Multi-fruit Beer

[smijo]

I've been thinking about making a strawberry-peach wheat beer for the summer. I've done some reading and I was thinking that I should figure out a ratio of strawberry to peach by weight. Does anyone have any idea of how I should do this? I plan on using fresh fruit and not extract. I'm also thinking about using around 10 lbs of fruit for a 5 gallon batch. This would be a mixture of peaches and strawberries.

 

[benflath]

One stat you may want to check out is the sugar content of the different fruit. I know that won't be the same thing as the flavor, but it will have an effect on the beer. Here's a handy chart (sorry it's from the paleo diet website): http://thepaleodiet.com/fruits-and-sugars/

As far as ratio for flavor itself, why not try a few combinations in water or flavorless beer (like the Bud Light dryhop method)? Or just go for it. What's the worst that will happen? You get more of one flavor than another and your beer is still tasty?

 

[Jay1]

I've made a couple of strawberry beers that turned out really well. I used 6lbs of frozen strawberries in 5 gallons.

I made a base ale recipe. Then, transferred the beer on top of the chopped fruit. The last time I did this, I put a sanitized mesh bag in the bucket first and this really helped with racking and separating the fruit. The bucket is nice also because you can just keep tasting it until it's right. Mine took about a week of being on the strawberries.

 

[smijo]

You just chopped the fruit? I was originally thinking that I was going to make a puree for both the strawberries and the peaches, but if I can get away with just chopping the fruit, I would do that.

How intense was the flavor with 6 lbs of strawberries in 5 gallons?

So you put a mesh bag on the bottom of the bucket, then the fruit, then the beer?