Frozen Mango

[Tim Parsons]

Hi

I've seen lots of posts about adding frozen fruit to beer with great success but one of the complications being it kicking the yeast out of bed again and further fermentation occurred.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with adding frozen mango (or other fruit) after dry hopping and before cold crashing so no further fermentation will occur? That will help me keep my beer to the % I want it at.

Many thanks

Tim

 

[Agentgonzo]

Why would you expect no further fermentation to occur if you add fruit (sugar) as you propose?

 

[Tim Parsons]

Doesn't cold crashing prevent the yeast from reacting?

 

[Kentish Mike]

I added some peaches to a recent brew after racking to secondary. The fermentation kicked off vigorously after about an hour. In order to prevent that from happening you will need to remove or inactivate the yeast. I've never tried that or looked into how, but I've heard that commercial breweries do it by microfiltration? Sorry that doesn't help much with your issue!

 

[Tim Parsons]

Thanks for the input. What temperature was your secondary out of interest?

 

[The Baron]

Add your fruit with the dry hop say on day 3 or 4 just as the first strong fermentation is subsiding then remove with the dry hop after say a further 5 days then make sure it has finished and cold crash as normal.
Ps make sure the fruit has defrosted and brought up to room temperature

 

[Kentish Mike]

It was at 19C, not chilled.
I read the following while researching my recipe a while back:

I suspect Shiner adds the pecan and peach addition after filtering out yeast. The beer is too sweet and the peach flavor is too prominent for the fruit to undergo fermentation. Usually when peaches ferment out, unless an obscene amount is used, the peach flavor usually disappears along with the sweetness. On a homebrew level, unless you have a filtration system, you could fine and cold crash aggressively and then rack out to the fruit and nuts. Killing off any residual yeast would help if kegging. For bottling you could pasteurize after a few weeks to make sure the bottles carb up, but this isn't ideal.

from: Shiner Cheer recipe

 

[Tim Parsons]

Doesn't cold crashing prevent the yeast from reacting?

I know that's not necessarily the purpose of the cold crash but taking it below the yeasts "operating temp" I thought put it to bed

 

[Tim Parsons]

It was at 19C, not chilled.
I read the following while researching my recipe a while back:

from: Shiner Cheer recipe

Really helpful! Thank you

 

[Tim Parsons]

Add your fruit with the dry hop say on day 3 or 4 just as the first strong fermentation is subsiding then remove with the dry hop after say a further 5 days then make sure it has finished and cold crash as normal.
Ps make sure the fruit has defrosted and brought up to room temperature

Thanks, especially regarding the defrosting. Can you tell me why I need to do that as I was planning on not defrosting if I'm going to be significantly dropping the temp

 

[Tim Parsons]

Thanks, especially regarding the defrosting. Can you tell me why I need to do that as I was planning on not defrosting if I'm going to be significantly dropping the temp

Also no real forward planning has occured. Fermentation has finished and I'm planning to crash it this evening so it's now or never... Or in a couple of weeks with another batch :-)

 

[The Baron]

You are going to add fruit while fermentation is going on so that it will convert the sugars from the fruit and complete fermentation before cold crashing

 

[The Baron]

Have you already completed fermentation, I did not realise that but was giving you a process of how to add the fruit so it ferments out. You cold crash after the dry hop and fruit fermentation has done and when adding fruit it needs to be as near the temp of the fermenting beer as possible

 

[Kentish Mike]

@the baron
I could be wrong, but I think @Tim Parsons is trying to avoid fermenting the fruit to try and retain some sweetness/fruity flavour in the final beer. Not an easy thing to do, I think.

 

[Tim Parsons]

@the baron
I could be wrong, but I think @Tim Parsons is trying to avoid fermenting the fruit to try and retain some sweetness/fruity flavour in the final beer. Not an easy thing to do, I think.

Correct. Thank you for the advice though never the less.

After reading the above contributions (thanks all) and finding out as well that us05 (the yeast I'm using) is quite resilient, im contemplating crashing it tonight for a few days, then putting it in a new fermenter to get rid of much of the yeast and then kegging.

Anyone advise against this course of action?

 

[Kentish Mike]

Again, I'm not sure and have never done this, but I think you can use campden tablets to kill off any remaining yeast, which might be insurance against re-starting fermentation in the keg. Probably better off waiting for someone more learned than myself to chime in though!

 

[Agentgonzo]

Cold crashing won't stop fermentation. It will slow it down a lot, and a lot of yeast will drop out to the bottom. But enough will remain, and it will continue fermenting - albeit a lot slower than at room temperature.

 

[H0PM0NSTER]

Agree with Agentgonzo - even with a cold crash the yeast is going to continue fermenting the fruit sugars albeit very slowly, but once you keg it and raise it to serving temps they're going to speed up. As suggested, adding a Campden tablet should stop the yeast but I've never tried this as all my beer is bottle conditioned.

Good luck - mango beer sounds good

 

[Tim Parsons]

Cold crashing won't stop fermentation. It will slow it down a lot, and a lot of yeast will drop out to the bottom. But enough will remain, and it will continue fermenting - albeit a lot slower than at room temperature.

Ok thanks for the heads up. Perhaps Ill save it for another batch and let it ferment.

 

[Tim Parsons]

Or maybe I'll eat the mango as I drink the beer