Cherry / Raspberry Wheat - a couple of questions..

[puravida]

My wife is not a beer fan but she does love those cherry and raspberry belgian beers.

I've a few questions for any experts out there!

I'm planning to brew the wheat beer and ferment in the primary for 7 days. Move to secondary and add the fruit then leave for a further week.

Then transfer to a corny keg and force carbonate ready to drink in time for new year.

Does that time scale sound feasible? Is that the correct way to add the fruit? Fresh or tinned fruit?

And finally - and tried and tested recipes????

Thanks as ever!

 

[RobWalker]

wheat is a very active fermenter and is better drunk young, so you're looking at quite a small time scale. best way to add fruit imo is puree, but anything else is fine too. if you're using fresh it's best to freeze, thaw and then mash/puree and mix it in. do the same with tinned but make sure the fruit you buy is either in water or fruit juice, and check what the fruit juice is made of - morrisons tinned raspberries in juice come in grape juice. it can be cheaper to buy frozen too so check frozen out!

just use finers etc and you'll be fine. I'm gonna make a Fruli clone soon and supply a bottle of strawberry syrup to pour into the glass - that way if people want it extra sweet or just a tad of strawberry flavour, they can :)

 

[puravida]

Fab! Thanks for that!
So if I go it going tomorrow, when do you think the soonest we could be sipping?

Is Christmas too ambitious??

 

[abeyptfc]

ive brewed the coopers raspberry wheat twice and its superb. its a 2 can kit and comes with a sachet of raspberry flavouring. its a lovely pint! gassed up to 30 psi and left for 2 weeks it'll be ready!

 

[Duncs]

ive brewed the coopers raspberry wheat twice and its superb. its a 2 can kit and comes with a sachet of raspberry flavouring. its a lovely pint! gassed up to 30 psi and left for 2 weeks it'll be ready!

Where do you get this kit from? the only Raspberry wheat beer I can find is the Milestones one, I'd love to try the Coopers one

 

[abeyptfc]

sorry it was milestones not coopers, dunno where coopers came from. its a wee bit dearer than coopers kits as its 2 cans but miles better. it didnt have a homebrew twang and smelled of raspberries right to the last pint after being in the corny for a month!

 

[heftyporker]

There's also the Brewfirm fruit beers.
Someone once said on here that you can't just use normal fruit because it would need to be sterilized. Is this right or can we actually just used tinned fruit or mashed fruit?

 

[puravida]

From what I gather it depends on when you add it, and how quick you're going to drink the brew!
If added to the secondary or even to the corny keg prior to serving then there's enough alcohol in the beer to keep the nasties at bay for a week or so.

If you are adding to the primary, there's more for the nasties to eat and they have a longer time to develop.

My gut feel at the moment is to add a tied up hop bag containing the fruit to the corny prior to carbonating.

Like I said - I've never done this so just regurgitating bits of info I've picked up.

A little bit of information is a dangerous thing

 

[shearclass]

You can add fresh fruit no problem.

Mash fruit, add camden tablet (i think at the ratio of 1 per 2kg fruit, but check this) leave 24 hours, add to brew.

I have never done this for beer by the way, just read about it. I have done this for wine prior to fermentation several times. However, I think if you add this after the initial vigorous fermentation you may end up with a better fruit flavour.

That last bit is just a guess though.

 

[puravida]

Thanks Shearclass!
What does the campden tablet do? I have some but never used them

 

[shearclass]

OK first thing to say is I am not an expert in this field, and have never progressed beyond kits! (ordered 25kg of malt extract to do extract brewing after xmas)

the camden tablet is used in wine making. It kills the wild yeast in the fruit, and it also kills nay other bugs/nasties in the fruit so your brew doesn't get infected.

There will be more knowledgable people than me though who can shoot me down, or back me up!

 

[WelshPaul]

Thanks Shearclass!
What does the campden tablet do? I have some but never used them

It also removes chloramine from tap water (cholrine will evaporate in the boil on its own).