Fruit in Witbier -- need advice.

[ConAcide]

Today will be the two week mark since my first brew day. I'm only doing primary (For lack of currently having a secondary) but I'm thinking about pitching in some fruit later today.

My two choices, I think, are Grapefruit or a mixed berry thing.

For the grapefruit I would probably just zest it and then get the meat out while discarding the pith.

For the mixed berries, I would just pasteurize them on the stovetop really quickly. They wqould probably be blueberries, raspberries, and either blackberries or strawberries.

I'm going for a summer-y beer, so what do you guys think would go better for the beer style?

 

[CJ-3]

I did a Raspberry Witbier that was out of this world.

But grapefruit sounds pretty promising as well.

Sorry,I know I wasn't much help on this one.

 

[Murph2002]

I vote berries. You could puree them in a food processor, too. If it's a summery beer and not an overly sweet fruit beer that you have in mind, I'd go easy on it. You can always add more, can't take anything back out.

 

[estricklin]

Today will be the two week mark since my first brew day. I'm only doing primary (For lack of currently having a secondary) but I'm thinking about pitching in some fruit later today.

My two choices, I think, are Grapefruit or a mixed berry thing.

For the grapefruit I would probably just zest it and then get the meat out while discarding the pith.

For the mixed berries, I would just pasteurize them on the stovetop really quickly. They wqould probably be blueberries, raspberries, and either blackberries or strawberries.

I'm going for a summer-y beer, so what do you guys think would go better for the beer style?

Hello neighbor!!

I actually just brewed a grapefruit ginger beer, it's actually a clone of Shiner's Ruby Redbird, and there's a nice thread on here if you would like the link.

I also just brewed, (and currently have a pint on my desk) a blueberry beer. Whatever you decide to go with, use plenty of fruit, it takes a lot more than you think it does to bring out the fruit flavor in the finished beer. I'm a big fan of adding my fruit to the boil but you may choose to add it to primary.

Using a secondary fermenter is generally considered an outdated practice by most homebrewers, including this one. Primary all the way until bottling or kegging time. When using fruit or dry hops you may want to secondary so that you can harvest your yeast easier, and without transferring flavors from one type of beer to another through the yeast sediment.

Good luck and welcome to the hobby, be sure and check out the Arkansas section on this forum if you haven't already.

Oh and to answer your original question, I vote grapefruit all the way!