11 replies to this topic

[chadm75]

I think Ken and I have beaten this topic into the ground in the past but I'll put it out there again. I'm about to embark on brewing up another fruit beer. This time adding raspberry puree into the secondary. When I've done this in the past, my experience is that the fruit will kick up a secondary fermentation and dry out the beer to a point where it's so tart, it's barely drinkable. To avoid this, I'm kicking around two ways to keep the beer relatively sweet. 1) Mashing at a higher temp, I'm thinking somewhere in the 158-162 range. 2) Adding lactose to the boil to up the gravity. Will one method work better than the other?Thoughts from the board?

[chadm75]

I keg. So will sorbate and sulfite stop fermentation activity? I'm thinking you're right, I might have to add lactose and up the mash temp to achieve what I'm looking for. I do enjoy the tartness that the raspberry puree adds, but when I've done something similar in the past....yikes. It would make me pucker!

[EWW]

Raspberry is tough...I've wimped out on it except for sours and wine. If you figure this out please post details. Dried puréed apricots work great in primary FWIW. Good luck

[chadm75]

I've tried raspberry twice before. Once with frozen fruit that was "cooked" to 155 to kill off anything on it and then once with extract. Both were terrible, undrinkable beers....dumped'em....I've had this puree from Oregon sitting around and want to use it. I give up if this doesn't work. Cheers!

[jammer]

What if you were to monitor the gravity readings closely, then stop fermentation before it dries out too much? A few years ago, i attempted to clone a local brewery's raspberry ale a few times. I used the Oregon fruit puree added to secondary. The recipe I had found, said that if you boiled the puree first, beer would retain the cloudiness like the original The first time i tried, it came out pucker-faced dry, like champagne. The next time I think I inadvertently kegged and cold crashed a little early. The beer was excellent, not too sweet and not too dry. Im thinking about trying to make it again.

[BarelyBrews]

Sounds like an 'occasion' to play with some crystal malt additions.

[glennh2os]

Just a thought (no experience with puree whatsoever). Could decreasing the quantity of the puree help? Instead of a whole can do a half a can etc..

[EWW]

Another thing that may help (if you keg) is to treat the fruit like a dry hop addition. Transfer beer to the keg. Add fruit to a bag/pantyhose chill and force carb. I did this once and it helped keep the fruit's sweetness since it never fermented. The pantyhose keeps fruit bits from clogging up the keg.

[beach]

What if you were to monitor the gravity readings closely, then stop fermentation before it dries out too much? A few years ago, i attempted to clone a local brewery's raspberry ale a few times. I used the Oregon fruit puree added to secondary. The recipe I had found, said that if you boiled the puree first, beer would retain the cloudiness like the original The first time i tried, it came out pucker-faced dry, like champagne. The next time I think I inadvertently kegged and cold crashed a little early. The beer was excellent, not too sweet and not too dry. Im thinking about trying to make it again.

As long as you're talking about stopping the fermentation why not just let it ferment out, treat with K-Meta, et al to shut the yeast down, add the raspberries and then back sweeten to what you want? While it's not a purist's approach, it would take a lot of the guess work out of it. Wine makers do it all the time.Beacheta: , or an I missing something?

[strangebrewer]

Making a good fruit beer is tougher than most people give it credit for. Making one with raspberries is that much more challenging as Guest mentioned since they will lend their own tartness (acidity). Don't underestimate how tart raspberries can make a beer. From my experience a FG of 1.020 tastes more like 1.010 after a heavy raspberry addition.Personally I'm not a big fan of sorbates. They leave behind a taste that I can pick up that bugs me. If you want to take that approach and truely stop a fermentation then you need to sulfite AND sorbate. One alone is not enough.So the trick is dialing in that FG and adding the right amount of raspberries. It all depends on how much raspberry you want to come through in the beer. Ballpark is .5-1lb of raspberries per gallon of beer depending how much raspberry you want.Definitely keep us updated as while I have worked with various fruits in beers it's something I never really dug deep into.

[chadm75]

I'm almost to a point where I want to just add 10-12 gravity points of lactose. This seems to be the most precise method of getting that sweetness to stay in the beer to counteract the tartness of the raspberries. If I mash high, I have no idea where I need to be from a temp standpoint. And stopping fermentation again sounds pretty inaccurate to me as well. Can I add lactose and somewhere around 3lbs. of puree to get me where i want to be? If I shoot for an OG somewhere in the 1.056-58 and let it it ferment to around 1.030, then rack it to the raspberry puree letting the puree take it the rest of the way down, hopefully it will get me close.

[strangebrewer]

I'm almost to a point where I want to just add 10-12 gravity points of lactose. This seems to be the most precise method of getting that sweetness to stay in the beer to counteract the tartness of the raspberries. If I mash high, I have no idea where I need to be from a temp standpoint. And stopping fermentation again sounds pretty inaccurate to me as well. Can I add lactose and somewhere around 3lbs. of puree to get me where i want to be? If I shoot for an OG somewhere in the 1.056-58 and let it it ferment to around 1.030, then rack it to the raspberry puree letting the puree take it the rest of the way down, hopefully it will get me close.

Stopping the fermentation can be very accurate, you just have to take frequent samples and watch the gravity drop. In the world of wine and mead making taking daily and even bi-daily samples to watch your gravity is pretty normal.Easiest approach would probably be to brew the beer, let it ferment dry, add the raspberries to secondary, let the secondary ferment occur, and then add lactose (boiled/dissolved in water)to taste. This way you can dial in exactly what you want.Also worth noting, I'd do the secondary with the raspberries in a bucket. You don't want to deal with getting 5lbs of raspberries into or out of a carboy. Also you may want to consider putting the raspberries in a large bag or bags for similar reasons that racking the beer off of 5lbs of raspberry sludge may be a frustrating expereince. Yea you won't get as good of raspberry flavor extraction into the beer so your call.