Anyone made a Raspberry Ale? Just a couple of questions

[colgilbec]

Hi,
Hopefully someones tried the recipe and can advise please.
As a change i,m having a bash from a recipe in Home brew beer by greg hughes Raspberry Wheat Beer.
just added the yeast to the brew to get started,used S05 [close to wyeast 1010], but i can,t make my mind up as to how to add the raspberry,s, the book just says add at 2nd day leave for about a week.
I have done a bit of research and now i,m more confused as there is no set pattern.
It looks to be put them in after fermentation has started which makes sense re- wild yeasts etc ,i,m using 2.5kg shop bought frozen rasps[will be defrosted] but would it be better to mash them and just put them in the wort? put them in the wort whole? or place them in a sunken muslin bag whole or mashed? ta.

[alix101]

It's fantastic when you get a beer with the actual fruit taste as intended, but it's also sometimes difficult.
Raspberries are a good choice for holding there flavour but I've also had very bland homebrew versions..
If using fresh raspberries around 1.4kg is recommended by beersmith of fresh raspberries, so is 2.5kg frozen comparable when defrosted.
I'd recommend mashing with a portion of raspberries and then adding into fermenter at secondary stage to avoid iinfection, the beer should less susceptible at this stage ....

[scuppeteer]

Orlando is the one to ask, he made a cracker last year. Fresh fruit mind not frozen. I also had quite a good result with blackberries last summer. Note these were ales not beers, IE no hops added at all.

Add them after primary has finished. The fructose in the fruit will set off the fermentation again so be prepared for a mess. Do not add to the mash or any stage beforehand. To get a really good flavour 4-5kgs of fresh fruit were added to 25l of beer. All mine were picked within a couple of days before adding to the fermenter.

[colgilbec]

Thanks for your replies chaps, looks like i,m gonna go for the mash of fruit then add loose? after primary .
Unless others that will have brewed this recipe or similar can add,any views please?ta.

[Thorbz]

I added 500g of frozen raspberries to 1 gallon of wheat beer, but I wished I'd have added some lactose. I've got a great raspberry flavour, but it really needs some sweetness to round things out.

[Rookie]

Add them after primary has finished..

#1. If you add them the second day the primary fermentation will carry away a lot of the raspberry flavor and aroma.
Once the primary fermentation is done the alcohol will kill off any wild yeast that may be on the fruit.

[colgilbec]

Cheers for the info chaps, i,ll keep the rasps in the freezer til the endish of fermentation.

[keith1664]

Orlando is the one to ask, he made a cracker last year. Fresh fruit mind not frozen. I also had quite a good result with blackberries last summer. Note these were ales not beers, IE no hops added at all.

Add them after primary has finished. The fructose in the fruit will set off the fermentation again so be prepared for a mess. Do not add to the mash or any stage beforehand. To get a really good flavour 4-5kgs of fresh fruit were added to 25l of beer. All mine were picked within a couple of days before adding to the fermenter.

Orlandos raspberries came from my freezer! Via my garden of course. But yes wait until the ferment is done and then add them, it'll kick off again and the beer will end up pretty dry, probably due to wild yeasts on the fruit which survive the freezing.

[daf]

I did the Greg Hughes raspberry wheat last year, very nice. I split the wort and made half with cherries too. I think I may have bottled too early as I had one bomb and some gushers. They settled down after six months in the garage!

[colgilbec]

thanks for the input chaps, just gonna have to be patient then, using s05 as its a yeast that wont hurry, the only thing i,m unsure about is the final gravity on adding 2 1/2 kilo frozen,thawed rasps on top of the original which should come out about 4.8% before adding.

[scuppeteer]

As I recall the FG was a couple of points lower than the primary so will probably end up nearer 5%.

[DerbyshireNick]

Funny enough I was just fancying this one out of that very book.

My gut tells me It would have been an option liquidise the berries and then simmer in a pan for a while to kill any wild yeasts / bacteria and to help make the flavors as extractable as possible.

It seems others haven't gone this way so I will bow to social proof and assume there is reasoning behind this!

[daf]

I just bunged in the frozen fruit straight out the bag, after the initial fermentation had done. Left it to steep and continue fermenting for a couple of weeks.

[AJC]

I've just done something similar - racked onto frozen raspberries in secondary after primary fermentation has finished. The freezing process breaks up the fruit enough to extract tons of flavour and colour, and I think you would kill a lot of that if you boiled it first.

Most wild yeasts should be killed by freezing, I would have thought, and if not, a little extra sourness is not necessarily a bad thing in this style, IMO.

[colgilbec]

Initially i thought it would make sense to liquidize, boil then add , but then i thought thatsa lot of pulp to drop out, so finally my minds made up, gonna mash the rasps then add, on the basis that as its a wheat beer it will be hazy but not overmuch.
By the way,if no rasps on hand like me, i found the cheapest way to buy them was frozen from asda £1.97 for 350 grms x 7 required.