Grapefruit ?????

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becksbolero2

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so I am interested in making a grapefruit blonde, or IPA
but I have not really seen any recipes. I know that there are some hops that can produce a stron grapefruit taste/aroma, but I was wondering if I could actually use grapefruit pure in the secondary???
 
I don't see why not. Do this as an experiment. Take a beer you'd like to add grapefruit juice to, pour it into a glass, and add a tablespoon of grapefruit juice. That should equal one 12 oz can of grapefruit juice in a 5 gallon batch. If you like it, then try it in secondary. Try not to get any juice that has added sugar in it, as that will start to ferment.
 
I would recommend against using grapefruit juice or puree. High acid levels are difficult for any beer. There is good reason why only orange peel but not orange juice is added to witbiers. All of us have tasted the old orange juice in the fridge that has started to ferment -- it's not a nice flavor.

If you want grapefruit flavor in your beer, go with grapefruit peel (only the yellow, no white pith which is nasty bitter) and some grapefruity hops. I've never used them but a lot of folks suggest Sorachi Ace hops are the most grapefruity but Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, and Simcoe all have some grapefruit/citrus aspects.
 
Ive had a beer from a guy he called it GPA.. Grapefruit Pepper Ale... It was basically a witbier with grapefruit peel instead of orange peel and black peppercorns instead of corriander seed. It was actually pretty good.

I would think adding grapefruit puree would wreck your beer by dropping the pH too low and making it overly acidic.
 
I've never used Sorachi hops but haven't heard anyone describe them as grapefruit'ish, but a blonde with something like 2oz's of Centennial at FWH does sound enticing.

-bn
 
I've never used Sorachi hops but haven't heard anyone describe them as grapefruit'ish, but a blonde with something like 2oz's of Centennial at FWH does sound enticing.

-bn

I've never used them before, but if you do either a Google search or a formum search, you'll find quite a few people describe them as having a grapefruity quality. But many more are describing them as "lemony" so that probably is the dominant flavor that may be misinterpreted as grapefruit flavor.
 
Would grapefruit juice be fermentable even if sugar isn't added? I'd think it would have a pretty high sugar content.
The juice is def fermentable. The other day I bought a 48 bottle of white grapefruit juice, tossed in a packet of Lavlin 71B-1122 and watched it ferment away.
 
Sorachi do have a lemony quality. Cascade seem more a little grapefruity to me but that's from limited comparisons (most of my Sorachi-hopped beers are not ready yet...but you def get a lemony note in the raw aroma). Sorachi is relatively high AA% so might be good as bitterness 'kick'.

I'm obv biased (I live in an adjacent county and work right in the middle of Indian River fruit territory) but Indian River grapefruit is da bomb.:)
 
Cluster hops tend to have lots of grapefruit flavor and aroma when used in larger concentrations, more so than centennial IMO. I have 2lbs of (leaf) cluster hops in my freezer and I don't like using them because they impart a pretty extreme grapefruit flavor in whatever beer I brew with them. Even my IIPA turned into a grapefruit bomb because of a 2oz late addition; its like Ruination but replace all other hop flavors with grapefruit. :cross:
 
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