28 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

I have a long list of things that I tried to do as a new brewer and failed: Making delicate gold lagers, brewing with honey, successfully converting extract recipes to all-grain and brewing with fruit. I tried using extracts, puree and real fruit. The beers with fruit extract tasted like cough syrup and the puree and real fruit kicked up a secondary fermentation that went on forever and ended up drying out the beer terribly. I was just cutting up some strawberries and the thought of making a fruit beer hit me again. I thought about using a low-attenuating yeast like 1968 or maybe S-04. Make the beer with a low hopping rate and eventually send it to a secondary with some strawberries that have been pureed and heated to 175° or so on the stove in a pot. Allow that to sit and then transfer to a keg leaving all the fruit schputz behind. But what else can I do to avoid the beer turning out like dry champagne? Mash higher or use more chloride in the water? Has anyone found some magic with this?

[positiveContact]

I've never tried.  closest would be a bit of orange peel in a belgian beer.

[Big Nake]

I've done some lemon zest mixed with vodka in a secondary and that seems to work because there are no sugars in there (I assume). But I've tried using blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and possibly some others and it always came out so crazy dry. As I get more brewing experience, I feel like I want to tackle these spots where I've whiffed in the past. I have the gold lager thing down, recipe conversions have gone smoothly, I made this 20-year old metric/extract recipe and I envision making a fruit beer as my next hurdle.

[HVB]

A long time ago with this beer www.brews-bros.xyz/topic/71124-an-upcoming-golden-ale  I added some peach extract and it was a real hit.  I plan to make a peach sour or blonde ale this spring.  I have 10#'s of frozen peaches that I need to use up.

[Big Nake]

A long time ago with this beer www.brews-bros.xyz/topic/71124-an-upcoming-golden-ale  I added some peach extract and it was a real hit.  I plan to make a peach sour or blonde ale this spring.  I have 10#'s of frozen peaches that I need to use up.

I have used some extracts that are okay. There was a Crosby & Baker (forget which flavor) that was better and I also found some McCormick raspberry extract at the grocery store that actually made a decent beer. But you haven't made one with real fruit yet? I think that's the challenge right there. I'm envisioning an amber-colored beer hopped once at 60 minutes to maybe 20 or 25 IBUs with a clean hop. I want the fruit to be subtle but I'm not sure how much to use in 5 gallons. I'm thinking just one pound of pureed strawberries.

[EnkAMania]

I've done a strawberry cream ale, watermelon (like 21st Amendment) and pineapple.  Except for the watermelon, I do a combo of puree (made from fresh fruit) and extract.  

[Big Nake]

I've done a strawberry cream ale, watermelon (like 21st Amendment) and pineapple.  Except for the watermelon, I do a combo of puree (made from fresh fruit) and extract.

If you had a ballpark for how much fresh fruit in 5 gallons, what do you suppose it would be? Also, at what point did you add the fruit, was there a secondary fermentation and did it dry out your beer?

[HVB]

I have used some extracts that are okay. There was a Crosby & Baker (forget which flavor) that was better and I also found some McCormick raspberry extract at the grocery store that actually made a decent beer. But you haven't made one with real fruit yet? I think that's the challenge right there. I'm envisioning an amber-colored beer hopped once at 60 minutes to maybe 20 or 25 IBUs with a clean hop. I want the fruit to be subtle but I'm not sure how much to use in 5 gallons. I'm thinking just one pound of pureed strawberries.

Oregon Puree was my closest to real fruit

[EnkAMania]

If you had a ballpark for how much fresh fruit in 5 gallons, what do you suppose it would be? Also, at what point did you add the fruit, was there a secondary fermentation and did it dry out your beer?

I add after about four days.  For the pineapple and strawberry, about 48 ounces.  Then at kegging, I add a small amount of extract

[armagh]

Made far more meads with fruit than beer.  That said, strawberries would be one of the last fruits I would use again, right next to raspberries.  So difficult to get the essence of the fruit to come through without resorting to extracts.  If you have a bunch of strawberries you want to use, scrub clean, dry, place in freezer bag for at least a week (two would be better) and add in close to or after yeast exhaustion.  Freezing breaks down the skins and lets the aroma and taste leech out more easily.  Never done this with beer but with meads, I'd run the mead through a coarse filter post primary and add the fruit in secondary.  Might be a bit much for beer though.

 

With beer, maybe add some type of clarifier that would take the yeast out of suspension, transfer and add fruit?

Edited by armagh, 21 April 2017 - 09:35 AM.

[positiveContact]

Made far more meads with fruit than beer.  That said, strawberries would be one of the last fruits I would use again, right next to raspberries.  So difficult to get the essence of the fruit to come through without resorting to extracts.  If you have a bunch of strawberries you want to use, scrub clean, dry, place in freezer bag for at least a week (two would be better) and add in close to or after yeast exhaustion.  Freezing breaks down the skins and lets the aroma and taste leech out more easily.  Never done this with beer but with meads, I'd run the mead through a coarse filter post primary and add the fruit in secondary.  Might be a bit much for beer though.

 

would just buying frozen strawberries work?  I would think they clean those pretty well.

[armagh]

Yes, store-bought frozen fruit works fine.

[positiveContact]

Yes, store-bought frozen fruit works fine.

 

I'm just thinking b/c they are likely slightly cheaper.  I buy them for making smoothies.

[denny]

I'm kinda doing one now.  In the swag bags for PNWHC there was dried Spanish orange peel and blood orange puree.  So I'm doing an orange IPA with both.

[positiveContact]

that sounds like a fruit beer I would like.

[Big Nake]

I've had the thought of adding the fruit once the yeast was either out of the way *OR* adding the fruit when the beer (and presumably the yeast) were cold so that the yeast would be dormant. But in that case you're going to have sweet beer because the sugars wouldn't be metabolized by the yeast. I suppose you could use less of it but then you would be adding fruit puree directly to a keg (at least the way that I'm envisioning it) so you would really want to have the fruit well-blended/liquefied so you don't have chunks of berries in your beer.

[Stains_not_here_man]

Been a long time. I once made a beer out of prickly pear cactus fruit that someone on the greenboard described as being one of the tastiest beers ever. I'm a fruit beer fan, definitely plan to make some in the future.

[Big Nake]

I think Armagh has muddied my thinking a little bit because now I don't know if the fruit should be in secondary with the yeast allowed to metabolize it or add the fruit to cold beer so that the yeast is dormant. If I choose the latter, the beer would need to remain cold which is not an issue because once beer goes into a keg here, it's kept cold. But the difference between those two concepts could be big... the former might scrub out a lot of the fruit flavor and also dry out the beer. The latter might allow more of the fruit character into the beer but the sugars would remain so you might have to use less. This is definitely one reason why extract exists. I also just remembered that I went onto a website (OliveNation or something?) that carried A LOT of fruit extracts. I bought raspberry and also blackberry but when they arrived I wasn't really very impressed with their aroma. I probably should have dropped a little into a glass and tapped a beer on top of them but I either didn't do that or I *did* do that and didn't care for the flavor.

[Stains_not_here_man]

In the past I always put fruit in secondary and left it for 2 weeks or so. Works better with raspberries, not so well with strawberries.

[neddles]

Strawberry flavor is notorious for being difficult to get into the beverage. I once made a 5 gallon batch of mead with 18# of fresh picked strawberries in it. The aroma was amazing and you could smell the strawberry from the glass at 5 ft. away. Tasty mead but very little strawberry flavor at all. Also if you try to just add more strawberries to account for their subtlety you will be adding a significant amount of water to your beer as they are mostly water.