Grapefruit Juice IPA?

You know like SNPA?

Just wondering if anyone has tried this.

Not serious about SNPA, but I taste grapefruit juice in it.

Amarillo and Centennial hops. I don't get that from SNPA though, just a nice dose of Cascades.

Dryhop with some Somcoe and you might get what you're looking for.

I was too brief,.

I wonder what would happen if you used grapefruit juice as the bittering agent in place of hops.

This sounds like one of those threads where there's tons of speculation but nobody every actually tries it.

Grapefruit is tart, not bitter (except maybe the fibrous part of the skin). I made a peach wheat once that was horribly tart after the sugars fermented out. I can't imagine what adding grapefruit acid would do to a beer.

right on kanzi, and you are right, speculation, but not tons of it.

Collect the speculation in a glass and weigh it... it's exactly 2000 pounds.

Oh wait, some of that was my anger too.

I believe anger adds a pinch of bitterness in most cases, no?

chinook hops taste like grapefruit to me. I don't taste grapefruit in SNPA or any of SN's ales for that matter.

You could try citra it has some grapefruit notes, or just throw some grapefruits in the secondary.

Grapefruit is bitter, once some sugar was fermented out, I bet it would be very bitter.

I know you were talking about using actual grapefruit juice. But if that is the aroma you are looking for make this. It smells like a fresh squeezed glass to me.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/all-amarillo-ipa-28517/

fastmetalcheezydemon3

Fastmetal said:

I know you were talking about using actual grapefruit juice. But if that is the aroma you are looking for make this. It smells like a fresh squeezed glass to me.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/all-amarillo-ipa-28517/

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I second that. I brewed that recipe and it did have a nice grapefruit finish. It does diminish slighty with age so I may up the hops slightly next time I brew it.

Of cours it did not get too much time to age because I am buring through it at a prett good clip. Tasty stuff

cheezydemon3 said:

I wonder what would happen if you used grapefruit juice as the bittering agent in place of hops.

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Have you ever had your orange juice or grapefruit juice sit too long in the refrigerator? Fermented orange juice or grapefruit juice is really nasty stuff. There's good reason why no one makes orange wine or grapefruit wine!

I'll support what others have suggested -- if you want grapefruit flavor in your beer, use hops to get it, not grapefruit juice. If you really must put grapefruit in your beer, I would suggest using grapefruit peel (just the yellow part, no white pith). This works very well for orange peel or lemon peel. I've never used grapefruit peel, but I think it would have to work pretty well.

ive used actual grapefruits in a pale before that came out quite good. you really have to go easy on the hops cause grapefruit can get pretty tart/bitter. i cut the peel off and boiled that, removed the pith from the fruit, than pureed the flesh and added it to the secondary, i think two grapefruits for a 5 gallon batch. it was nice and fruity and i will be brewing it again for this summer and baseball season

I made an IPA with a bunch of Chinook & Amarillo additions late. It came out very grapefruity. Just add an ounce of either @ 20, 15, 10, 5, & at flameout. Or you could use a combo of the two. Only use 1 ounce of something like Simcoe or Chinook @ 60 for some bitterness.

It seems like more work than it's worth to use actual grapefruit when you can get the same flavor by using the right hops in the boil.

I just transferred my grapefruit juice ipa to secondary, tasted very good and had a nice rich red hue to it from the juice. I used 2 large ruby reds in primary but it wasn't quite enough so I added a 1/2 gal of juice. If the flavors can meld a little more this will be a fantastic beer.

no_borders said:

ive used actual grapefruits in a pale before that came out quite good. you really have to go easy on the hops cause grapefruit can get pretty tart/bitter. i cut the peel off and boiled that, removed the pith from the fruit, than pureed the flesh and added it to the secondary, i think two grapefruits for a 5 gallon batch. it was nice and fruity and i will be brewing it again for this summer and baseball season

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That's what I was looking for! Maybe a blood orange or 2 for some more color?

killowatt said:

I just transferred my grapefruit juice ipa to secondary, tasted very good and had a nice rich red hue to it from the juice. I used 2 large ruby reds in primary but it wasn't quite enough so I added a 1/2 gal of juice. If the flavors can meld a little more this will be a fantastic beer.

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I knew I didn't just invent this, but everyone seemed to think I just wanted it to smell like grapefruit!

I'll snap some pix of the color once I get home. originally I was going to prime using the juice but after trying it with just the whole fruit I decided it needed more flavor so I started adding juice until it got a nice flavor a little bit under what I figured was ideal, I figured this would still let me prime with juice as i had orignally planned. I used a 2 hearted clone for the base ipa and used .5 oz extra of dry hops.

anyone who says you can substitute hops for the flavor you get from real fruit is mistaken. the original test batch of grapefruit pale i did had no fruit, and the next one i used ruby reds, and it was night and day. fruit beers are a very hard style to perfect, and by no means do i think mine is perfect, matching grapefruits with hops is a bit tricky, but i loved the results i got. never thought to just use the juice though, not a bad idea as long as it doesnt have to much other junk in it besides juice(preservatives and that kind of stuff i wouldnt want to add to my brew)

so an observation, if you use juice it will be super super cloudy and not want to clear even after crashing, however it is fantastic i will def brew this again but use gelatin to clear. this flavor is nothing like what you get from the hops at all.

sry about the pix its a little more red irl

Looks great! Some buddies of mine brew a Troeg's Nugget Nectar clone that has a really strong grapefruit aroma and taste. Here is what they use for hops:

1.00 oz 13%aa Nugget 60'
0.50 oz 13%aa Simcoe 30'
1.00 oz 16%aa Warrior 20'
1.25 oz 16%aa Tomahawk 0' or hopback
1.00 oz 8%aa Palisade 0' or hopback
1.00 oz 13%aa Simcoe DH
1.00 oz 8%aa Palisade DH

I'M DOIN IT!!!!

I could care less about clear beer. I've perfected that, and it doesn't taste any better.

if you prime with the juice be careful when you calculate how much to add, i almost added 2x what i needed

I did an all Summit hops IPA once and it tasted (to me) a lot like grapefruit.

I am going to try NO hops and lots of juice for bittering.

how much juice are you planning on using?

Maybe a gallon? How many IBU's is that?

I seriously considered fermenting a gallon of grapefruit juice to see how bitter it is.

iirc i added around a 1/2 gal to the primary and the rest at bottling time (it was a lot of juice to prime, ill have to check my notes for exact volumes)

Basic brewing podcast had an episode from august of 2009 about alternate priming methods. In the podcast the guest speaker said he used a half gallon of grapefruit juice in the primary, another half gallon in the secondary and 38 oz more to prime. He said he didn't use a lot of hops either