Secondary Fermenter with a Bluberry Weiss

[sterno74]

So last summer I whipped up a Strawberry Weiss beer that was pretty good and I'm trying Blueberry this year. What I'm wondering though is if I can save myself some trouble and skip using a secondary fermenter in the process.

The first time I did this, I racked the beer to secondary, but my other carboy is only 5 gallons. So when I then added a bunch of strawberries it was a big foamy mess. Beer turned out fine in the end, but I'm wondering if I can avoid the mess/hassle of it.

So my thinking was to let the initial fermentation run for about a week. Then once it's settled down, add the blueberries to the primary. Leave it on the fruit for 2-3 weeks, then keg it.

My impression from searching for info on this was that the only reason you truly need a secondary vessel is if you need to leave the beer to age for an extended period of time. Most of what I read suggests that most of the fruit flavor will be extracted in a few weeks, so I wouldn't think that's a problem.

 

[UncleRusty]

I've been debating doing the same thing. I've done fruit in a secondary before which turns out well. But I think I'm going to try doing a beer or cider in the future with the fruit directly in the primary to see how it turns out. I'm not sure if there are any caveats to doing so.

 

[sterno74]

So in conclusion this approach worked just fine. The beer isn't super blueberry flavored, but it's solidly tart and crisp. No evidence to suggest that keeping it in primary was a problem.

So I let it sit for two weeks in primary before adding blueberries, then let it sit another two weeks once I added the berries. From there I kegged it and after another two weeks or so of aging it's quite tasty.