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Fruit beer question
I am about to make a raspberry wheat beer this weekend (my 2nd homebrew and first non-kit) and I am confused after looking at various takes on the subject. I have read multiple differing opinions about when to include fruit in the process.
-Steep fruit at the end of the boil to avoid the petin haze problem
-Add fruit to the primary
-Add fruit to the secondary
I'm also curious which method, if any, puts the fruit more in the forefront versus an aftertaste profile. Any help you can provide would be helpful. As you can probably tell, I'm not following a recipe but decided to get inspiration from multiple sources I came across.
FYI- I'm using 6# Wheat Malt Extract, 1 oz Tettnang hops, and White labs American Hefe yeast. I'm thinking of using about 4-5 lbs of fresh raspberries.
It is going to be a personal preference. I tend to go with the fruit (after boiling to sanitize it) in the secondary. That is just because that is what I was told to do a long time ago and haven''t made enough fruit beers to try and experiment with it. It always seems to work out well and bring out good flavors. I belive what you should worry about is getting the fruit in there after primary fermentation, in order to retain as much flavor as possible. If you allow the sugars in fruit to ferment for too long you will start to lose the fruit flavor.
Cheers
Yeah this has been discussed, but there is no clear answer to it, so I will explain.
I personally boil my fruit. Why? I like the pectic haze. Does it affect flavor? No. Whether you boil or steep really makes no difference in flavor. If you only steep it, there should be no haze. I just happen to like the affect.
If you steep it, I would go for about 15 minutes in 150F-170F water.
Primary, secondary, or bottle? If you add fruit to the primary, the fermentation will blow off some of the fruit aroma. How much is hard to say. You CAN do this, but I like to smell the fruit. I always add mine to the secondary.
There are just so many variables on making a fruit beer that it is impossible to answer everything in one quick, short sentence.
This is just really whatever you want it to be. The former place I used to hang out, just about everybody said "NEVER BOIL YOUR FRUIT!" I guess I missed the law being passed on that one. Why not? Ohhhh right, because they didn't want the pectic haze. Fine, don't boil it. I happen to like it.
Use whichever method makes you happy.
When you boil your fruit (which is fine with me since I don't mind the haze) and add it to the secondary, what do you boil it in? Water? Some green beer pulled from the primary?
All of my previous 5 gallon batches used 6 pounds of fruit. I took about a half gallon of water and dumped in the frozen fruit. Once it came to a bubbling boil (not rolling), I let it go about 5 minutes, sometimes as much as 10, cooled it down, put it into secondary, and rack my beer over it.
However, I have found that with my 10 gallon batches, while I can double the grain and hop bill, the fruit isn't quite the same. Instead of 12 pounds, a few less seems to be better.
I still remember the first time I damn near duplicated Ruby Ale and FINALLY got it hazy (McMenamins doesn't tell you how they do it), I took my keg to a small beer gathering and about 5 people tried it. All of them said it tasted almost identical.
I go to the local Winco grocery store. They have small cool whip type containers with 10 oz of frozen raspberries usually for $1.50. That's the cheapest I've seen them.
Thanks for the help, cubx. I am very excited to see how it turns out. I was hoping for something close to Abita's Purple Haze...we'll see. I think I'll bump up the raspberry count to 6 lbs based on your recommendation. After all, if it's too fruity I'll just let it mellow with age a little.
I remember talking with my brew store guy about this very issue. Make sure its in the boil long enough to sanitize, but not too long because something can happen to the fruit when it is boiled for a long time that can lead to a nasty taste.
Make sure you come up with a place to dispose of your leftovers. Its winter here in NY and when I finished mine I did not want rotting Cherry's in the trash! It was bad enough trying to keep them away from the fermenter.
cnybrewblog wrote:
I remember talking with my brew store guy about this very issue. Make sure its in the boil long enough to sanitize, but not too long because something can happen to the fruit when it is boiled for a long time that can lead to a nasty taste.
