Value of Secondary

“ …the only fruit beers I brew involve brett or bugs. For them I will rack to a clean 6.5 gallon carboy with so that I can have the full volume of beer(10 pounds of crabapples takes a lot of space) and I do need room for the new krausen. I tend to leave the fruit in the beer for 6-9 months so leaving it on the trub that long would be too much.”

I agree that you should transfer your fruited beers to a secondary since you age your fruit beers (6-9 months).

I have seen recipes which call for the fruit being present in the beer for a timeframe of 2-3 weeks. For a timeframe of 2-3 weeks is a secondary fermenter absolutely necessary? Couldn’t you have added the fruit to the primary (after the wort has completed fermentation) and just let the fruit sugars secondary ferment in the primary or 2-3 weeks?

I personally have let my beer (non-fruited) ‘sit’ in my primary bucket for up to 5 weeks with no ill effects.

Cheers!

 

Brett and bacteria work on a different time frame than regular beer yeast, especially on whole fruit. My Flanders Red had 10 pounds of cherries for almost a year before the cherry flavor was intense enough. If I had used puree, juice or flavorings it would be faster, but that wasn't the beer I was brewing. BTW that one was almost three years from the kettle to the keg, and another 3 years to drink. It finally died a glorious death in Oktober.
I normally leave beer in primary 3-5 weeks regardless of whether it's in my buckets, carboy or SS conical. Technically I do use extended secondary because I rack my beer to kegs purged with CO2 and allow them to sit for a couple of weeks minimum. I know how hard is is to be patient with beer but I always have enough on hand that I'm not in a hurry for any particular batch

 

Okay, here's an way to check.

Make 2 x 1 gal starters at target gravity of 1.068 (maybe using wort from any batch around this gravity).
Pitch 1/2 of a smack pack into both starters equally (ie measured volumes of yeast slurry, ~50 mL each). That should put you at about 12 million cells/mL, or 1 million cells/degree Plato.
Allow both to fully ferment, wait another week to allow complete flocculation of yeast.
Decant one of them into another 1 gallon container, leaving behind all the flocced yeast. A siphon would be even better.
Now, add simple sugar to both. You could add like 1/2 lb of fruit, or even a concentrated sugar solution.
Place an airlock on both containers.
Count bubble rates from both. Measure gravity every day.

If I'm right, the transferred starter will bubble slower and the gravity will drop slower. I think it will also look clearer during this process: the untransferred container will appear cloudier, as the yeast "unfloc" and begin moving around while consuming the sugars.

And of course, the real question: do they taste any different? That's really the toughy.

(Note: I am not planning on doing this - but it would be interesting.)

 

That looks like a sweet experiment there.

Not to sound cranky (but I will) but I have become bored with this topic. Time to think of some other esoteric topic to have a discussion about.

Cheers!

 

That's a shitty definition that defies gravity : )