Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Have a wheat beer fermenting right now. The plan is to add 4 cartons of Blackberries in secondary. They were bought fresh, but have been in the freezer for a couple of weeks now.

Is freezing them good enough to kill off any stray bacteria or yeast on the fruit? So can I just add them straight to the beer?

Or, do I need to put them into a sulfate solution (Campden tabs) for a day to make sure everything is killed off?

I normally naturally carbonate my beers, so if I put the fruit soaked in the sulfate solution into the beer, do I risk killing off the dormant yeast cells left after fermentation? Would a good rinse of the berries in clean water before adding them help prevent/minimize that risk?

Can I add more new yeast to the beer after removing the fruit, when I add the corn sugar, to naturally carbonate the beer?

Or, am I just stuck having to force carbonate this beer?

This beer is planned for our Festival, so I don't want to F it up!

I heard of a way to do fruit in the microwave. I've been looking for an hour now and can't find the reference. But I have to believe that rinsed damp fruit and 30 to 60 sec in the mw would have to sterilize. Have you asked Lee yet?

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from a MTF answer on this: "If you froze the berries and then put them into an environment with alcohol and hop related compounds, your chance of infection by ambient yeast and bacteria should be pretty low. Not zero, mind you, but low."

I have heard if some people giving them a soak in a starsan or sulfite and then rinsing it, before freezing. I'm not sure how well this would work for you since they have been frozen (cells ruptured) already.

I personally wouldn't worry about it at all in the time it takes for sach to carbonate. Fruit for a week (maybe puree or mash them first for even lower contact time), keg and carb with sugar, and then put it at low temperature for stability.

I used fresh blueberry recently, puréed in a blender and froze for a few days before I added to secondary. Turned out pretty good.


Travis

When I did raspberries for the Disaster competition last year I racked right onto frozen berries and it turned out fine.

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Freezing does not kill bacteria or other spoilage organisms.

I have used sulfites in a variety of meads and ciders made with ale yeast. The sulfite does not harm the yeast, and bottle conditioning works just fine.

I rack products onto whole fruit all the time without problems. Generally, if you have a good base of alcohol, you will kill most spoilage organisms on the fruit -- but not all -- brett can still be an issue.

You can add a campden tablet to the beer when you add the fruit if you want to be certain. You should still be able to bottle/keg condition the product.

For my blueberry addition into the wort rally beer, I froze them, let them thaw, them pureed them in a food processor with a dash of vodka. Worked for me, but may have been overkill.

- Josh Peanasky

Thanks, Everybody! I knew I could count on my Beer Nuts homies!

Talked to both Jensen and Dr. Paulsen today about this and their advice was very similar to what you folks offered.

Thinking a quick rinse in StarSan, as a cautionary note, and just go for it after that.

Because your fresh berries have been frozen, I think I would go the vodka route.

If you thaw the berries and rinse them, you will lose much of the good tasting juice (released by the freeze/thaw process).

If you rinse frozen berries, chances are you will not get all of the bad guys, stuck under ice.

I would take the frozen berries, hit em with vodka and let them slowly thaw, covered in a StarSan rinsed container and lid. Once thawed, give them a good stir...let set a few minutes, and then pitch.

I also agree with Andrew, pitching into an alcohol and hop environment (especially with a vodka sani-stage), chances of introducing wild yeast is small.

Good luck.

Thanks D, but a day late. Pitched the berries in last night. Took them out of the freezer, tossed into a small bucket and covered with StarSan for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, then drained in the hop cone. Then inserted the cone into the FastFermenter. They were still frozen when they went into the beer. Pulled a sample before adding the berries - ABV is 6.2%. Fingers crossed.

If anything was left after the StarSan, the alcohol and hops will clean them up. It'll be fine.

So far, no signs of any activity in the air lock after 24 hours.