Adding flavors to beer

[Birdsfan31]

Hey all, I have a recipe from a friend for a blonde ale but I wanted to add pear to it. When should I add the fresh pear halves. During the cool down? I just want to give it a hint of pear. Any Help is appreciated.

 

[goovaerl92]

I would add the fresh fruit to secondary in order to get a little aroma out of it. Maybe try to slightly muddle the pear halves in the fermenter before you rack the beer in order to get a little more out of it.

 

[Kevin79]

I'm fairly new at this but make sure you sanitize the pears before you throw them in. I heard that freezing fruit helps with giving some extra flavor as it breaks down the cell walls. But since you want just a little bit of pear Id agree with the above post and put them in the secondary and get more of aroma from them. I now digress to more experienced brewers


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[Birdsfan31]

Thanks for the tips. I am now thinking I may want more of a pear flavor and may add them to the boil. I have some thinking to do. LOL Thanks again all good ideas

 

[thrashandburn]

A lot of people like to make tinctures or tea out of spices and other ingredients. You could dice the pears into small pieces and then put them in a container and pour in vodka or another neutral spirit with high alcohol until the top of the pears are covered. Then cover the container and let it sit for at least a week. The alcohol sanitizes the pears and absorbs their flavor. So then, when the beer is in the secondary phase, you can add the vodka tincture to the beer slowly until you have the flavor right where you want it. The higher alcohol spirit the better, but vodka works. I've done this with success in previous brews.

 

[Temptd2]

A lot of people like to make tinctures or tea out of spices and other ingredients. You could dice the pears into small pieces and then put them in a container and pour in vodka or another neutral spirit with high alcohol until the top of the pears are covered. Then cover the container and let it sit for at least a week. The alcohol sanitizes the pears and absorbs their flavor. So then, when the beer is in the secondary phase, you can add the vodka tincture to the beer slowly until you have the flavor right where you want it. The higher alcohol spirit the better, but vodka works. I've done this with success in previous brews.

We do this with peppers (jalapeno, Serrano) - we use Everclear 151 to extract. We've done it by roasting and then chopping the peppers, and we've also done it with fresh, chopped peppers. About a week at room temp really gets the bulk of the job done!

We add the extract liquid a bit at a time to the bottling bucket until we like the flavor, stirring VERY gently after each addition, then bottle.

I'm thinking you could do the same with some diced pears. I'll be interested to see how this turns out if you try it!

 

[akillys]

I add my fruit to the secondary. I also pasteurize them by adding them to a little bit of water in a pot and bringing it to around 160 degrees fur 15 min. Before adding to secondary. Keep in mind you want 1 to 2 pounds of fruit for each gallon of beer

 

[Birdsfan31]

more great ideas. My question now is when you add the extracted liquid ie the pear flavored vodka, does this create a higher avb in the beer? Thanks again for your help.

 

[Temptd2]

more great ideas. My question now is when you add the extracted liquid ie the pear flavored vodka, does this create a higher avb in the beer? Thanks again for your help.

I can only speak to the pepper beer, but it takes about 1/2 cup of the flavored alcohol to make 5 gallons of beer taste the way we want. So, it's not adding much to the alcohol content, I don't think.

 

[Birdsfan31]

OK so I started the tincture and I am going to add it to the bottling bucket until I get the flavor that I want. Because I am adding something with sugar do I need to adjust the amount of honey I am using as my primer. I do not want any blowouts. I will be using 3 tablespoons of honey for my one gallon batch. (I only did a one gallon to try it out) Thanks again for your insight

 

[Randolf]

FWIW, gang, when I add flavorings to a batch,I've found that the safest way is just to sanitize my little funnel and pour some liquid extract into the primary @ 14 days.If you Google extract flavors,you can find a miriad of fruit flavors to add to homebrew recipes.Right now I just added an ounce of McCormick's Lemon extract to a 5 gallon summer wheat Ale,along with 1/4 teaspoon of Grains of Paradise. This is a de-lish beer for the hot days of summer.I've also used Hazelnut,Orange,and Vanilla flavorings in batches and for the most part they were really good.It takes less time than sanitizing a blender etc. and maybe having a mess from overflows. It's your brew,but I thought I'd give you my 2 centavos.