Use of Navel / Grapefruit Juice in IPAs?

[adamjackson]

Recently, a commercial brewer told me that they used 5 litres of grapefruit juice for 1 hectolitre of wort..about .05 hectoliters being the grapefruit juice.

Sounded like a good idea and the beer that came out was very juicy. actually I asked, what kind of hop they used to get such a citrus explosion and they mentioned the grapefruit juice

So I just brewed an IPA tonight and juiced 10 Navels right into the boiling wort about 5 minutes before the end of boil. I figured it was a pretty cheap beer to brew (simcoe, amarillo, warrior and 5-6% expected ABV).

Should I have added the juice to the secondary instead? I figured with the crazy wild bacteria that sits on fruits, adding the juice to the boil was a good idea. I wonder if it will effect my ABV since the navel juice will add fermentable sugars?

Anyone with great experience with fresh squeezed juice? When do you add it? What citrus is best to use?

 

[abbie]

Recently, a commercial brewer told me that they used 5 litres of grapefruit juice for 1 hectolitre of wort..about .05 hectoliters being the grapefruit juice.

Sounded like a good idea and the beer that came out was very juicy. actually I asked, what kind of hop they used to get such a citrus explosion and they mentioned the grapefruit juice

So I just brewed an IPA tonight and juiced 10 Navels right into the boiling wort about 5 minutes before the end of boil. I figured it was a pretty cheap beer to brew (simcoe, amarillo, warrior and 5-6% expected ABV).

Should I have added the juice to the secondary instead? I figured with the crazy wild bacteria that sits on fruits, adding the juice to the boil was a good idea. I wonder if it will effect my ABV since the navel juice will add fermentable sugars?

Anyone with great experience with fresh squeezed juice? When do you add it? What citrus is best to use?

I have not used juice in the wort but have used both citra and cascade hops. These both work well together.

 

[aiptasia]

Usually, brewers just use citrus flavored hops.

 

[unionrdr]

I was thinkin "C" hops & amarillo for the orange & grapefruit. Juice for those flavors is a new one.

 

[adamjackson]

You guys are absolutely right. I was under the same impression (hops with citrus properties) and I"d use Citra and Galaxy to accomplish that but take a look at these two beers:

Life Without Principle #2 is the second in our series of citrus inspired American blond ales. This one has been brewed with 280 ICUs (International Citrus Units) of fresh, amazingly aromatic Meyer lemons. Weighing in at 4.9% abv, this is extremely sessionable, refreshing.​

They're using Meyer Lemon juice in the beer and another beer has grape fruit juice in the beer.

The result was a very delicious and juicy citrus taste that far exceeds anything that hops could produce. They've very low IBUs yet still very juicy.

 

[jerseyale]

with the strong fruit flavors in iipas, its not a bad idea to try using actual fruit instead of hops

 

[adamjackson]

Bump to see if anyone on HBT has had experience with citrus juice to add more freshness over hops?

 

[DPBISME]

I would like to know how it came out...

I keg, and I thought about using 1/2 gallon of Grapefruit Juice as my Priming Suger.

I figure it is pasturised and once deluted in 10 Gallons of beer any preservatives will be at such a low concentrate that it should Prime the beer fine...

 

[HokieBrewer]

Juice is sanitary provided your knife and juicer are sanitary.

I'd think zest would help more than juice. That's what Westbrook did with that limited IPA they did, citrus ninja or whatever.

 

[Nightshade]

I have a buddy that uses grapefruit, lemon and orange rind in his IPAs on a regular basis and I like it a lot.

*edit* I should mention it is added at boil

 

[Bamsdealer]

No, but I've thought about it. Make sure you check back when its done. I'd love to know how it turnes out.

I would have probably done something like the others suggested though. Zest at flameout or juice to the secondary. My buddy does a peaches and steam. He basically tosses a bunch of peeled and quartered peaches into his primary after fermentation is done and it turns out great. He tried mashing and adding them to the boil and flameout with some success, but the secondary version turned out much better and wasn't a bit hazy.

 

[unionrdr]

I've used realemon juice crystals before. Bu it would've been better with say,sorachi ace than the hops I used. Made it come out like lemon herbal tea flavor. Darn good & close to a summer shandy,but could've been better imo.

 

[Jayhem]

I've used orange peel (zest) in my spiced wheat beers...doesn't take much to give a real citrus taste with no citrus hops.

 

[adamjackson]

Thanks guys. I did the math on this guy's beer and I think (he may email me back saying my math is wrong) that he added 1% juice to the beer. I didn't confirm if it was done at boil or in primary but I added to the boil to sanitize it because I'd hate to infect an iPA.

So, I added 10 ounces of Navel juice to my boil which turns out to about 1.5% juice addition so slightly higher than my friend's.

The hops used weren't too citrus overall so it might compliment the beer well or it may not. If I was smart, I should have split the batch in 2 and added the boiled fresh squeezed juice to one of the two fermenters.

Thanks again for the input.