I am fermenting my first fruit beer, a raspberry porter. I let primary fermentation go for 4 days and had great activity during that time. SG 1.062 down to 1.020. So I racked out of the bucket which started with about 5.5 gals, added sterilized raspberries, 4 lbs, into a 6 gallon carboy. I left a good amount of liquid and yeast in the bottom of the bucket. I had a pretty full carboy but thought I might be OK. That was about 9PM last night and by 10PM I had cleaned out the air lock twice and thought I should just use a bung with tube going into some water. That worked better and this morning it looked fine but all the raspberry solids had risen to top of the neck. Still bubling through the hose but getting some liquid up there also. Made breakfast a little later and when I came back, all the raspberry solids where setting on top of the carboy and the bung/hose was on the floor. I believe I had most of the juice already out of the berries since most were white or light pink. Fermentation is still going strong and color has lots of red in it. Has anyone else had this type of activity with fruit beers and do you think I got all the sugars out of the raspberries? Thanks,
Sounds like you could definitely use some more head room but I’m sure everything should be fine. I brew with fruit a lot. I usually put all the fruit in the primary and let it sit for about 7-10 days depending on activity. There’s always a heap of fruit at the top with a ton of foam on top of that. If it’s still bubbling (with enough pressure to blow the plug out), keep it going!
Funny, even my non-brewing wife said, “is there enough room in that?” I almost racked it back into the 7 gal bucket, but… Anyway, it has good co2 production, looks great and I am letting it run its course. You said you put the fruit in at the start of fermentation. Do you rack to a secondary later to help clear the beer? All of my research said to add fruit to a secondary fermentor after about 4 days. I have planned on a tertiary fermentation for 2 weeks, after leaving it on the fruit for 10 days, to get the fruit residue out and help clear the beer.
Yeah, exactly. I usually run the primary fermentation a bit longer when using fruit. Then I’ll rack to the secondary and let it sit for another week to clear it out. I usually just keg the secondary (rather than racking over a second time), so using the fruit in the primary works best for me. It’s all about preference I suppose.
What did you brewing wife say? ;D