Brewing with fruit

Co worker of mine brought in a bunch of peaches from her home. They are not ripe yet but was thinking that peach would be a good additive to a say a golden strong ale. Wondering if anyone has experience with brewing with actual fruit? What is the ratio of fruit to wort? Thanks in advance. Hopefully there are still a few peaches left tomorrow for me to take!!:rockin:

<search>



...

Check some of the recipes in the recipe section. I have used fresh raspberries and there are a few recipes for that. It seems most use 3-4 pounds. You could try 2 techniques: one, peel peaches and cut into small pieces, pasteurize, then pour into secondary on top of the beer; two, peel peaches and put in a blender to make your own puree, then pour into secondary. Either way, put them in the secondary because I believe the yeast activity in the primary eats up the flavor. I had a peach ale once a long time ago and really liked it. Can't wait to do my own.

I did an apricot blackberry wheat this summer and I used about 6 pounds of fruits in total. It came out pretty tart but it had some good flavor. However I think if I used another fruit that was a little sweeter or more ripe it would have been better. I think next time I will just buy some puree because I didn't save much money buying the fruit and doing it myself.

I pealed the appricots, took the pits out, and smashed up the blackberries but did not pasturize them which I now know was a big no no and I got lucky. However I placed them in a grain bag in my seconday but I can't remeber how long I left the fruit in and I lost my freakin note book with all my notes in it!!!!!!

But I think it was like a week or so. But like I said I don't remeber.... I might have made a post somewhere on the thread.

Im so ****ing pissed I lost that note book....

Ray Daniels has a whole chapter to it in "Designing Great Beers." JZ from TBN & James from BasicBrewing are good podcasts to listen to. What I would do is freeze the peaches when they are ripe, thaw, chunk them up and add to secondary. Then rack your beer on top of it.

As an avid fruit brewer, I like the freezing -> Secondary method. Pureeing is good too. I think the main point is to break down the cells (and resulting flavor) of the fruit. Freezing and blending do both well. Freezing is a little better because it'll (semi) sterilize the fruit. Fresh fruit looses a lot of it's natural flavor when cooked...just compare canned peaches to fresh!

I believe that the more fruit the merrier. Just back of a touch on your hoppiness, because that can definitely overpower the fruit. I've never tasted a brew where grains overpowered the fruit, the culprit was usually the hops.

Good Luck!

I made an incredible sour cherry beer. I used 8 lbs of fruit and put them in at secondary. I would definitely put them in at secondary again and take my chances. After 2 weeks in secondary with the fruit in- I put it into tertiary and let it sit there for about 1 month. It has turned out clear and the sourness has decreases with time- what a freakin beer it has been!