I washed the outside of it really well with dish soap. Then I sprayed the outside with StarSan before zesting. Its been in the secondary a little over two weeks and bottling tomorrow. No issues. I don't think a quick rinse in Star San would kill all the critters but I don't think it'll hurt either. With the low level of residual sugars along with the alcohol content in the brew you should be ok.
 
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