Apricot Ale idea...

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wililupy

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Hello,

My wife is a big fan of Pyramid's Apricot Ale. I am thinking of making something similar, but am having issues deciding when to add the apricot.

I am planning on using a summer ale extract from my local brew shop, and adding the apricot later, but I am slightly confused when and how much to add.
I've read two different but somewhat similar things. One method is to make the summer ale extract recipe, then add the apricot essence during the secondary (4 oz.)

Another I read said to add 2 lbs of Apricot puree to secondary.

My intuition says to add 2 lbs of puree to the wort after the hour long boil during the 15 minute steep of grains and aroma hops, and then in the secondary, add the 4 oz of apricot essence at the secondary. My second option is to add the 2lbs of puree to the secondary and go with that.

Any opinions?
 
My wife is the same way, but around CT it's with Magic Hat No. 9. I just cleaned the keg last night of the clone recipe from my local brew shop. Came out good, in many ways better than the magic hat version because it was fresh and kegged in my kitchen in spite of it being extract based!

The recipe uses 4oz of apricot essence added into the secondary. It tastes ok but for me these "essences" just have a not so essencey flavor. I would much prefer to actually use real apricot the next time. My biggest concern though is making sure the apricot was sanitized. Real fruit carries lots of natural bacteria, so unless your using canned apricot which is probably pastuerized during caning then it's risky.

Last month i was on vacation and visited magic hat's brewery. They had a bar for sampling and i asked the guy outright where thier apricot flavor comes from. He said they use essence so i assume using real apricot is most likely problematic at best.
 
I suspected Pyramid uses an apricot extract so checked out their site. There's nothing on there that states they use actual fruit.

I think your best bet is finding a quality, natural apricot extract. The base beer is just an American wheat that could be made from wheat extract and some bittering hops.
 
Using apricots is fine. Just puree them and pasteurize them (cook the puree to 185 degrees, be careful not to boil it). That'll kill all bacteria. I've done this in the past and added the cooled puree to the secondary. Turned out great.
 
After some research and talking with my local brew supply shop, they recommended adding extract to the bottling bucket. So that will be the plan.

However, after talking with my wife, when Pluot's come in season, we are going to make a pluot ale by pasturizing them and adding them to the secondary.

Thanks for the great info guys. You have all be very helpful.

Luke
 
I've used a few of the extracts. The blueberry, apple and raspberry. Add at bottling time. I used 4 oz and didn't taste much. 8oz raspberry really made it noticeable. Depending on how much apricot you want younmay want to use 2 4 oz bottles.
 
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