Quick question on prepping fresh peaches for beer

I am planning on making a peach-wheat brew next week. I went ahead and purchased my fresh peaches because they were on a great sale, but I need to put them away for a few weeks until I am ready. I am thinking I will peel/remove stone and puree in blender, and then freeze the puree until I am ready for it in a few weeks. Does this sound acceptable? Do I need to add any "fruit fresh" before freezing, if so does this interfere with fermentation?


When I am ready to add the peaches to secondary, I am planning to thaw and then microwave them to kill bacteria before adding to secondary, does this sound right?

Sounds about right. Last year I made a peach ale and peeled/stoned the peaches, froze them in ziplock bags - didn't bother putting them in a blender as they were so ripe they fell to pieces. When ready for secondary I heated the peaches in a pot to kill off any bugs (didn't boil them) and when cooled added to the secondary....made awesome beer

I wouldn't bother blending them, I would just cut them small enough to fit into a carboy (if you are using one) or just cut them for more surface area when in a bucket. I made an american wheat a couple weeks ago and didn't even worry about heating them. Everything came out fine and no infections, the alcohol in the beer will help with that. I would say if you were worried, do as robert said, and heat on the stove but dont boil. Look up pasteurizing is what I have been told and you will get some great tips.

I was thinking of adding some peaches to a light lager Im making right now. Wondering how much to use for just a nice hint of peach in a 5 gallon batch?

For a light peach flavor, I would add 1# per gal.

Hey I've been an avid reader, but have yet to post something informative. I made a peach wit this summer, took about 8 lbs of fresh peaches, kept the pits, when they were very ripe just cut them small enough to fit into the carboy, bagged them up and froze them. Delicious peach flavor, made a 5 gallon batch of it. Just my .02

Looking to brew something similar to lindeman's peche (sweet peach lambic)... Did the peach wit come close to that taste?

I've never had it, the only Lindemans that comes to mind is Framboise, so if the peach is anything like that I would have to say no, the peach is definitely there, but it is not over powering and is a right balance of peach and beer. Also not a lambic, used wyeast belgian wit yeast.

I wouldn't peel the peaches. Plenty of flavor and a bit of color in the peels. Also, I personally wouldn't heat the frozen fruit. I've always added it straight to secondary and never had a problem.

I just got a box of Palisade peaches dropped on my desk & the first thing I thought of was... I bet I can make one hell of a beer from this!

So the general consensus from the group is to just cut up the peaches, and throw them in the beer for a couple weeks? I still worry about infection, but it sounds like this is a low chance of occurrence.

As long as you're throwing them in secondary so that there is already 5ish% abv, you'll be fine.

I rinsed the peaches really well, sanitized my cutting board and knife, cut them up into tiny pieces, put them in freezer bags, along with all the skin and pits and froze them. Took some potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite to stop any extra fermentation, added that and the peaches to carboy and racked right on top (secondary) let it sit a few weeks, kegged and it was delicious. You have to use force co2 to carbonate if you add the potassium, don't know about bottle conditioning but should be ok, you'll probably start fermenting the peaches which might make your beer not as sweet from the fruit, but no problems with contamination on my end, keg didn't last long.