Will too much fruit(acidity) kill the yeast?

peanut1181 · Aug 11, 2010

I just made an extract kit of Hank's Hefeweizen and split it in half before it went into the carboys. One carboy contains about 2 gallons of the original recipe. The other carboy I added the remaining 3 gallons to about 3-4 pounds of heated (and cooled, of course) macerated sweet california oranges. I used a separate vial of WL300 yeast for each carboy and just added it right in, as I have always done in the past. I'm concerned about the acidity of the fruit hefe... will I have problems there with it killing the yeast, or will I be ok? Thanks for the help guys & gals.

Gray

nebben · Aug 11, 2010

It will be fine.

peanut1181 · Aug 12, 2010

Thanks for the reply. It's been 60+ hours now and still no signs of life in the carboy containing the fruit. The other plain Hefeweizen has a nice thick krausen and is bubbling away. Hydrometer shows no change as of yet on the fruit hefe though. At this point do I add a new batch of yeast and try it again? Thanks for the help.

Gray

nebben · Aug 12, 2010

About how much orange matter is in the carboy with the wort? I suppose it is possible that the yeast is lagging somewhat because of the oranges, but you should still be able to ferment them.

peanut1181 · Aug 12, 2010

Oh, I dunno, maybe 4 pounds of oranges, which equated to about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of orange slurry on the bottom of the carboy? I didn't think that was going to be a problem. Then again I did split the batch and only put about 3 gallons of wort in with the oranges...

Solaris79 · Aug 13, 2010

Personally, I would have put the oranges in the batch in secondary to avoid slow yeast response times in order to really let the yeast attack the wort sugars first and get a good population going. I will be interested to hear if the yeast does eventually pick up.

peanut1181 · Aug 13, 2010

Well, I got impatient and around 2am I added a new batch of yeast in hopes of getting this thing going. This afternoon I go and take a look and the first signs of a krausen has appeared and the airlock is very slowly bubbling away, so it looks like I'm going to be alright. I'm wondering if the first batch of yeast (White Labs 300) was any good? It was shipped with the kit and the ice pack had all but died when I received it. I'll know not to do that again... Thanks for the help guys.