Fruit beers

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I_used_to_brew
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Fruit beers

Post by I_used_to_brew »

The last APA I brewed (40ibu, 5.3%ABV Citra/Amarillo) I split into 4 x 20 litre batches. I treated them differently after a week, 2kg of either alphonso mango pulp, raspberries or blackberries. The last one was dry hopped as normal. All stood for about a week before kegging.

Raspberry was great, slightly sharp and sour and was good enough to do another batch. Mango is fabulous, so good that I'll do a whole 80 litre batch when I brew next. Not yet tried the blackberry one but out of the FV it wasn't outstanding.

I'm already thinking about other fruit to try, possibly peach, apricot, who knows.
Capn Ahab
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Re: Fruit beers

Post by Capn Ahab »

You big girl.





Just kidding. I just did a raspberry saison that came out pretty nice (bottle swap?). Did you buy pre made mango pulp or process them yourself?

From what I've read, peach and strawberry don't give up much flavour, but cherries, blueberries and apricots do. I think fitting the flavour of the fruit to the base style is key - I'm not sure about a cherry apa for example but blueberries might could work, especially if your flavour hop was mosaic. The popular style to add fruit to in the states is US wheat beer as it is light with subtle grainy sweetness and low bitterness. Definitely worth exploring further.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Fruit beers

Post by I_used_to_brew »

I'm sure you're right and maybe I've had some lucky hop-fruit combos recently. I realy don't like cherry so that's not going to be on the list. Blackberry works well in stouts of course.

Alphonso mango pulp, Masala bazzar tins of about 1kg for less than a few quid.

I pretty sure all the bottles have gone, but I'll fill some from the kegs to bring to a meeting.

edit: forgot to say that any fresh fruit added was frozen first and added to beer towards the end of fermentation, but still with active yeast. I've not had a batch 'go wrong' this way - so far. Adding freshly picked fruit may risk some funk happening. The canned stuff, was, well, canned and safe.
Capn Ahab
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Re: Fruit beers

Post by Capn Ahab »

Unfortunately I'm still getting over my bike accident so won't be able to make any meetings until December probably. I googled the mango pulp - looks good!

I added pre-frozen fruit to secondary and racked off the yeast. Seems like a standard approach.
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I_used_to_brew
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Re: Fruit beers

Post by I_used_to_brew »

Capn Ahab wrote:Unfortunately I'm still getting over my bike accident .
I've broken both in the past, so I do sympathise, healing should be nice and straightforward.
Capn Ahab
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Re: Fruit beers

Post by Capn Ahab »

RogerP wrote:
Capn Ahab wrote:Unfortunately I'm still getting over my bike accident .
I've broken both in the past, so I do sympathise, healing should be nice and straightforward.
It's getting past the hangover from the anaesthetic that's mullering me. Good job on the op though.
Eat sh*t or die trying
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