Actually, it doesn't give a bad taste. Boiling releases the pectins in fruit and make your beer hazy. I have made many, many batches this way and it comes out just fine.
cubx--
Since you seem to be an authority on fruit brews, how long do you tend to keep your fruit beers in secondary? My tumbleberry (raspberry/blackberry) wheat was fermenting pretty good for the first few days after adding the 6 lbs of fruit to the secondary but now has slowed quite a bit.
- Should I leave it in another week in the same carboy after fermentation has stopped to let it clear?
- Should I rack to another secondary to leave behind some sediment and let it sit another week before bottling?
- Or, if the gravity is stable should I just go to bottling?
freudhawk wrote:
cubx--
Since you seem to be an authority on fruit brews, how long do you tend to keep your fruit beers in secondary? My tumbleberry (raspberry/blackberry) wheat was fermenting pretty good for the first few days after adding the 6 lbs of fruit to the secondary but now has slowed quite a bit.
- Should I leave it in another week in the same carboy after fermentation has stopped to let it clear?
- Should I rack to another secondary to leave behind some sediment and let it sit another week before bottling?
- Or, if the gravity is stable should I just go to bottling?
I leave mine at each stage for 7-10 days, although I have gone longer. My IPA spent over 2 weeks in primary and took over 3 weeks to completely ferment!
What I tend to notice is once I boil my fruit and add to the secondary, the fermentation will pick up a little for maybe a day or so, then start dying down.
As to your questions...
1. Rack it into the secondary fermenter, add the fruit, and let it go about 7 days. You can leave it longer if you want. If you did not boil it, the beer should end up fairly clear. Since you used blackberries I wouldn't expect a whole lot. If the fruit was boiled, it won't get clear.
2. Whether you boiled or not, you really should rack a few times before kegging it since the fruit leaves sediment behind that will clog a keg. If you are bottling, you don't need to do this. When I am ready to keg, I have a clean fermenter, so I rack from the secondary to the other fermenter, then back to the secondary, and repeat this about two times. This should do the trick. Again, not necessary for bottling.
3. As for gravity, if you have let it go about a week in each fermenter, it should be done. If in doubt, take a few days of hydrometer readings.
So, here is my issue. I decided to make a fruit beer for my girlfriend. I set out making a basic wheat beer 6lb wheat and some carapils. I fermented for 9 days then transferred to a secondary. I added 1 can Oregon fruit puree to the secondary. One day later fermentation picked back up and continued for a day or two. After a week i racked to keg and carbonated. I tried it and it is not good. all the fruit flavor is gone and all that is left is perhaps a little green fruit flavor. I assume I burnt off all the sugars and this is why I have no flavor. So my question is has anyone else run into this and if so did they find a sufficient remedy for the situation. Also, any thoughts on what to do next time so this does not happen. Campden tablets perhaps??
bankrupted:
What was the starting gravity, and was this an extract beer?
What was the gravity of the beer before you added the can of fruit?
What is the gravity now?
Which yeast?
Just some info so folks can get a better feel for what you did.
I find it surprising that the with a whole can you have no flavor.
Some folks use a little fruit extract flavoring in combo with real fruit to help really get a sustained fruit flavor.
Maybe you could try to add some in now. I suggest a little at a time and doing taste tests as you go. I think I remember that you keg, so this should be pretty easy.
What kind of fruit did you use? Some fruit is more subtle than others but like Brewchez said it is kind of surprising there is not fruit flavor when you used a whole can.
Come to think of it, did you open the can or just steep the can in the secondary?
While it is easier to sanitize the can itself, you do need to open the can and pour it in the fermentor.
To answer you questions I am not sure what the final gravity was I would assume when I added the Cherry puree the beer was finished I had a good solid fermentation that lasted several days. The gravity was around 1.050 to start, so this was not a big beer.
Now, I may have misstated the taste of the beer. There is some fruit flavor, but it tastes to me like sour green fruit like it has no sugar, which is I am guessing is exactly what is going on.
The Yeast I used was a 1010 American Wheat Wyeast Activator.
And yes Brewchez, I did open the can and dump the contents into the fermentor.
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