Raspberry Wheat Beer & Sodium Metabisulphite Usage?

[SiHoltye]

I made a Raspberry Weizen a couple of years ago by adding 2kg frozen raspberries to the serving keg when racking. Over the following few weeks the yeast in suspension munched through the fruit sugars thinning the beer and changing the overall impact away from what I wanted. Also any wild yeasts on the fruit would have had a go at the sugars too.
I was thinking of trying this again but adding 5 crushed sodium metabisulphate tablets to the serving keg before racking the beer onto the fruit. The SM is supposed to sanitize your beer of yeast so I'm hoping the full fresh fruit flavour might remain intact along with some sweetness and body. I don't really want to back sweeten as this seems even more artificial a situation to me. Any thoughts about this in principle?

[boingy]

Home wine makers use Potassium Sorbate ("Fermentation Stopper") alongside Sod Met to kill off the yeast.
Not sure how well it would work with beer as there tends to be shedloads more active yeast in fermenting beer.

[SiHoltye]

Hmmmm. yeah it's too easy or everyone would do it I guess.

[wilfh]

Sorbate will stop the yeast from reproducing but won't kill the yeast. Meta will kill most beasties but yeast is pretty robust and will survive. If you use both you may get the affect you want. Multiple racking will also help.

[timothy]

Like the other guys said, add a little sulphite and sorbate together after the beer is done fermenting, preferably after the beer has cleared well. Using a secondary is highly recommended but not absolutely necessary. Give the dead and dormant yeast a few weeks minimum to settle out after adding sulphite and sorbate before kegging.

[orlando]

I know you said you didn't want to back sweeten but lactose would deal with this. I've made a Raspberry beer a couple of times and have added the fruit once fermentation had finished, didn't have any problems with wild yeast or infection from the pulped fruit.

[SiHoltye]

Yeah, given the yeast likely to be used is low flocculating I do think it'll be best to look again at back sweetening using lactose. thanks for your thoughts.

[SiHoltye]

I racked 9L of this beer onto 900g of raspberries in a mini corni this evening and am storing it ~16°C. I'll go the lactose back sweeten route once the fruit sugars have been gobbled. Thanks all for thoughts.

[orlando]

I racked 9L of this beer onto 900g of raspberries in a mini corni this evening and am storing it ~16°C. I'll go the lactose back sweeten route once the fruit sugars have been gobbled. Thanks all for thoughts.

Wow, that should give you a massive hit of Raspberry, I think you should have a winner, wouldn't mind trying it .

[SiHoltye]

One of these beers is the base beer, the other has had raspberries added, can you tell which?


On tasting the raspberry beer (the one on the right ) it gives a massive aroma of raspberries followed by a raspberry flavour that all but hides the malt/hops/yeast. I can taste it is drying out and would expect this to get drier/sharper over time. Which is good 'cos I can then decide if I want to sweeten it or not. Either way I think the serving style for this will be high carbonation so could well bottle it.

[orlando]

That looks fabulous and I think you're right about bottling too, I'm coming to the end of mine now and have noticed there is a trade off, you get better head retention but only as the fruit starts to fade and the beer further dries out, back sweetening with lactose is essential in my view.