Backsweetening a dry pale ale / fruit beer

So here I stand on the precipice...

I've brewed a pretty standard issue pale ale w/ pale malt and wyeast 1056. Honestly my intention is to make an apricot pale ale and rack this beer on top of about 2 lbs of apricot purée.

Right now, primary is finished and has left me at 1.006 and is quite dry. I know that racking on top of the apricots is certain to dry it out even further.

I really want to play with these nice fresh apricots I picked up. My question is whether to add some lactose and / or Maltodextrin with the apricots at secondary? I know they both have different functions but think I could stand to gain benefits from both. My OG was only 1.049 so it could use a little more maltiness from the MD and could certainly use a bit more sweetness with the Lactose.

All in all, Im happy with the beer so if I just go ahead and rack to keg it will be a nice summery / cascadey pale ale "as is" but I'd love to have at least one fruit beer under my belt as this would be my first.

Any input appreciated.

maltodextrin will not give you a malty flavor.

Well, I feel like it would at least combat the thin mouthfeel and lay a little better foundation if I add the apricot. Thoughts?

it will give the beer body but so will carbonation. i've used MD once and couldn't really say that it made a huge difference.

Maltodextrin and lactose both don't add much sweetness to my pallet, they do add to the silky mouthfeel and work great as 'thickener'. For sweetness, you may consider steeping some honey malt doing a quick boil and cool and rack onto it and the apricot at the same time. I have a new found respect for that stuff and have began adding it to several standby beers that maintain a place in my storage.

Interesting concept. Thanks for the reply. I'll try to update with results but here's what I did:

I boiled about 3/4 cup of water, turned down heat and added about 6 oz of lactose to keep it pretty warm. I then peeled, de-pitted and puréed 1 lbs of fresh apricots and added them to the slurry. I raised the entire temp to 170, then cooled in an ice bath to 65 and added to secondary fermenter and racked the beer on top.

After sitting overnight at around 67 deg there is very little airlock activity which is a good thing this time

reed1911 said:

Maltodextrin and lactose both don't add much sweetness to my pallet, they do add to the silky mouthfeel and work great as 'thickener'. For sweetness, you may consider steeping some honey malt doing a quick boil and cool and rack onto it and the apricot at the same time. I have a new found respect for that stuff and have began adding it to several standby beers that maintain a place in my storage.

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Man, I never thought of doing something like that - brilliant!. I have a hoppy pale ale that finished too dry and would really like to sweeten it up a bit. I was considering adding lactose, but the idea doesn't sit well. It's in the keg now, but I assume adding some steeped honey malt will still work - ?