Kits and Fruit Juice

[BrisBrew]

Wondering if anyone has added fruit juice to a beer before for something different but not too different?

wondering how a morgans larger or ale will turn out if i substitute 4 or 6L of the 23L water with a fruit juice from coles or aldi. Maybe a mango or tropical one.

anyone tried this before or got a better idea?

Cheers

 

[Garagebrew]

I made a Coopers Canadian Blonde once or twice with a can of passion fruit pulp added.
I simmered it in a small pot of water for about 10 min before tipping it into the fermenter through a sieve, turned out pretty well and I had a lot of mates asking me to make it again, personally I got a bit sick of it by the end but I’d still say it’s worth a shot for something different, if you’re bottling it’l go great as a summer beer.

As for fruit juice I’ve never tried that aside from adding a touch of lemon juice to some stubbies of a cerveza kit once, one thing to consider is that the yeast is also going to consume the sugar from the juice so if your after the sweetness from the juice you might need to compensate with a non fermentable sugar/sweetener depending on what you’re after.

Hope this helps mate and good luck with the experiment, let us know how it goes.

 

[Rocker1986]

Nope. If I want fruity flavors I use hops that provide the flavors I'm chasing, and to a lesser extent yeast selection.

 

[Garagebrew]

I agree hops and yeast selection are the way to go, I never really played around with them until I moved onto extract and then all grain beers and then you have all the malt varieties to choose from as well.

Still doesn't hurt to try other things too though, my advice would be to start with small alterations and see what works first, nothing like going to all the effort of bottling and then not enjoying your beer.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

It makes your beer taste like its crossed with wine. Not good IMO. I'm with the true way of beer too that if you want fruity beer look at fruity hops especially big late hop additions, like Hop Stand and dry hopping, and yeast selections too.

 

[Naboo]

I'd also agree with the hop suggestions. I made a Coopers IPA (their recipe) that used a litre of pineapple juice in addition to other ingredients (8.5L batch). It was ok but certainly wasn't that fruit taste I had hoped I'd get. I still have a few sitting in the cupboard a good while later because I rarely opt for that. Obviously your tastes may differ - just my 2¢. Maybe other juices/styles would work better. I'd be inclined to go down the hop route myself though.

 

[captain crumpet]

Frozen fruit works better than juices. Ive brewed with all sorts including raspberries, blueberries, watermelon, canterlope, honeydew, kiwifruit and dragon fruit.

If you buy fresh fruit it's best to freeze it first. I have a terrible understanding of biology but freezing causes the water inside the fruit to expand and burst the cell walls which in turn gives easier access for the yeast.

I add my fruit into a secondary and syphon beer on top when its nearly finished fermenting.

Its easy to do and you definetly obtain flavours and colours that hops or grains can't give. Generally making a lighter flavoured beer like you suggested will let the fruit qualities shine through.

Using cans though, id recommend using dme instead of simple sugars like dextrose.

 

[Ronwales]

Citra gives a beautiful fruity juicy flavour and aroma

 

[kalbarluke]

I made a really (unintentionally) bitter extract IPA once. It was all centenial hops and I used way too much for what I was after. Anyway, it was really unbalanced and needed more sweetness. After I had kegged it I bought a large bottle of blood-orange juice and poured it into the keg. Made it a lot more palatable.

 

[Clevohead]

I remember seeing a recipe once using Coopers Mexican cerveza with apple juice, to make a "Graf".

So it can work.

 

[hoppy2B]

Frozen fruit works better than juices. Ive brewed with all sorts including raspberries, blueberries, watermelon, canterlope, honeydew, kiwifruit and dragon fruit.

If you buy fresh fruit it's best to freeze it first. I have a terrible understanding of biology but freezing causes the water inside the fruit to expand and burst the cell walls which in turn gives easier access for the yeast.

I add my fruit into a secondary and syphon beer on top when its nearly finished fermenting.

Its easy to do and you definetly obtain flavours and colours that hops or grains can't give. Generally making a lighter flavoured beer like you suggested will let the fruit qualities shine through.

Using cans though, id recommend using dme instead of simple sugars like dextrose.

Do you cook the fruit as well?

 

[captain crumpet]

Do you cook the fruit as well?

No. The brews ive tried with cooked fruit are gross

 

[aster1]

Be careful using any fruit juice that has preservatives in it, the preservatives are used to stop spoilage and growth of bacteria and/or yeast. Small amounts of juice may be OK i guess as the amount of preservative would be diluted but I would either stick to the non preserved juices in the refrigerated section of the super market or better still go the frozen fruit method as suggested above, just add the fruit in after the 3-4th day of fermentation, this will let the beer yeast take hold before any possible wild yeast on the fruit can.

I did a mango wheat beer a while back, turned out OK.