Was going to make a raspberry tincture and was thinking of pureeing the frozen-then-thawed raspberries either with or prior to adding the vodka to increase surface area. Is there any reason not to do this?
Nope, that will work. Although my preference is always to skip the vodka. Maybe you can’t avoid it, but if you can, I’d advise you to not use it.
so you just puree and add directly to the beer? This is actually for a raspberry golden sour (lacto+brett trois) that I wanted to get some color in and add another layer of ‘fresh’ raspberry flavor (as opposed to fermented).
FWIW I was planning on stabilizing this one with campden and potassium sorbate prior to kegging.
Yeah, I always add fruit (and other stuff) without doing the vodka thing. Works fine and I get more flavor that way. Plus, no alcohol heat from the tincture. As I’ve said many times, I even add unsanitized wild mushrooms without problems.
I guess I’m just wondering if the hearty little guys that are still living in this beer after a year and a half will go to work on the fructose in the raspberries. It has been cold crashing for 1.5 weeks or so, and I am planning on stabilizing. So I guess I can just add the puree after stabilizing to the fermenter.
They will ferment the sugar added by the raspberries. My sours that get fruit typically need about 6-8 weeks to complete the refermentation and reach a stable FG. In my experience, it also helps the flavors to come together, mine have all tasted much better about 3 months after adding the fruit, so I’ll let it ferment the fruit, then keg/bottle and tap it about 2-3 months later.
+1 to this.
See this is the issue though, I’ve already done this with this beer. I added 5# of thawed raspberries along with a pitch of Brett Trois about a year ago. What I am trying to do is impart color and a fresher raspberry (not fermented raspberry) note. Right now the beer’s color is somewhere between a kolsch and an amber. I think I may just do a tincture.
I know this isn’t traditional for most wild ale brewing methods, but the beer just seems to need another flavor element for it to really shine.