How to minimize dryness in fruit beer...

Particularly referring to my Apple Ale I just tasted today.

The apple flavor/aroma is right where I want it to be, and the dryness really isn't totally undesirable, but if I were to do this one again, I'd like to try making it less dry.

The problem as I see it is this:

I think adding apples to secondary is crucial to getting the apple character I want, but it seems that an unavoidable side effect from adding apples to the secondary is the dryness. I don't think just adding apples to the end of the boil and skipping the secondary addition is going to achieve the same appley taste/aroma I'm looking for.

I don't want to use apple-flavored extract.

Any tips?

Thanks!

We'd have to see the recipe to give you any advice at all. There are plenty of solutions to dryness.

a low attenuating yeast will help hold some of its sweetness. Apples have sugar, and as soon as you add then the yeast will continue to eat up that sugar, making the beer stronger. Some carapils and a low atten yeast will help though

We'd have to see the recipe to give you any advice at all. There are plenty of solutions to dryness.

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Yes. Forgive me. Here 'tis:

2 lbs Maris Otter
.5 lb Honey Malt
.5 lb Briess 20L
.75 lb Rauch Malt
3.3 lbs LME

1 1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (60 min)
1 oz German Tradition (5 min)

2 lbs Jonagold, 2 lbs Granny Smith (minced and added at end of boil, steeped 30 mins, removed)



2 lbs Jonagold, 2 lbs Granny Smith (minced, added to secondary for one week)

Oh yeah, wyeast 1056. That's important, isn't it?

are you mini mashing this? if so what temp is the mash at and for how long both play a role in how fermentable a wort is made. if your just steeping then try doing so at around 158-160 for at least 30min. also if mashing try mashing around this temp for the same duration.

I did a mini-mash, and held the temp a little high (165 F) to pull out more non-fermentables. Wanted the sweetness to balance the dryness. But it still came out a bit more dry than I'd hoped.

a low attenuating yeast will help hold some of its sweetness.

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If I used a lower-attenuating yeast, would I have to prime with a little less sugar to avoid bottle bombs?

did you take any gravity readings?

and no you don't need to change the priming rate when you change yeasts unless you are looking for different carbonation volumes.

OG was 1.060, stopped fermenting at 1.014, added apples to secondary for a week, gravity dropped four points to a FG of 1.010. So clearly the sugar from the apples in secondary started up a bit of fermentation again, and I'm assuming that's where I got most of my dryness.

1.010 is about right for 1056. a lot of the dryness from the fruit beers is caused from the short chain(highly fermentable) sugars in the fruit itself. this leaves the beer with dryer apparent taste when compared to a beer without fruit at the same gravity.


looking at the recipe in beersmith you might have the hops out of balance also. with a ratio of almost .75 IBU/SG it's a little high for a fruit beer try dropping the EKG down to around .5oz for the 60 since you want the apparent sweetness to shine a little more to complement the fruit.

Good advice. Thanks for going to the trouble!

You could use a yeast associated with traditionally maltier beers, I find that Wyeast Irish Ale yeast makes a sweeter tasting beer compared to American Ale 1056. I used these yeasts in a split batch and the American finished at 1.010 from 1.050, the Irish ended at 1.014.

Cheers