Fruits In Beers

[Liberate88]

I have mainly been doing kits and following recipes but I'm going to start making my own recipes and I'm trying to experiment a bit. I am hearing a lot about using fruits, berries ect in beers but how is this done? I'm hoping to make a sort of red coloured ale, not as bitter as an english bitter (since I've already got tones of that still). Are there any fruits you should not put in together?
Do you guys have any suggestions with what fruits would be good to use as ingredients? :beer:

 

[Muggus]

Most berries are good for putting in beers, particularly raspberries, they have a strong flavour and colour, so a little goes a long way.
Of course, if your beer has a strong flavour or colour to it, the fruit might not be as noticable.

 

[Liberate88]

yeah I thought most berries would go well but I mean how do you do it? Just cut it up and stir it up in the boiling wort, or do you need to crush the fruit first? sorry I dont know much.

 

[0M39A]

if possible, freeze them first for a bit, then boil them in a couple of litres of water and hopefully they will pulp up nicely (and get rid of any nastys).

add them to secondary.

 

[///]

Never use watermelon. Bad personal experience here.

Better off to rack to a secondary and then add. Adding to primary ferment will leave a high degree of color loss (yeast can soak up to 25% of color) and its harder to manage the flavour.

Or, you can always buy extract used by distillers and add to a secondary to taste!

Scotty

 

[Phrak]

I spent quite a while researching fruit sanitisation for my cherry blonde. The summary of my research is here:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=183275

short version:
- DON'T boil, you'll lose all your fruity goodness & create pectic acid, causing a haze.
- DON'T pulp. Don't bother - This will just make it harder to rack your beer off the fruit. See "Freezing" below.
- DON'T use in primary, you'll ferment-out all your flavour and aroma.

- DO sanitise in water at 80C for 1min or 70C for 2mins. Use a hop-sock or muslin wrap to allow the hot-water to touch all the fruit. Using a zip-lock bag is mostly pointless.
- DO freeze your fruits for a few days or weeks before you use it. This will break-down the cell membranes and make the fruitiness easier to extract into your beer.
- DO use in secondary.
- DO use a sediment reducer, if only so your fruit bits don't clog your tap-hole.

If you're worried about pectic haze, you can use a pectic enzyme to break-down the acid. Should be available from your LHBS.

Unless you grow them yourself, don't bother with strawberries - you need a truck-load of them to make any impression on the beer.

And use twice as much berries as you think you'll need. B)

Good luck!
:beer:
Tim

 

[Phrak]

I've added some of this information to the WIKI:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/ineo...;showarticle=39
Feel free to contribute to the article

Brew strong! :beerbang:
Tim

 

[joshuahardie]

I made a Cherry Blonde, and a Rasberry Blonde a few weeks ago.

Just did it the very simple way.

Made up a K&K batch of Canadian Blonde, and brewed for 5 days.
I then racked my beer to 2 seperate fermenters, and in one added 750gms of frozen good quality rasberries, in the other i added 1.5kgs of jarred cherries.

I didn't just dump them into the fermenter, i put the fruit into sanitised stockings. i gave the fruit a bit of a squash in the stockings, to break the fruit up slightly.

then i let it sit for another week, before bottling

results are, the cherry blonde has a wonderful red colour, nice fruit aroma, but the end result, was very 'cordial' tasting. it is on the higher end of sour, with a fair amount of mouth pucker, but if you like things like lemon/lime/bitters as a drink, it was more than palatable. Possibly i could of used less cherries, or omitted the juice out of the jars.

the rasberry blonde, is a real winner. colour is light amber with a soft touch of pink, the taste of the fruit is subtle, but perfectly suited to the beer. Nice simple blonde foretaste, with a soft fruit aftertaste. i would definatly attempt this one again, i think the better quality fruit, was worth the small extra expense.

I brewed it simply as an exercise, to give to my friends, to get their girlfriends, and wives, to look at beer in a more positive light. and from that regard, a fairly plain, lightly fruity beer was a winner.

it is never going to be great like a fruit lambic, but as a start, it was a great experiment.

 

[petesbrew]

I spent quite a while researching fruit sanitisation for my cherry blonde. The summary of my research is here:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=183275

short version:
- DON'T boil, you'll lose all your fruity goodness & create pectic acid, causing a haze.
- DON'T pulp. Don't bother - This will just make it harder to rack your beer off the fruit. See "Freezing" below.
- DON'T use in primary, you'll ferment-out all your flavour and aroma.

- DO sanitise in water at 80C for 1min or 70C for 2mins. Use a hop-sock or muslin wrap to allow the hot-water to touch all the fruit. Using a zip-lock bag is mostly pointless.
- DO freeze your fruits for a few days or weeks before you use it. This will break-down the cell membranes and make the fruitiness easier to extract into your beer.
- DO use in secondary.
- DO use a sediment reducer, if only so your fruit bits don't clog your tap-hole.

If you're worried about pectic haze, you can use a pectic enzyme to break-down the acid. Should be available from your LHBS.

Unless you grow them yourself, don't bother with strawberries - you need a truck-load of them to make any impression on the beer.

And use twice as much berries as you think you'll need. B)

Good luck!
:beer:
Tim

Top advice, Tim.

I made a raspberry canadian blonde too . I used about 1.3kg raspberries total between the primary and secondary. Yep, the primary strips a lot of the flavour. Secondary is better bang for your buck.

I didn't use a stocking for my raspberries, and there was um, a fair bit of sediment in every bottle.
I used a tea strainer for all the beers, until the last bottle, where I was brave enough to enjoy the pulp as well. IMO it was brilliant, and regretted not ditching the tea strainer earlier.
My only regret was dry hopping some cascade, which IMO didn't work with the raspberry flavour.

