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8lbs of peaches in secondary

Northern Brewer General
#1

Hey all:

I brewed an american wheat a few weeks ago, and just last weekend racked the beer on top of 8 lbs of pureed peaches. The night before I took the frozen peaches, pureed them, cooked them to 160 in a double boiler, and froze them for a night. The next day I thawed the peaches and racked as stated.

My question, I have opened the lid a few times (between Sunday and today) and noticed that some of the peaches are actually floating on top. I did this because I hadn’t been seeing much airlock or krausen activity. Did the “secondary” fermentation already take place? I’m planning on taking a gravity reading tonight. Hopefully it’s peachy enough!

#2

The term secondary “fermentation” is misleading. It’s not really a fermentation so much as it is bulk aging.

In your case, the peaches probably added some additional sugars to ferment with, but not enough to cause major airlock activity.

Just let it sit for another week or so and bottle.

#3

8 pounds of peaches will definitely throw some fermentable sugars in there. A lot of your yeast dropped out in the primary, so secondary fermentation will be much slower and not quite as evident as far as a krausen and an airlock going crazy. I’d leave it in there for a minimum of 1 more week as mentioned above, but personally, I’d probably leave those peaches in there for 2 weeks and then rack it.

#4

I don’t typically secondary — I only do it when adding ingredients post primary or when aging (ie a barley wine). I also added 3/4 of sugar in with the peaches because they werent sweet enough. I know secondary fermentation will take place, and probably has, but płanning on leaving it for 2 weeks before kegging.

#5

That oughta do it :cheers:

#6

My last peach wheat didn’t come out with enough peach flavor to suit me. If yours needs a little boost, this is by far an away the best peach flavoring I have found.

http://www.olivenation.com/Search.aspx?k=peach+extract

#7

How many lbs of peaches did you use? I’ll let you know of the flavor in a week or 2.

#8

Hate to break it to you but the sugar you added won’t make it sweeter, it will just increase alcohol a smidge. I made a “peaches and cream” ale that i added some lactose to to add a little sweetness, worked out well. 8lbs should result in plenty of peach flavor.

The peaches will add fermentable sugar, so this is one of those few times when the term secondary fermentation is actually correct. Although it may have happened so quickly you didn’t notice. Like any other beer, give it a few weeks past when you think its done, make sure the gravity is stable, and call it good.

#9

I am completely aware that the sugar is 100% fermentables. I didn’t add it to make it sweeter, rather it was used to bump the gravity (aprox. 4% before peach addition) and dry it out. Thank you for the reply, but my question was already answered.

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