Adding fruit to beer

[WelshPaul]

Hi folks,
sorry if this has been brought up several times already but I've seen a lot of conflicting advice on this one. If I want to make a wheat beer with raspberries, at which stage do I add the fruit? Some have suggested adding it to the secondary fermentation, like dry hopping, whereas I've also seen advice to add it to the boil to extract the sugars.
What would you suggest and what quantities would be best?

 

[RobWalker]

the sugars are in fruit anyway, you don't need to boil it at all. doing so can activate the pectins which can result in haze.

most people add in secondary. raspberries are 0.5% sugar so there isn't much fermentation to do anywa and their flavour is well preserved compared to high sugar fruits. I've heard 500g/gallon, I'm adding 250g per gallon to my next batch because raspberries are expensive! :p

 

[WelshPaul]

That makes sense, thanks. I didn't realise they were so low in sugar.

 

[graysalchemy]

It wouldn't matter with a wheat beer if it had pectins in because it will be hazy anyway. If it is a delicate fruit like rasberry I would be tempted to add to the secondry. The only problem is slight risk of infection from adding raw fruit which will have a whole heap of nasties on it.

 

[WelshPaul]

I suppose I could always boil the mashed fruit up for a short amount of time before adding it to the secondary. The only question that remains is how to strain the pulp out when kegging or bottling?

 

[RobWalker]

if you puree it you can rack it off after a week or so - you can also sterilize by pouring boiling water over, or letting it sit on some campden for 24 hours before you add it. wash them first! :p

 

[WelshPaul]

if you puree it you can rack it off after a week or so - you can also sterilize by pouring boiling water over, or letting it sit on some campden for 24 hours before you add it. wash them first! :p

I'm a bit confused by this part - how do I rack the fruit off once it's been added to the FV?

 

[graysalchemy]

It will sink to the bottom with the rest of the cr*p.

 

[RobWalker]

delicately put :rofl:

 

[judasegg]

Hey,
I've been researching the same, and this is covered in depth in the book "Radical Brewing". My advice, is to buy frozen fruit. Then, sanitize outside of packaging, and spill frozen fruit into sanitized sealable food container, to let it thaw to room temp.

This process should:
1) Kill the nasties by freezing
2) Burst cell membranes by freezing - releasing sugary/flavour goodness
3) Avoid exposure of thawed fruit to new nasties
4) By thawing to room temp, avoid temperature shocking the yeast.

Then, add to secondary (might be wise to use a muslin bag), for a week or so, similar to dryhopping.

At least, that is what I plan to do. Fresh is good, but you'd need to soak in vodka or something to kill the nasties, and probably mash them a bit too, and I don't like vodka, especially in my beer. Puree's can have preservatives and other junk in them. Even if they don't you'll end up with lots of trub if you use puree.

Cheers.

 

[graysalchemy]

Freezing won't necessarily kill any nasties. They do need to be sanitised either by boiling of treating with campden tablets or vodka.