6 Lbs. of fruit and almost no flavor!

[mattsypek]

Hey everyone,

So, this is my first attempt at making a fruit beer. Not normally what I like to brew, but I wanted to give one a shot just to see how it would work (and to have something for the ladies). It's a very basic wheat ale extract recipe, and the sample out of the primary tasted pretty darn good.

I racked onto 3 pounds of frozen blackberries and 3 pounds of frozen blueberries which i crushed up pretty good (while they were still frozen). It's now been 2 weeks in the secondary. After the first week in the secondary, I pulled a sample and there was almost no flavor from the fruit at all, but the batch had taken on the color of the fruit. I tried another sample 4 days later just for fun, and pretty much the same deal. I don't want to let it sit on the fruit for too long, so I'm not really sure what to do other than just go ahead and bottle it and see what happens.

I took the sample right from the top of the fermenter... does that make a difference? I know you should never disturb the beer for fear of oxidation, but would stirring it a little bit help?

Thanks!

Matt

 

[Double_D]

I'd just use more fruit next time or you could go get come of that flavor additive from your LHBS. I think they're best when they don't have more than just a touch of flavor anyway. I like to taste the beer and have some fruit aroma.

 

[amandabab]

Hey everyone,



I racked onto 3 pounds of frozen blackberries and 3 pounds of frozen blueberries

at this point it's a berry wine wine with malt that your going to carbonate and no longer a fruit beer.

give it a packet of Montrachet and a month or 6 .

 

[Double_D]

How do you figure it's a berry wine if it's 5 gallons of beer sitting on 6# of fruit?

 

[robbyhicks]

I did a sorghum honey ale for my wife... racked over 9# of frozen blueberries... the most striking thing was how little "blueberry" flavor there was... awesome flavor, next time we will still do the fruit rest, but also a little dab of extract...

 

[JLem]

First, I would just go ahead and bottle it. You can be surprised at how much different the flavors will seem when the beer is carbed and chilled. I wouldn't mess with artificial flavoring or extracts at this point for fear of the beer tasting, well, artificial.

As for the fruit, blueberries don't give a tremendous amount of flavor. They're similar to strawberries in this regard - you need to use a ton of them to get good blueberry flavor. They'll definitely add some acidity and color and tannins (so you might get a bit of astringency), but you probably aren't going to get a lot of blueberry flavor from just 3 pounds in 5 gallons. I would think the blackberries would provide more flavor, but perhaps 3 pounds wasn't enough either.

Regardless, I bet you have a nice, light, summer-drinking beer on your hands.

 

[JeepDiver]

Almost no is going to give you a lot of the fruit flavor because the sugar gets turned to alcohol and the sugar is a lot of what gives the fruit it's flavor. (think about nice red strawberries that have no flavor but if you add sugar and let the set they taste a lot better)

With time it will give you the essence of the fruit so you can tell what is in there but unless you back sweeten with some splendia, etc or stop fermentation and force carb you won't get the bright fruit taste

 

[Calder]

That is just not enough fruit to get decent flavor from it.

 

[Double_D]

Almost no is going to give you a lot of the fruit flavor because the sugar gets turned to alcohol and the sugar is a lot of what gives the fruit it's flavor. (think about nice red strawberries that have no flavor but if you add sugar and let the set they taste a lot better)

It's actually the volatile oils in fruit that give it it's flavor. Sugar is hydrophilic so when you macerate (strawberries) it pulls out moisture and flavor compounds.

 

[dnslater]

Carbonation will definitely lift the flavors