Fruit beer what the h...???

Okay,

I just spent a half hour reading the fruit beer section of the forum.

Most recipes are simple : brew whatever you brew and rack with cleaned fresh or frozen fruits.

Isn't it risky? With all the natural yeasts out there and other possible natural contamination??? Is it really just that easy???


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The alcohol already present in your beer will shock most wild yeast into dormancy. And there is such a large sacc population, it will also outcompete the wild yeast.

That said, I usually pasteurize my fruit first and toss in some pectic enzyme to clear the haze.

Or you could give it a soak with campden tablets if you don't like heating the fruit.

Could you give me more details about these pectic enzymes? How does it work?


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Its an enzyme available at most brew stores. Pectins, which are released from fruit when heating (which is recommended to kill any wild yeast or microbes), will cloud your beer. So if you want a fruit beer that is clear then you should add pectin enzyme to your beer as well amounts are labeled on bottles usually. Just add to pasteurized fruit before racking fermented beer onto the fruit. If you just dump the fruit into the beer it will oxidize it.

Let it sit at least a week, I recommend 2, after adding fruit because some additional fermentation will happen.

You pasterize them by doing a quick boil?


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The higher the temperature, the shorter the time you need. Here's a chart.

145F for 30 minutes is fairly easy to do.

Thanks guys


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Yes I usually bring it to at leat 155 let it simmer above that at least 20. Then I let cool a bit and I pour into sanitized freezer bag and freeze it. Freezing helps to burst the cells of fruit to release optimum flavors. Then a couple days later I boil a small amount of water and add pectic enzyme. I add this to a secondary carboy, dump frozen fruit onto that and then rack beer on top of both.

Peel in the boil is the closest I get to a fruit beer.

I've had success (and a few 1st place ribbons) using frozen fruit from the grocery store. Not saying you can't pasteurize it, but freezing works for me.

I picked fresh blackberries last year for a wheat beer and it came out great. What I did was put the berries in the food processor with a couple shots of vodka. Puree the berries, pour them into the sanitized fermenter, and rack the beer on top. The beer came out amazing.

Beernik said:

The higher the temperature, the shorter the time you need. Here's a chart.

145F for 30 minutes is fairly easy to do.

Click to expand...

I am not a fan of that chart. Looks like its too high for too long.Try this one from the FDA unless someone else has a better one.

Personally I just freeze and throw them in.

LovesIPA said:

I picked fresh blackberries last year for a wheat beer and it came out great. What I did was put the berries in the food processor with a couple shots of vodka. Puree the berries, pour them into the sanitized fermenter, and rack the beer on top. The beer came out amazing.

Click to expand...

I did the same back in November no signs of infection. Still have some bottles left that will be going into the fridge soon.

My strawberry beer came out very cloudy, even with a week of cold crashing at 1C. Pectic enzyme was recommended but I did not get a chance to try it. I heated the strawberries to about 160F and held them there for about 10 mins, mashed them up while they were hot, cooled, poured into secondary, racked on top of the strawberries.

Yeah mine was super cloudy too. But I think that's unavoidable with fruit.

Tastes great though!

I've just added fresh or thawed frozen fruit to secondary (or primary) with no problems.

I would add, though, that I have had issues with fruit beers not being at FG when I bottled them. Give it a looong time to ferment out, including some time at room temperature if you're bottling (or planning to bottle from keg).

LovesIPA said:

I picked fresh blackberries last year for a wheat beer and it came out great. What I did was put the berries in the food processor with a couple shots of vodka. Puree the berries, pour them into the sanitized fermenter, and rack the beer on top. The beer came out amazing.

Click to expand...

I'm *VERY* curious about (1) What wheat beer recipe; (2) how many fresh blackberries, if you wouldn't mind sharing

I haz wild blackberry patch that went nutzoid bounty crazy last season. Of course, speaking of nutzoid, so did the frickin' walnut trees--you know it's bad when you're picking up walnuts in the yard with a danged snow shovel.

But would *any* wheat beer recipe do or is there a more/most suitable recipe? And thanks a bunch!

You guys rock. I love this forum. I just bought myself a galon of maple syrup. I was thinking about brewing a part grain / part extract kit from "best case". Then add a 500ml of maple syrup before primary. Then rack on raspberries.

I'd expect the maple to ferment and leave only a subtle wood taste and the rasperries to leave a fruity freshness.

What do you guys think?



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balrog said:

I'm *VERY* curious about (1) What wheat beer recipe; (2) how many fresh blackberries, if you wouldn't mind sharing

I haz wild blackberry patch that went nutzoid bounty crazy last season. Of course, speaking of nutzoid, so did the frickin' walnut trees--you know it's bad when you're picking up walnuts in the yard with a danged snow shovel.

But would *any* wheat beer recipe do or is there a more/most suitable recipe? And thanks a bunch!

Click to expand...

I don't know about more/most suitable recipes, because I only brewed the one.

But here is the recipe:

5 lbs 2-row
5 lbs malted white wheat
.4 oz of Columbus 14% at 60 min
1.00 oz of Willamette at 5 min

Yeast: WLP320

After two weeks, rack beer onto 3 lbs of pureed vodka blackberries. Let it sit another two weeks and package it.