Sanitation while making fruit additions

Hi all,

I've been lurking for a while and scouring the site to learn about fruit additions in beer. I've just brewed a simple extract IPA, and I would like to rack it onto some mango to make a mango IPA (Mango Mama - Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery - BeerAdvocate is the inspiration, but this is not a clone). All I am looking for is just a subtle mango flavor in the IPA.

I'll probably rack the beer onto cubed chunks of mango (1/2" maybe, unless I get suggestions). Do I need to worry about sanitizing the mango? If so, how?

I recently made a Blackberry ale, and from info gathered here on HBT, all I did was froze them and thawed them twice, then on racking day after they thawed I pureed them in a cuisinart and added that puree to the secondary and racked ontop of it. I took no additional precautions to sanitize the berries, other than rinsing them very well under cold water and placing them in a collander to drain before freezing.

If you boil, or even heat to pasturize your fruit you will definitely get haze from the pectins released from the fruit. I think pectin haze can be removed with pectin enzyme.

Like I said , I didn't even worry about it, racking to beer with 5+% ABV shouldn't get an infection, and you will definitely have a true "secondary" fermentation due to the sugars in the fruit, so alcohol and yeast should out-compete any nasties that might have made it in to the secondary. Having said that, it does not mean you cannot get an infection, just less-likely.

Oh and the reason fro freezing the fruit is o break the cell walls in the fruit to allow more of the natural sugars to be made more accessible to the yeasties.

My advice, and take it with a grain of salt because I have only made this 1 fruit beer (BTW it turned out great), would be to freeze your fruit at least once, let it thaw, puree in a blender or similar device add to secondary and rack ontop of it.

Depending on the amount of fruit flavor you want will depend on how many pounds of fruit you use. I used 3.5 lbs of Blackberries for my 5 gallon batch and I probably could have used a bit more, but they were more tart than sweet.

So, if your mangos are super sweet and delicious maybe use .5lb per gallon, or as much as 1lb per gallon if you want it super fruity.

1 last piece of additional info, if you puree or crush your fruit you will definitely need to "filter" fruit chunks out, here is a great thread on how to do so effectively and inexpensively: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/question-whole-hops-fermenter-123597/ POST #6 is what you are looking for.

Good luck, welcome to HBT!

well you dont need to "sanitize" the fruit but i read that fruit needs to be crushed/ cut/ pulped before adding so what i do is put the fruit in the freezer which will kill anything on it. also it breaks the skin n the fruit releasing essential flavors and juices for when it thaws in the beer. so i would cut the mango to fit in your carboy then freeze it.once frozen just put it in your sanitized fermenter and transfer the beer onto the fruit. by the way the beer is probably going to be pretty hoppy and alcoholic which are natural bacteria fighters so that plus the frozeness and no worries.

t-bag said:

well you dont need to "sanitize" the fruit but i read that fruit needs to be crushed/ cut/ pulped before adding so what i do is put the fruit in the freezer which will kill anything on it. also it breaks the skin n the fruit releasing essential flavors and juices for when it thaws in the beer. so i would cut the mango to fit in your carboy then freeze it.once frozen just put it in your sanitized fermenter and transfer the beer onto the fruit. by the way the beer is probably going to be pretty hoppy and alcoholic which are natural bacteria fighters so that plus the frozeness and no worries.

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"Freezing" will not kill anything on it...I hate to burst your bubble, but you are wrong. Freezing may slow the growth of bacteria and other nasties, but once thawed there is always a chance of bacterial growth, very unlikely that an infection will occur, but to say freezing will "kill anything on it" is incorrect.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I'll just cut it up, freeze it, thaw it, rack onto it, and hope for the best. Hopefully, the hoppy, yeasty, alcoholic environment will cut down the risk on infection.

dcgrp said:

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I'll just cut it up, freeze it, thaw it, rack onto it, and hope for the best. Hopefully, the hoppy, yeasty, alcoholic environment will cut down the risk on infection.

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It worked fine for me, I think it will work fine for you too!

Good luck!

You could freeze it.. then put it in a little bit of water at 160 degrees.

Use a potatoe masher to crush it.. then add it.

syd138 said:

You could freeze it.. then put it in a little bit of water at 160 degrees.

Use a potatoe masher to crush it.. then add it.

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If I'm not misaken, that will still cause pectin haze, but it will definitely kill the nasties.

Schnitzengiggle said:

If I'm not misaken, that will still cause pectin haze, but it will definitely kill the nasties.

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If you do it above 160 it will.. Im pretty sure that if it is around 150ish you're ok