grapefruit flavor help

[John8251]

I did an all grain blonde on saturday. I used cascade hops for flavor and aroma additions at 10 min and flameout and added two ounces of fresh grapefruit zest at flameout and let it sit in the wort for ~30 minutes. We transfered to primary and get a sample for testing and I gotta say it wasn't as much grapefruit flavor as I was hoping for. I'm doing this beer at the request of SWMBO and she wants a very pronounced grapefruit flavor. Im not sure how to go about this since I can't find any grapefruit flavor extract like we've found for other fruit flavors in the past. I was thinking about adding graepfruit juice or frozen grapefruit to the secondary but im not about it since I've read about pectin hazing and want to try to keep the beer as clear as possible. I'm also concerned that adding something like simply grapefruit would kick up fermentation again and I'd end up with a very tart beer. So, I'm not quite sure what to do to get that BAM! in-your-face graepfruit flavor. Any suggestions? We also thought about doing some more grapefruit zest and maybe some sweet dried orange peel together in the secondary to get that pronounced citrus flavor as best as we can...

 

[ryaugie]

John,

I just finished (drinking) a batch of a recipe that had an extremely high grapefruit and passion fruit nose and flavor. I was trying to create my own IPA recipe using Columbus and amarillo hops for bittering (60minute) cascade and Columbus for 30 minute, cascade additions at 10, 5, and 2 minutes and Amarillo at flameout then I dry-hopped with 2oz of citra in secondary. I think I achieved the high fruity character by including 1 whole pound of crystal 15 which I think brought out the grapefruit flavor of the hops.
Grain bill: 5 gallon batch
12 lb American Pale Malt
1 lb rye malt
1 lb crystal15

Fermented with Safale Uso5 in my closet 78degrees

This brew turned out more grape fruity than I was going for but you may want to try it if that's what you are looking for!

 

[sptaylor70]

You can get pronounced grapefruit flavor from your hops, if you use enough of them. Cascade is what my local brewpub uses in their American Pale Ale, and it has a definite grapefruit flavor. A number of other hops, such as Legacy, Summit, and Warrior are also supposed to give a noticeable grapefruit flavor. If you can find them, Riwaka hops are supposed to have a strong grapefruit flavor. You might also try first wort hopping.

 

[Sheldon]

Citra hops will give a healthy grapefruity taste.

 

[brewmeister13]

Just a suggestion, I haven't tried it, but would dry hopping with something like chinook give it enough aroma to affect the grapefruit taste perception?

 

[r2eng]

Chinook is my go-to grapefruit hops.

 

[TheZymurgist]

I just did a SMASH Barleywine using only Maris Otter and Citra Hops, and it's already a grapefruit bomb before dry hopping. Personally, I like Citra and Chinook, but Cascade as well as the others mentioned before can work, too.

 

[benflath]

Dry hopping your batch with the various suggestions (cascade and chinook would be my suggestions) would help, but you could also add some grapefruit zest at the same time. I've "dry hopped" with citrus zest in the past and it really adds to the aroma of the beer but not so much to the taste (like dry hopping).

 

[GuldTuborg]

I did a rye heavy (25% grain by weight) IPA a while back with nothing but Simcoe hops. Six oz of them, if memory serves. When it was fresh, just carbonated, the smell was nearly indistinguishable from pink grapefruit juice. The Simcoe had a lot to do with it, I'm sure, but the rye may have brought it out a bit more. It was an interesting pairing, for sure - pretty good, too, once I got used to how spicy and citrusy it was.

 

[techbrewie]

Citra will get you an awesome grapefruit flavor and aroma

 

[TheZymurgist]

Talk about timely:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/06/grapefruit-american-pale-ale-recipe.html

 

[John8251]

wow...timely is an understatement. I've been looking and looking for a way to get that "BAM!" in your face grapefruit flavor. I had finally decided on something I saw in another thread but now I'm back to juggling which route i should go. It's between the method decribed by themadfermentationist and the method i read of zesting 3 grapefruit then juicing the grapefruit over the zest and simmering that down to a syrup to add to the secondary after chilled. I can't tell which method would make a sweeter addition to the final product. My SWMBO tends to lean away from hoppy flavors (still haven't converted her to a hophead yet, but after my last IPA I did, she may still be coming around after some time), so using the method of dryhopping with citra or cascade is something that I'm not too sure she would like..she tends to be a shock top, blue moon with orange, and angry orchard type drinker (she also liked a raspberry wheat we did in which we added 4 oz of raspberry extract the secondary)..so needless to say she likes the sweeter beers..this time she wanted something other than a wheat with some good citrus flavor for the drinking in the hot summer sun...this is the recipe i used:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.043 SG
Estimated Color: 4.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 27.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item
5.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Centennial [9.5 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [7.3 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [7.3 %] (0 min)
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
2.00 oz Fresh Grapefruit Zest (Flameout addition)
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04)

Total Grain Weight: 8.25 lb

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Mash 75 minutes @ 150.0 F

FG came out to 1.046

With that, any suggestions on which method would be better is greatly appreciated...Thanks!