Brewing a Berliner Weisse with Cranberries

Add the cranberries in the secondary. Currently doing a pineapple Berliner myself. Also, add the lacto and let it sit for at least a week before you pitch a nice neutral ale yeast.

 

I agree. I have tried a sour mash a couple of times now and it is just too easy for something other than lacto to start growing. Pitch lacto and make your life easier.

I always add fruit in the secondary and let the beer sit on it. If your berliner is going to be low in ABV than be sure you do something to sanitize the cranberries. A lot of beer spoiling bacteria can not handle alcohol above 4 %, so usually when you add fruit to an already fermented beer you are not in a high risk area for contamination. But if your berlier is below that than you are going to have to make sure you are not adding any beer spoiling bacteria when you add the fruit to the beer.

 

Any suggestions for sanitizing fruit?

 

Pasteurize! I would recommend using frozen cranberries heat in a bit of water to 180ish and hold for 20 min. The combo of freezing and heating does wonders for breaking down cell walls and getting the flavor out of your fruit. Do not boil it!

 

I have used fruit 20+ times with anything from pineapples, raspberries, cherries, oranges, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, currants, etc etc etc I have never pasteurized anything ever. I have frozen a few things, but I have also just used them straight from the market. Peel fruit, toss in carboy, and rack. I have read and heard that you will lose some of the volatile aromas and flavors from heating the fruit, but you seem to use that method a lot and like it. The point of my reply: you dont have to pasteurize, especially for a Berliner. If it does pick up some funk, sweet. The Berliner will benefit from it. Not saying you're wrong, it just isnt a necessary step, in my many experiences with working with fruit.

To the OP: I used frozen organic raspberries in 5 gallons of my last Berliner and it was pretty damn good. The tartness of the raspberries worked well with the tartness of the base beer, and I can see the same thing happening with cranberries. Good luck!

 

These are the benefits of these boards. I have never used unpasteurized fruits in my beers for fear of contamination and off flavors. I feel like my process works great! People need to hear both sides of a process and how they turn out. Then it becomes their decision! I may try a Berliner both ways next time and see which I like better! Cheers!

 

100% in agreement with this statement.

For my wild/sour projects I use fresh fruit that I pick or purchase from locals. If im not going to use the fruit right away, I might freeze it but I try to time my fruit beer brewing around the timeframe of acquiring the fruit.

Wild yeast is going to be on the fruit, there is no hiding that. Embrace what it can do! Please dont take my commets as being careless. I am super anal when it comes to cleaning, recleaning and sanitizing. I brew lots of wild stuff and have not cross-contaminated anything.

To relate back to what you are doing, I recently did a peach berliner from locally grown peaches. I bought them, brought them home and cut them into cubes and racked my berliner on top of them. After 3 weeks it formed a pretty serious pellicle but that berliner already had lacto and brett added to it.

I then purchased more peaches and racked a saison on top of them. After 3 weeks, the saison yeast broke down the peach flesh, no pellicle and no wild character at all. I am somewhat dissapointed as i was hoping the addition of fruit would bring critters into the mix. As of now, thats not the case and im not waiting around to find out. The saison smells/tastes too good and will most likely be totally consumed before anything wild has a chance to develope.

 

I missed the timeline for editing my post. kinda got carried away and I didn't directly respond like i wanted to with some opinions/comments

i was planning on doing a cranberry berliner as well, just havent gotten around to it yet. having it for thanksgiving is an awesome idea.

i would go with 3-5 pounds of cranberry for a 5 gal batch. if necessary, you can add more to ge nit where you want it. id use something like an old potato masher to mash the cranberries up before adding them

 

I used a little less than 5 lbs of raspberries for my Berliner for 5 gallons. It was a complete raspberry bomb! I used to mash, puree, shred in the food processor, whatever to my fruit and have since just started tossing them in. For large stuff, I cut into chunks that fit into the mouth of my carboy. I dont notice any difference at all, just less work. Like I said, having been down this road many times, just trying to share my experience. I have never used cranberries, though. One of the few fruits I can say I havent used yet!!