Making space in primary for fruit (puree)

[bradfordmonk]

I have a new beer i just put in primary yesterday. Any thoughts if I can pull some beer out of primary when it's done fermenting to make room for a can of the oregon fruit puree (raspberry)?

My thought process...

Get more yeast activity to convert sugar in puree in primary to get a boost to alcohol content (since i missed my numbers originally)

Was thinking of moving to secondary after wards and adding additional frozen raspberries there for the flavor.


How would I add puree to Primary, just poor it in and let it go (splashing as little as possible)? Would I stir gently to mix it and pull some yeast around to get it? I assume the puree would be heaver and fall to the bottom of primary.

Thoughts?

 

[chickypad]

You likely won't get an alcohol boost from fruit due to the water content, read here. If I were you I would just rack onto all the fruit in secondary.

 

[bradfordmonk]

You likely won't get an alcohol boost from fruit due to the water content, read here. If I were you I would just rack onto all the fruit in secondary.

Oooh...thanks. Although it made my head hurt from all those numbers mixed in with the letters

 

[Matt3989]

Why do you want to add it in the primary, as opposed to just all of it in the secondary?

 

[aiptasia]

Nothing wrong with adding the fruit to the primary, either. The only reason to use a secondary is to clarify your beer or rack it off of the yeast cake. In this instance, i'd rather see you rack the fruit on the yeast, watch it go through a secondary fermentation, then rack to a secondary (or just your bottling bucket) to clarify the beer. Racking to a secondary adds one more possible source of infection so i'm lax to use them when I don't have to.

 

[bradfordmonk]

Why do you want to add it in the primary, as opposed to just all of it in the secondary?

I was thinking that of a secondary fermentation for the yeast to get some flavor/aroma (figured some would be lost to yeast eating the sugars, so flavor would be lighter), then move it all to secondary on top of frozen raspberries to get it another dose of raspberry goodness.

 

[Matt3989]

Nothing wrong with adding the fruit to the primary, either. The only reason to use a secondary is to clarify your beer or rack it off of the yeast cake. In this instance, i'd rather see you rack the fruit on the yeast, watch it go through a secondary fermentation, then rack to a secondary (or just your bottling bucket) to clarify the beer. Racking to a secondary adds one more possible source of infection so i'm lax to use them when I don't have to.

typically people don't use a secondary because they don't want to introduce more oxygen into their beer (with good sanitation techniques, that's really the only risk). If you're adding more fermentable sugars to inactive yeast, wouldn't the yeast go through a second aerobic cycle before fermentation begins, therefore absorbing any (little tiny bit of) oxygen introduced during the racking process. With a secondary the yeast that have already fallen out of suspension won't wake up during this second fermentation period.

The argument to clarify beer in a secondary is flawed though, and it has been argued to death on here. yeast fall out of suspension in the primary exactly the same as they would in the secondary, clarifying the beer at exactly the same rate. if you're going to sink your fruit addition, or if it's something that naturally sinks, a secondary is nice because the fruit won't be half covered by the yeast cake and cold break.

 

[Matt3989]

I was thinking that of a secondary fermentation for the yeast to get some flavor/aroma (figured some would be lost to yeast eating the sugars, so flavor would be lighter), then move it all to secondary on top of frozen raspberries to get it another dose of raspberry goodness.

Your yeast will still eat through every bit of sugar in the fruit you add to the secondary. Unless you stun them with Camden or something (I'm not too familiar with the process). After which you'll need to keg you're beer and artificially carbonate it. Racking to a secondary won't take the yeast out of the beer, there will still be plenty to ferment the second fruit addition