Fruit Additions

As my first brewing post I thought I'd discuss my recent adventure into fruit additions in secondary fermentation.  I'd recently picked up a few smaller carboys and wanted to try some basic fruit beers.

I started out by brewing an extract wheat kit from Brewer's Best (recipe).  This was super easy to brew because the kit was so basic.  I let it ferment in primary for about two weeks (longer than I'd wanted but no harm).  It was coming in at about 5% ABV when I took my hydrometer reading after primary.

I then picked up three pounds of fresh peaches (in season), one pound of frozen raspberries, and one pound of frozen dark cherries.  I cut, pureed, and heated the peaches to about 150 degrees for ten minutes to sanitize, then dropped in a three gallon carboy.  I took the raspberries and cherries and pureed them as well and dropped them into one gallon carboys, respectively.  I then racked the wheat beer on top, gave a small shake, and put my airlocks back on.

These sat for over a month with activity been seen for the first week or so.  You can easily see the great coloration I got in the above pictures.

I then bottled (quite a pain in the ass with all the sediment), using carbonation tabs, and let the brews sit for another two weeks.

This week I was able to finally taste test!

• Peach: I have the most of these and they surprisingly don't have much peach flavor.  You can get very light hints but it tastes very much of wheat.  If I do peach again I'd either add significantly more peaches or a peach extract to bump up the flavor
• Raspberry: Fantastic!  This beer has a tart raspberry taste and the color is fantastic!  I'll definitely make more (most likely a 5 gallon batch).  This is a great smooth drinker and I think most palates would enjoy
• Dark Cherry: Great cherry flavor as well, not as strong as the raspberry but much more than the peach.  I won't have any problem getting rid of these either

Cheers!