apricot lambic pits or no pits

I have 5 gallons of lambic using the wyeast blend from this winter that i was adding fruit to. I just picked 15lbs of apricots and wasn't sure to remove the pits or not before adding.

Pretty sure the Belgian masters just throw 'em in whole. Heck, Cascade brews a sour with just the stones!

...sorry, I don't have any first-hand advice, only started my sour program earlier this year, I'm months and months away from fruiting, to say nothing of tasting.

I think each brewery has their own preference, but considering that the pit of an apricot is HUGE (read: TANNINS!), I would recommend no more than half of the 15 lbs should keep the pits in beer. Some complexity from the pit is (probably) desirable, like with cherries.

Also, I wouldn't toss them in whole, at least halve or quarter them.

FWIW Casey Brewing does halved apricots with no pits.

kaz4121 said:

FWIW Casey Brewing does halved apricots with no pits.

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Agreed, although as the other poster noted they also brew Noyaux, which is aged on toasted apricot kernels (the actual seed within the pit). It is supposed to have a light marzipan flavor. I really enjoyed the beer, but was underwhelmed by the amount of flavor I got from the kernels.

From pictures cantillon chunks some pits in with the fruit. I just added apricots to 2.5 g of lambic and added 1/4 of the pits.

I normally throw some of the pits from fruit into my fruited sours.

Sounds good ill leave some pits

supposedly Cantillon adds 1/3 of the pits.

that's what i'm doing. going to rack the beer on to the previously frozen fruit either tonight or tomorrow.

If you want to get flavor from the stone, you will need to crack the casing of the pit or let them sit in the beer for a really long time.

The marzipan flavor from the pits comes from the hydrolysis of the cyanogenic glycosides in the seed, amygdalin and the like. This produces benzaldehyde which in lower concentration has a cherry like flavor. Interestingly enough these glycosides which are responsible for much of the flavor are found in all the stone fruit seeds.

So in summary I would say the pits are an important component of the overall beer profile, and as others have said you may want to be careful how many you use.

What about skins?

nicolas_james said:

What about skins?

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of apricots? include them, of course. who the hell wants to skin that many apricots... :cross:

I just added apricots to a sour yesterday and just washed, halved, and removed the pits:




Didn't think pit flavor would be beneficial given the character of the beer being racked on top.

sweetcell said:

supposedly Cantillon adds 1/3 of the pits.

that's what i'm doing. going to rack the beer on to the previously frozen fruit either tonight or tomorrow.

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below is a pic of my apricot sour. brett hasn't kicked up yet (it's only been 4 days). some of the fruit is floating, the rest is sunk at the bottom.

i halved the apricots with a sanitized knife, pulled out and discarded 2/3 of the pits, sliced up the flesh into little cubes and froze the gooey mess for 72 hours. i then thawed it out, dumped it into the BB and racked about 3 gallons on top of the fruit mush. i might add some more sour beer, either after fermentation of the fruit or at bottling.