brewing with apples

was thinking of doing an apple hefewiezen or a sour apple wit using extract kits, but im not entirely sure of how/where apple would fit in the brewing process, my UNeducated guess that i would have to peel the apples, slice em up, then mash em up, and toss them into the boil.

someone please correct me on this, i would love some educated insight into how this would be done.

thanks

you have to be carefull when boiling fruit. I thought i remember somewhere that you might be extracting some off flavors. You might want to try a search for "boiling fruit".

I used frozen berries in a wheat beer one time. turned out OK but needed a lot to get flavor out (secondary). I also used pumpkin that went into a mash. I've used apples in part of my cider recipe. I peeled the apples, then chopped them up, put them in a food precesser and gave them a couple of pulses. I added it to some water i had boiling on the stove. Once the water was boiling i shut the heat off and added apples at the same instance.

Boiling the apples will cause pectin to be released.. bad idea I think....If you 3want a brew with an apple flavor, look up APPLE GRAF on here. it is REALLY good.

i did the search for "apple graf", and from what i can tell, im thinking that i should brew the hefe or wit and just substitute some of them malt for apple juice or cider.? sounds simple enough-please correct me if i am wrong.

paul7 said:

i did the search for "apple graf", and from what i can tell, im thinking that i should brew the hefe or wit and just substitute some of them malt for apple juice or cider.? sounds simple enough-please correct me if i am wrong.

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That is what I would do.. base the amounts on how appley ( if that is a word) you want tyhe beer to taste. I would brew say half a batch of beer as normal. cool it to pitching temps then pour in 100% apple juice ( make sure it is 100% juice and has no sorbates in it. Ascorbic acid is fine) to make 5 gallons. Pitch your yeast and ferment as normal.

thanks man!

I'm not sure if this helps, but I asked someone about adding fruit and they told me that you should pasteurize fruit instead of boiling because boiling is somehow bad for the flavour. They said to keep the fruit at 160F for 15 or 20 min to kill the nastys..

what about a secondary with sour apples?

slice up and soak in some vodka to sanitize, then add to primary (without the vodka) or rack on top in secondary?

RadtasticRix said:

I'm not sure if this helps, but I asked someone about adding fruit and they told me that you should pasteurize fruit instead of boiling because boiling is somehow bad for the flavour. They said to keep the fruit at 160F for 15 or 20 min to kill the nastys..

Click to expand...

That's way too long at those temps...

The following table provides the temperature vs. time required to achieve sterilization.

Pasteuraization Temperatures:

Temperature (°F/°C)__Time (minutes)

123/51______________470

130/55______________170

135/57______________60

140/60______________22

145/63______________7.5

150/66______________2.8**

155/68______________1.0**

** Extrapolated from logarithmic curve constructed from Townsend's data.

I made an awesome apple wheat last summer. I fermented for 1 week with 1056, then just dropped 4lbs of quartered apples (golden delicious), right into the fermentor. Let that sit for two weeks. Some have questioned my methods, but it worked and made a great beer. I figured once the alcohol had built up after a week, everything would be fine.

campden tabs work well to "sanitize" fruit from non yeastys... make a slury in blender with a few campden taps let sit overnight in a sealed container add to bucket... once fermentation starts. has worked well for me with strawberries & raspberries.

I've also added fruit at flame out when immersion chiller kicks in. still hot enouch to kill bacteria but not hot long enough to boil away fruit goodness.

i think im more drawn to the idea of adding apple juice or cider.

will i need to pasturize the juice or cider?

exactly what is the ratio for substituting juice for malt?

what if i made a regular batch and adding some juice in place of water when filling to the 5 gal mark, would this just make it a more high gravity beer(which i prefer)

for those that added apples. did you leave the peel on or slice off?