Using Frozen Raspberries

[bconnery]

From my (albeit limited) experience with putting fruit in too soon - the yeast strips out all the colour and flavour - leaving less in the finished product.

Just my 2c - if you want maximum flavour and colour from the fruit - add in secondary - leave for a week.

RM

I agree with this. I do place mine in the primary, but after the bulk of fermentation is complete.
I used to rack to secondary, but as I also used to rack again to help clear the fruit out to eliminate steps I now just add to the primary in the same manner I do for dry hopping.
I then do a mini secondary where I rack to another fermenter for the crash chill and bottle/kegging stage.

 

[HoppingMad]

From my (albeit limited) experience with putting fruit in too soon - the yeast strips out all the colour and flavour - leaving less in the finished product.

Just my 2c - if you want maximum flavour and colour from the fruit - add in secondary - leave for a week.

RM

I guess in a commercial situation they don't take risks with contamination (a batch of thousands of litres opened up part way through would be a no go for this guy) hence why the fruit is added when the fermentation vessel is first opened.

Also being commercial all the fruit stays in the one fermenter through primary and secondary process and he's not unsealing the tank at any time, again to avoid infection risk. We homebrewers have the luxury I guess of doing additions when we want without stressing about mega-gallons of infected wort.

The brewer's method is aiming for a subdued fruit flavour so it is part of the composition of the beer and you can still taste some malt. The beer does have good fruit colour but for all I know this could be an artificial addtion later (didn't think to ask) - so you might have a point there Roger. That said flavour wise the technique seems to result in a nicely balanced beer, not a "whack pow hey yeah there's the fruit where's the rest of it?" beer

If you want a beer where the fruit is bigger then yeah - that could be the way to do it (adding in secondary). If you want balance with other ingredients, the commercial way might have merit.

Hopper.