I’m in process with a wheat ale to which I’m going to add cranberries. I’m thinking about cold crashing then transferring to the keg, and then adding the bag of cranberries to sit until it hits the right flavor. My thinking is that cold crashing will prevent further fermentation after adding the cranberries and will bring more cranberry flavor. Or am I crazy?
Crashing first might not totally prevent it, but it would definitely slow/inhibit it. I’d wait until you give the fruit 10 days - 2 weeks to ferment.
EDIT - The 10 days - 2 weeks is what I use for fruit purees. Using whole fruit you would obviously need to give the fruit more time.
I have never thought to do it this way. I currently have 2.5# of pineapple sitting in 5 gallons of wit. I wanted it to restart fermentation to avoid a sugary mess. I don’t think your idea would work well for sweeter fruits but maybe cranberry will be good.
As long as you keep the keg in the fridge, I don’t see any issue. Also I would cold crash for a full 24 hours before adding the cranberries to avoid further fermentation.
Why do you not want the yeast to ferment the additional fruit sugars? I think that the yeast byproducts of fermenting the fruit sugars would be what you want in a fruit beer. Unless you are looking to retain sweetness from the fruit, but cranberries don’t have a ton of sweetness in the first place. If that is the route you are looking to go, then why not try adding some actual cranberry juice (without preservatives of course) to give you that fruit punch? Or better yet, try adding the fruit and the fruit juice.
You’re not going to completely halt fermentation unless you pasteurize, sterile filter or use sorbate/sulfite. You will slow it down a bit, but any yeast that are there will still slowly eat up any sugars you introduce. You’re better off just adding more fruit if you want more flavor. There’s nothing wrong with adding a second addition of fruit if the first one doesn’t give you as much flavor as you’d like.