Fruit beers and potential problems

[mmmBeer...]

I have a recipe for a honey raspberry ale my wife has asked me to make for her. The recipe says to turn of the heat after an hour-long boil and add the frozen raspberries to the cooling wort. After 20 min transfer to the primary fermentor. It makes no mention of straining the wort into the primary, which makes sense, as we want the fruit to go into the fermentor. So, my question is: should I strain the wort prior to adding the fruit. I figure using my strainer I can collect most of the hops and any left over grains this way. I have never not strained a beer before putting it into primary, and wondered what the extra trub will do to the beer.

Second, how do I prevent the fruit from clogging the siphon when transferring to secondary (or will it settle to the bottom with the trub?) BTW I use glass carboys for both primary and secondary.

[toneyc]

You should not have any problems from having trub in the primary. I don't strain my wort at all, I just pour it from the brewpot directly into the primary. I figure that's why we have a secondary fermentor. Out of curiosity, how do you normally strain your wort? I tried straining mine through cheesecloth once. That was a serious pain! And my beer didn't taste any better for it, that I could tell.

:) Toney.

[Fast_Eddy]

When I feel like the wort needs a little cleaning going into the primary I use a strainer on the end of the racking tube. I cool the wort in the kettle and then rack it off into the primary.

[mmmBeer...]

To strain I just use a stainless steel wire strainer. For the first part of the pour the strainer doesn’t really catch much, but later in the pour it starts to fill. When the strainer starts to fill, I stop pouring and stir the trub(?) so that the liquid pours through., I then rinse the junk with water to get all the goodness out and poor again. Takes a little more time, but then again I have less crap to clean out of the carboy:)

[Daren]

I made a raspberry apple cider once. To keep what was left of the berries from clogging my racking cane during the transfer to the secondary, I just tied a piece of sanitized window screen around the intake of the cane. It seemed to work well.

[Tom C]

Persoanlly, I add my fruit to the secondary. In the primary, the active fermentation tends to kill off any flavor or aroma the fruit will tend to give to an ale. I also use frozen fruit as compared to fresh due to the cell walls of the fruits having been collapsed in the frozen fruit allowing for better fruit extraction.

Tom C

[paul84043]

I agree with Toney, I used to worry about straining my beer, but gave up, I noticed no downside to leaving all the stuff in it, and I think that leaving the hop residue actually improved the hop presence a bit. I just pour it all in!!

As for fruit beers...I think we just had a tread on it a few weeks ago...
My personal experience has been, sterile puree or fresh, frozen to break down the cell walls. Added to the primary after about 5 days, give it another 5 or so depending on activity, then transfer to secondary and continue as normal.

I have a raspberry wheat that I put in a party pig for the 4th!!..mmmmm all of it that I bottled is long gone already.

[Moboy]

How did you sanitize the berries? Did you steam them or what? I am in the process of making a blackberry hefe and am curious. Also, how dark did the berries turn your brew?

Brandon