Fruit Beers - Adding fruit to the FV

[HisDudeness]

and don't panic if the raspberries make the brew look like the tramp has puked up his chips! They will look and smell rancid but once I scooped them out and racked the beer off it was fine

 

[MyQul]

For anyone potentially interested in brewing, you two are really promoting the hobby :lol:

 

[Notlaw]

Haha "join the forum, we talk about puking tramps"

 

[DanST]

Freezing slows down bacteria and microbes but does not necessarily kill them so any nasties present at the point of freezing will still be there at thaw. Many yeasts including wild yeasts will tolerate very low temps and even freezing and will 'hibernate' until it is warm again e.g. lager yeasts

I agree with this but just wanted to point out that when freezing as opposed to low temperatures above 0°C ice crystals are formed in the cells. This will kill *most* microorganisms and stop any growth where cold temperatures, say 4°C just slows their growth down.

If you add frozen fruit (I'd probably thaw it in the fridge in a sealed container/bag it came in) to a fermenting brew the few spores that survive freezing will have a very difficult time competing against the established yeast culture.

 

[dad_of_jon]

best add them after primary fermentation is complete by which time your yeast will be the 'big gang in town' and the alcohol already in the brew will deter interlopers. the only down side it that makes it more difficult to work out your abv. i've used concentrated syrup which has been ok but not earth shatteringly brill. Maybe i'll try extract rather than syrup next time as I do like to measure my brews abv. (seeing as my ocd side must know how much ethanol i'm imbibing) :grin:

 

[cheapbrew]

You might consider using Lowicz polish raspberry syrup, at least you wont have to worry about introducing any nasties.

 

[dad_of_jon]

You might consider using Lowicz polish raspberry syrup, at least you wont have to worry about introducing any nasties.

I've used that and ended up with 7.35% because of the sugar. I don't get a big raspberry hit as i'd like though.

Think I'll have to tryout the brewferm kit ;-)

 

[Grumpy Jack]

I tried the Brewferm kit a couple of years ago, barely raised a smile from the missus, her response being something like "a hint of being in the fridge where a raspberry might once have been"... but I'm wondering about trying again and adding Lowicz to boost the flavour a bit? I'm more than happy with an increase in the alcohol, my current tipple is Brewferm Grand Cru which I've got at 7.9% and is rather satisfying.

I did try using tins of cherry pie filling before... the beer was tasy enough, it just didn't taste of cherries... though it had an ever so slight red hue to it...

 

[Aiseant]

For the sake of the argument : wouldn't alcool soaked fruits be clean enough to solve the sterilization problem ?
Putting frozen fruit in some strong alcool until they thaw, then drop them in the FV ... that would add only a little of "external" alcool, I would think not enough to notice.
But adding fruits means adding sugar so how do you math the whole thing to keep the balance with yeast, OG and FG etc ?

 

[Notlaw]

Could you use the Lowicz for priming? That could leave more of the flavour behind that adding before fermentation.

 

[user 15122]

I'm drinking the Greg Hughes raspberry wheat beer at the moment, it is a little too sour for me, I prefer a little sweetness in my fruit beers.

I bought frozen raspberries from Aldi, thawed them out, mushed em up, threw em in after the primary fermentation and left them in for a week.

It is marked as a quick brew in GH book, but I'm with the dude on this one, it is better left for a while to mellow.