Fruit beers

[octoscott]

When using fresh fruit, in this case cherries or raspberries, what tends to be the best way of adding it?

In the boil? Fermenter during fermentation? After fermentation has completed?

[Barley Water]

Well the answer to that question depends on the expected outcome. If you add fresh fruit to beer post cooling, you are likely going to pick up some bugs along with the fruit. That is not necessarily a bad thing however if you are not trying to make a funky, sour beer you might consider sterilizing the fruit before adding it. One of these days I'm gonna make some Flanders Brown and drop a few pounds of fresh cherries into it assuming I can find a decent source of fruit that is.

[Jambo]

I'm planning to make the raspberry wit in Greg Hughes' book soon - I got a load of 'jam making' (i.e. squashed and no good for the supermarket) rasps from my local fruit farm for £1.50/kg last weekend. That recipe says to add them a couple of days into fermentation. I assume that means when the yeast is in full swing and it would be more difficult for any other infection to take over.

[Barley Water]

I think I would assume that if you add fruit post boil, you should expect some wild critters along with the fruit (assuming you don't somehow sterilize the fruit). Many wild yeasts and bacteria can eat sugars that regular ale or lager yeast can't touch. What that means is that even though the normal yeast is healthy and doing well there is still plenty of goodies for the wild stuff to survive on.

[Fido97]

My personal view is add the fruit after a few days of fermentation. Sterilise the fruit first (boil on in a pan a few days before and bung it in the freezer). This is assuming you are not looking for sour/lambic beer. The other thing you might consider is splitting the fruit into 2 and throw in 50% at the end of the boil and balance as above.

[octoscott]

Thanks for all the tips.

If the fruit is sterile before freezing, I trust it can just go right in the fermenter frozen once it's calmed down and won't take on anything nasty as it defrosts in the beer?

[LeeH]

I'd love to do a ready bright red cherry beer. Good luck with it.

[octoscott]

I'd love to do a ready bright red cherry beer. Good luck with it.

I'll keep you posted mate.

[Chrissyr63]

Hi,

I just did the raspberry wit as mentioned above and put defrosted fruit bought from Aldi after 5 days and that seems to have worked. Is a nice recipe and beer tastes of raspberry - although I think I wimped out on the carbing.

C

[Rookie]

My personal view is add the fruit after a few days of fermentation. Sterilise the fruit first (boil on in a pan a few days before and bung it in the freezer). This is assuming you are not looking for sour/lambic beer. The other thing you might consider is splitting the fruit into 2 and throw in 50% at the end of the boil and balance as above.

Boiling the fruit will set the pectin leaving a hazy beer, which is fine if that's what you want: I've done it that way a couple of times.
If you add fruit after primary fermentation is done the PH level and alcohol will take care of anything on the fruit. The only time I ever had a problem was once when I made a cantelope wheat beer and saved some of the juice to add at bottling. I left the juice out at room temperature way too long and it got sour. The result was a psuedo-lambic that wasn't bad.

[Jambo]

Added the raspberries to my raspberry wit yesterday (3 days in) and it's gone bloody mental! Came home and found the airlock shot out and foam all over the inside of my fridge! Culprit (apart from enthusiastic wlp300) seems to be a raspberry leaf and core stuck in the bung, doh!!!

Looks a nice colour through the fermenter though, and tasted decent also.

Repitching yeast from a fruit beer... Wise?

[Jules T]

Really interested in this. Could you post the recipe?

[orlando]

Added the raspberries to my raspberry wit yesterday (3 days in) and it's gone bloody mental! Came home and found the airlock shot out and foam all over the inside of my fridge! Culprit (apart from enthusiastic wlp300) seems to be a raspberry leaf and core stuck in the bung, doh!!!

In my view that is wild yeast "infection". I had the same thing happen to me but this was after the ordinary fermentation was over. Never known a beer to fizz like it. Inevitably it took the FG down into very dry territory so I ended up blending with some lactose to bring back some sweetness, absolutely delicious and a huge hit in the Summer.

[basswulf]

I had success last autumn with adding crab apples to a golden beer (pale malt only and slightly reduced hops from the original recipe). I chopped and boiled the crab apples, strained the juice and kept it in the fridge for a few days until I had time to get the wort prepared. I used sugar to increase the gravity of the juice to the target level for the recipe and then added a couple of litre to the copper about 10 minutes before the end of the boil (allowing a little extra time to get back up to boiling - and thus pasteurising - point).

It worked well - a hint of the apple flavour but not the intense sourness some people had suggested I might get with the idea. Therefore, I think adding a fruit infusion towards the end of the boil is one approach to making a decent fruit beer.

Wulf