Tried a mate's Passionfruit Imperial Stout the other night. Very interesting. I'm going to follow his lead but try racking a small portion of my next toucan stout onto some mulberries.
All the best with your fruit beer, mate
Pete

 

[bconnery]

Unless you grow them yourself, don't bother with strawberries - you need a truck-load of them to make any impression on the beer.

And use twice as much berries as you think you'll need. B)

Good luck!
:beer:
Tim

Another option is to buy a big box of very ripe "jamming" strawberries from a grower. At a farmer's market or berry place you can often get a box for about $5-8 (or at least you could last time I did...)

3kg in a light wheat gives enough of an impact but not the same fruitiness of other fruits...

On the other hand a mate of mine just put about 8kgs in his strawberry beer

 

[bconnery]

1.3kgs of frozen rasberries certainly works well. My berry hefeweizen is going great guns.



Petesbrew, very interested about the mulberry idea. I've had it in mind for ages but keep having too much on come mulberry season, maybe this year...

Let us know how the experiement goes because I'm trying to get an idea on amounts...



I'd second pretty much all the research on the best methods there.

It's kind of the method I've decided on...

Freeze, microwave, secondary, strain into tertiary/bottling bucket.

I like experimenting with fruit beers but it is all a matter of finding the right amounts for a particular fruit, that's the fun.

Fresh/frozen fruit, never extract or concentrate is the only way for me. All the best homebrewed and commerical fruit beers I have tried used real fruit.

 

[fixa]

I've been making a cherry pale ale. Start with a pale ale base, the rack it onto a tin of cherrys slightly mashed. Leave for a week. Sensational.
I've tried the morello cherries and the sour cherries as well, the morello's are slightly sweeter, but the sour ones are sweet too. Just a different kind of beer that most people will like i've found. Leaves the APA's to me!!!

 

[tk75]

I'm going to follow his lead but try racking a small portion of my next toucan stout onto some mulberries.

Hey Pete, hows that stout coming along?? I have been reading into the addition of fruit quite a bit and I'm really tempted to give it a shot. I was thinking maybe raspberries or blackberries in my next 2can stout...

 

[barls]

here is my thread on raspberry wheat
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;f=4&t=5546

 

[petesbrew]

Hey Pete, hows that stout coming along?? I have been reading into the addition of fruit quite a bit and I'm really tempted to give it a shot. I was thinking maybe raspberries or blackberries in my next 2can stout...

Hi Maltaddict,
It's still in the secondary at the moment, although I'm planning on bottling it by sunday.
I've put in two of those takeaway tubs full of frozen mulberries (not sure of the weight), but from the taste, it could use at probably two more, as the mulberry flavour is pretty weak... well, considering it's in a toucan I guess it's not suprising.

Also I must shamedly admit, I've been pretty bloody slack with sanitation, but I'll blame that on a strong swap beer consumed before racking, and the fact it's only 7litres worth of the toucan!
Will post again once it's bottled and carbonated.
Good luck with yours, mate :beer:

 

[tk75]

Hi Maltaddict,
It's still in the secondary at the moment, although I'm planning on bottling it by sunday.
I've put in two of those takeaway tubs full of frozen mulberries (not sure of the weight), but from the taste, it could use at probably two more, as the mulberry flavour is pretty weak... well, considering it's in a toucan I guess it's not suprising.

Also I must shamedly admit, I've been pretty bloody slack with sanitation, but I'll blame that on a strong swap beer consumed before racking, and the fact it's only 7litres worth of the toucan!
Will post again once it's bottled and carbonated.
Good luck with yours, mate :beer:

Cheers Pete!



Ok, I'm thinking then I should use something near 1.5kg of whatever berries I go with...

 

[barls]

with the raspberries depending on where you get them. if they have are from a farm or have been fresh bought do not go over a kg in a light flavoured beer as mine was on the upper limit. if its the supermarket ones go for it they have little to no aroma

 

[petesbrew]

Just finished bottling the mulberry stout. Suprisingly I didn't have too many problems with the seeds, up until the final three stubbies. Then there was a fair bit of clogging. Took a good scooping with a strainer, and a knife jabbing to the seeds that caught in the tap strainer to finish the job.

Actually last time I made a raspberry blonde, I forgot to put in that tap strainer. Turned out it was for the best, apart from a 2cm layer of rapsberry pulp in each bottle! (added to the taste I found)

See for yourself with the photos.... a grainbag or hop sock would be recommended, but read the notes in the Wiki section.

Shall post again upon tasting.

 

[tk75]

Just finished bottling the mulberry stout. Suprisingly I didn't have too many problems with the seeds, up until the final three stubbies. Then there was a fair bit of clogging. Took a good scooping with a strainer, and a knife jabbing to the seeds that caught in the tap strainer to finish the job.

Actually last time I made a raspberry blonde, I forgot to put in that tap strainer. Turned out it was for the best, apart from a 2cm layer of rapsberry pulp in each bottle! (added to the taste I found)

See for yourself with the photos.... a grainbag or hop sock would be recommended, but read the notes in the Wiki section.

Shall post again upon tasting.

View attachment 14914View attachment 14915

Scoop out the remainder, put into a saucepan and reduce to a thick syrup. Bottle in sterlized jars, store for 1 week then apply liberly to golden toasted crumpets...F%$KN YUM!! :beerbang:

 

[bconnery]

with the raspberries depending on where you get them. if they have are from a farm or have been fresh bought do not go over a kg in a light flavoured beer as mine was on the upper limit. if its the supermarket ones go for it they have little to no aroma

Hard to say as they depend on the beer too. I used 1.3kg of the 'Gourmet' brand frozen berries in a wheat and it was great for colour and flavour. I'd much prefer fresh though...