Adding fruit to fermentor

[booboo]

I just made a low gravity porter sg 1.050. It is fermenting in a better bottle with US-05. I am planning on adding a 3 Lb can of Oregon Raspberry pure when fermentation is finshed. Would it be better to just add the fruit to the primary and stir it all up or rack the beer to a secondary on top of the fruit?

[BenTheBrewer]

Secondary. Don't risk the fruit infecting primary fermentation. When doing a secondary the fermentation is pretty much complete and the alcohol is killing off the yeast. Not to mention that there is far less sugar for yeast to eat. These conditions make it more difficult for wild yeast to live. Therefore lessening you chance of infection. Also I like to pull the beer off of that yeast cake for good measure. That way when you move it to rack it to keg or bottles there's less to cloud up your final product. Hope that helps!

[booboo]

Secondary. Don't risk the fruit infecting primary fermentation. When doing a secondary the fermentation is pretty much complete and the alcohol is killing off the yeast. Not to mention that there is far less sugar for yeast to eat. These conditions make it more difficult for wild yeast to live. Therefore lessening you chance of infection. Also I like to pull the beer off of that yeast cake for good measure. That way when you move it to rack it to keg or bottles there's less to cloud up your final product. Hope that helps!

I must have not been clear. I plan to wait until the fermentation is done before adding the fruit. The question is do I add it to the primary or to a secondary vessel. I do not normally use a secondary vessel. My thought was rather than going through the effort and possible contamination of racking to a secondary fermenter I would simply add the fruit to the primary fermenter after fermentation. My only concern is mixing up the trub from the primary into the beer and fruit. I suspect it will settle out real fast and only leave yeast in suspension and not cause any off flavors. My guess is either way would be OK, just can’t make up my mind which way to go.

[Afterlab]

It has been recommended to add fruit, hops or other flavoring ingredients when 90%-98% of your primary fermentation is done. You can check this by measuring the current gravity of your fermented beer vs. your anticipated final gravity. Like Ben said you will want to rack into a secondary fermentation vessel. If you leave it on the yeast cake for an extended but reasonable amount of time, you won't ruin the beer per say, but you will eventually run the risk of yeast autolysis where enzymes break down the dead yeasts' cell walls and release those undesirable polyphenol, ester and diacetyl compounds that they cleaned up in the later stages of fermentation. Also hop oils and other flavor compounds can stick to yeast call walls, so if you have too much yeast in suspension then you are liking going to lose a greater portion of the fruit, dry hops, etc... that you want in your beer when those yeast die off and drop out of solution.

[Quin]

Definitely secondary. Get rid of the yeast, hops, or trub that made it into the fermenter. In this case, it really is a "secondary" fermentation due to the fruit.

I never had that much luck getting fruit flavor from the purees. I think you need some whole fruit to really get a good fruit flavor.

BTW, the Oregon canned purees are pasteurized, so there isn't any worries of infection from using them.

[brewinhard]

+1 for secondary. Wait till your fermentation starts to slow a bit (maybe around day 6 or 7) and then rack your beer on top of the fruit puree. I have had best results letting the beer sit on the fruit for at least 1 mos. If you want to kick up the flavor/aroma you can always add a small amount of fruit extract at packaging to complement the puree.

[bkrebsy]

I guess I will be the one to give you contradictory advice. I have brewed a Raspberry Wheat twice using the Oregon Puree. The first time I transferred to a secondary vessel and added the puree there. That worked just fine and the only big reason against doing that is sanitation concerns, but really, if you can't do that in a sanitary fashion, you shouldn't be making beer! The second time I simply added the puree directly to the fermenter after high krausen had passed. This also worked just fine, and it is what I would do when I use fruit puree again. It's one less vessel to clean and sanitize. Give the beer some time to rest after fermentation is complete, and the trub, yeast, fruit, etc. should settle out just fine. If the beer is kept cool, this should not take long enough to make autolysis a concern.

In my wheat beer, the puree adds plenty of raspberry flavor and tartness. I think it would work well in your porter. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

[booboo]

I guess I will be the one to give you contradictory advice. I have brewed a Raspberry Wheat twice using the Oregon Puree. The first time I transferred to a secondary vessel and added the puree there. That worked just fine and the only big reason against doing that is sanitation concerns, but really, if you can't do that in a sanitary fashion, you shouldn't be making beer! The second time I simply added the puree directly to the fermenter after high krausen had passed. This also worked just fine, and it is what I would do when I use fruit puree again. It's one less vessel to clean and sanitize. Give the beer some time to rest after fermentation is complete, and the trub, yeast, fruit, etc. should settle out just fine. If the beer is kept cool, this should not take long enough to make autolysis a concern.

In my wheat beer, the puree adds plenty of raspberry flavor and tartness. I think it would work well in your porter. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

That is what I was thinking. After fermentations slows add the puree and mix it all up. The trub and stuff will settle out real fast. I like the idea of keeping all the yeast in the fermenter and I do not like the idea of a secondary. I was planning on leaving it for a couple weeks at the most then rack to a keg. After all of the posts telling me to do a secondary has really got me thinking though.

Today is day three and fermentation is starting to slow. I am really thinking maybe tomorrow I will dump it in.