Speedy Fermentation and Adding Berries

[c0nsumer]

As some of you have probably read, I've been making a wheat berry ale which I pitched the yeast for on Thursday evening. Well, tonight when I got home from the weekend trip to the Michigan Beer Festival, I found that the ferment has progressed quite a bit. In 72 hours I'm down to about one bubble through the airlock every two seconds, but still a mighty head of whipped cream-like foam.

Here's my question... I was planning on waiting until the krausen drops (or a bit more time has passed -- maybe a week since pitching) and rack to beer to a 5 gallon carboy. Then I was going to clean the 6.5 gallon, put the berries in it, and rack the beer back on to the berries to restart the ferment.

Now I'm thinking that maybe I should just put the berries into the primary either tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday, and let the berries ferment out.

If you were in this situation, what would you do?

I'm thinking it might be best to stick with the original plan, as I'd get the berries away from a good bit of the original trub this way... But, I really don't know.

Thanks!

[HogieWan]

I usually try not to rack too many times, and there's a lot of viable yeast in that trub looking for something to do - It'd be a waste to get rid of them.

[Dextolen]

I just did my first raspberry wheat. Everything I read was telling me to add the raspberries at secondary. It fermented like crazy for the first 2 days, to the point where I had to ditch the airlock and use a hose/water bucket combo.

[bruin_ale]

ditto what dextolen said. I did a raspberry wit a couple months ago. I just added the berries to the secondary fermentor and used a blow off for the first day and a half.

[c0nsumer]

For what it's worth, I racked the beer to secondary about five days after I pitched the yeast. The ferment slowed after three or four days, so I figured it was a good time to go. Things went at a decent rate for the first three or four days after adding the berries, then it started to taper off. I stirred the carboy gently every day to keep the fruit in the beer, because the especially thick krausen kept suspending berries where not much would happen to them.

Once things were really slow I racked the beer again and let it finish up for about a week and a half. A bit few wee bits of pulp came over into the tertiary carboy, so I used a mesh bag over the siphon when racking to the bottling bucket.

On bottling day the beer had an excellent taste to it, even with the priming sugar mixed in. In fact, a friend who doesn't care for beer managed to drink the half bottle which I first drained from the tube and bottling wand in order to ensure all the sanitizer was flushed out.

I hold very, very high hopes for this beer, and it should only be about another week and a half before its ready...

If you're interested in pictures, there are a couple of new ones here (http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/v/food/brewing_beer/berryale/?g2_page=2). I must say, once the berries get in the beer it gets fairly interesting looking. My batch even took on a nice pinkish red color. I can't wait to see how it looks in the glass...

Oh, one other thing, if you ever do anything with blueberries, be certain they are mashed. Freezing them alone does not damage the wall of the fruit enough, and I was left with a decent number of mostly intact blueberries in the trub, while the raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries were happily eaten to a pulp by the yeast.

[I'mRocketMan]

C0nsumer- I added 5# of frozen blueberries and 3#, 1 oz of the Oregon Blueberry puree to the secondary for my Romulan Ale! Really took off for several days. When I finally racked to tertiary, I tasted one of the berries- NO Blueberry flavor left! So I'm not sure that mashing the berries will make any more of a difference than just freezing them.

Cheers! Rocket

[c0nsumer]

Oh, it sounds like you had better results than I did... The blueberries that remained in the carboy intact had a bit of a berry taste to them, but there really wasn't much sweetness. So I guess it's arguable what happened in my case...

And after 1.5 weeks I'll be able to taste it. Woo!

[Dextolen]

I hear the main problem that can arise is an tart taste if you use a high attenuation yeast.

[c0nsumer]

I used a pretty high attenuation one, and it was kinda tart / sour when I bottled it. We'll see how it is once it's carbonated... Personally, I think the sour will likely go well with the predominantly raspberry / blackberry taste, just like in a framboise lambic.

Oh, the recipe is here (http://www.nuxx.net/files/beer7_notes.txt). The steps are a bit off, but the ingredient list is spot on.

Oh, if you go to use that yeast, be warned. It's crazy. The stuff makes a foamy krausen with the texture of whipped cream which will stay in place for a week after fermentation subsides.