Fruit ipa

I´d like to try something different with my IPA... I tried some Mikkeller Open Windows Open Hills and I thought I´d use some fruit, maybe some mango or passion fruit. I have no idea how to use fruit with beer, I´d like it to have a subtle fruitness, not something very straight forward.
Which fruit might go well with a west coast IPA and how does it work?
thanks in advance for the tips

Well I have have used raspberries in a blonde ale, too tart for my taste. I put the berries in the secondary, maybe put too much in. I actually used one less pound than the recipe called for. I am planning a rosemary, basil IPA tomorrow night. Good luck.

Mango would pair nicely with some Amarillo hops.

Apricots also lend a nice subtle flavor to an ipa.

I agree with HolliBT. Mango would definitely work. I've had a commercial example which had 100 lbs. in a ~3 bbl batch! I've done a Peach IPA for some friends' Ph.D. celebration party and used 6 lbs. of peaches in the secondary. I've found that the best way to do it is to let primary finish, then rack on top of some frozen/thawed fruit in another fermentation bucket so that there is enough head space. You can flush the head space with CO2 if you want, but it's probably not necessary. Leave it there for a week or so, then transfer to a carboy for some more aging.

Definitely DO NOT puree the fruit. It will cause the beer to be extremely cloudy (I learned the hard way on that one).

Maybe try mango, apricot, and peaches.... about 1-2 pounds of each would give you a subtle flavor.

Good luck!

Hop Fruity won Fruit beer at the NHC last year...it used peach and mango.

http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/HopFruityNHC2011

Shorts does a guava IPA that is pretty good.

so I guess the consensus is to add them in secondary, or as rcsoccer put it, rack the beer on top of some fruit..
does the fruit need to be disinfected/sterilized? how? the other thing is, does adding fruit in secondary means you have to dry hop after, or can you dry-hop and add fruit at the same time?

netza said:

so I guess the consensus is to add them in secondary, or as rcsoccer put it, rack the beer on top of some fruit..
does the fruit need to be disinfected/sterilized? how? the other thing is, does adding fruit in secondary means you have to dry hop after, or can you dry-hop and add fruit at the same time?

Click to expand...

Dry hop last. Hop aromas are very delicate and may fade away, so you want it to be the last thing before you put your beer away (keg/bottle).

netza said:

so I guess the consensus is to add them in secondary, or as rcsoccer put it, rack the beer on top of some fruit..
does the fruit need to be disinfected/sterilized? how?

Click to expand...

If you get fruit from the freezer section of the grocery store, it should be ok to just thaw it out and rack the beer on top of it. Let it thaw for 4-5 hours on the counter, so that it gets as close to room temp as possible.

If you use fresh fruit, you can wash the cut up fruit briefly in star-san. Just put the fruit in a collander and pour the star-san over the fruit, then freeze it. Freezing helps break down the cell walls of the fruit's flesh. You could also throw some pectic enzyme in a bag with the fruit before putting in the freezer, if you are worried about haziness (I wouldn't worry about it).

netza said:

the other thing is, does adding fruit in secondary means you have to dry hop after, or can you dry-hop and add fruit at the same time?

Click to expand...

Definitely dry-hop last. The fruit will suck up all of the hop flavor (I had that happen in my Peach IPA and it wasn't nearly as aromatic as I wanted it).