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Going to dump 2 kg of frozen raspberries in about 17 litres of beer. They are PC brand, just trying to figure out if I have to hear them to pasteurize - I know iqf berries you don't, but don't know if these berries are frozen that way

Any thoughts appreciated!

If they are in those plastic white zip top bags, I am pretty sure they are IQF.

mr x wrote:If they are in those plastic white zip top bags, I am pretty sure they are IQF.

They are those! Good to hear. I'll let em start defrosting to be put in the carboy

On the other side of things, will 2kg be enough? Hoping for strong flavour and a pink tinge. 2kg in 17L is approx 1 lb per USG

Should be reasonable. I think they might be easier to handle frozen.

Strong flavor is a bit of a stretch though. Think tart with most berries.

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I had been concerned about them dropping the beer temp if I don't let them defrost. Overly cautious?

I don't think you need to worry. How fresh is the beer? I think the yeast should be fine.

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Two weeks. Going to let the berries sit til I'm heading to bed, transfer then.

Outside where the air's warmer

I see. I meant they would be easier to dump in the carboy frozen. Which you did already .

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Yeah they definitely were. I have no idea how I was planning to get them in after defrosting.

I use the same brand for my strawberry wheat and cherry cream. I don't sanitize nor let them warm up. I crash my beer 24-48 hrs before I rack on to the fruit and leave it frozen. Never had an issue yet.

I find if you get them frozen too it saves loss of juices if harvesting fresh fruit to freeze to sanitize. I read on another beer site that racking on frozen fruit is good as the beer will help kill off things in the frozen fruit before it wakes up. No clue how legit that is.

Wildcard wrote:I use the same brand for my strawberry wheat and cherry cream. I don't sanitize nor let them warm up. I crash my beer 24-48 hrs before I rack on to the fruit and leave it frozen. Never had an issue yet.

I find if you get them frozen too it saves loss of juices if harvesting fresh fruit to freeze to sanitize. I read on another beer site that racking on frozen fruit is good as the beer will help kill off things in the frozen fruit before it wakes up. No clue how legit that is.

The key point here is IQF = Individually Quick Frozen.

Freezing fruit or anything else in a normal fashion typically doesn't kill much bacteria that's harmful to beer. The "IQF" process freezes the fruit so fast that it basically kills anything harmful to beer.

If you've been dumping these packages into your beer without ill effects there's good reason for it

Good to know. Plus this IQF process makes the berries stupid easy to handle as they are smashed into a big berry ice block.

The other option I have read but not tries is soaking in vodka or another hard liquor that will be masked or consumed by the beer itself. Like bourbon for a stout etc.

Wildcard wrote:Good to know. Plus this IQF process makes the berries stupid easy to handle as they are smashed into a big berry ice block.

The other option I have read but not tries is soaking in vodka or another hard liquor that will be masked or consumed by the beer itself. Like bourbon for a stout etc.

I have soaked blueberries that I picked this way. It was a lot of vodka to use, but tasty afterwards (the vodka, the mead was so-so tasting but not infected) so if you can afford to make that much berry vodka then it works fine.

The iqf raspberry from superstore worked great. Terrific flavour and colour. Base beer needed work... May try a raspberry porter soon.