Adding grapefruit to beer

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thestraggler611

thestraggler611

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I am new to home brewing. I have been looking for tips on adding grapefruit somewhere during brewing. What I'm going for is something like Shiner Ruby Redbird. I don't want a fruit beer, just a grapefruit finish. The best I've found about this topic is adding grapefruit to the secondary. I am worried that it will ruin 5 gallons of my beer. I know you can use hops to get the citrus flavor but I'm looking for more of a fruit flavor.
 
You could zest a grape fruit or two and put in the boil during flame out. That should provide grapefruit aroma and some flavor without making it too fruity.
 
You could also use hops at flameout and dryhopping to get the effect. Citra + Mosaic is one that will work nicely.
 
Stone has an offering where they added grapefruit. I don't know when they added it. I would assume secondary. I bought a bottle of it and enjoyed it. The only complaint I had was that all burps afterward were very grapefruit.
 
Adding tangerine peel to the boil worked SO well on my last brew, I would not hesitate to add whole grapefruit peel last 10 of the boil.
 
I think you'd get a nice effect adding a cup or so of pure grapefruit juice to the fermenter, just after main fermentation dies down (to preserve aroma), along with zest. Soak the zest in a little vodka to sanitize, add it all together. Ruby Redbird is delicious, I need to clone it asap.
 
I've done two batches of grapefruit honey ale using the Brooklyn Brew Shop recipe. Peeled the grapefruit, then roasted it for about an hour. I added it at the end of the boil (I think 5 minutes) and didn't put it in the fermenter.

It gives a faint grapefruit aroma and a little flavor, but definitely not a fruit beer. The grapefruit peel also adds quite a bit of bitterness, so it is a bitter, but not overly hoppy, pale ale.

I think I used 1 grapefruit for each gallon. If you want less of the bitterness, then you could peel or zest it, but you'd have a hard time roasting it that way. Or like someone said, you could zest it and add it at 5 minutes or flame out.
 
ericbw said:
I've done two batches of grapefruit honey ale using the Brooklyn Brew Shop recipe. Peeled the grapefruit, then roasted it for about an hour. I added it at the end of the boil (I think 5 minutes) and didn't put it in the fermenter.



It gives a faint grapefruit aroma and a little flavor, but definitely not a fruit beer. The grapefruit peel also adds quite a bit of bitterness, so it is a bitter, but not overly hoppy, pale ale.



I think I used 1 grapefruit for each gallon. If you want less of the bitterness, then you could peel or zest it, but you'd have a hard time roasting it that way. Or like someone said, you could zest it and add it at 5 minutes or flame out.
Click to expand...


How do I roast the peel?
 
You can get a nice grapefruit character just by using hops. But if your set on using grapefruit I'd soak some zest in a little vodka and add it to the secondary. The alcohol will extract the volatile oils you want from the peel. Adding to the boil can work too but it will evaporate off a lot of the oils your after. Really it comes down to however you want to do it

Ruby Redbird is a great beer. I've been trying to figure out how to get that nice ginger character it has.
 
Why are we roasting grapefruits? I was following fine on page 1, now everything's gone crazy.

From the flavor, I think Ruby Redbird has to use some juice, zest and ginger in secondary. Otherwise it's just a really light, dry blonde (or maybe lager yeast, not sure it matters here) with some C20 and minimal hops, carbed around 3.0.

I would not try to get your grapefruit solely from the hops, but a Ruby Redbird with lots of late/dry grapefruity hops would likely be really, really good. I'd definitely do cascade over citra, citra doesn't give me much grapefruit.

I'd even consider some Centennial or something else bright but non-grapefruity to balance that out and make it a full pale ale, but maybe you don't want that.
 
KeyWestBrewing said:
Maybe I'm missing something here but why would you want to roast the peel?
Click to expand...

Obviously because you want a bitter burnt vegetable flavor in the beer.

OP, you're making this way too complicated. There are several ways of going about adding grapefruit flavor that's been well established with other citrus fruit:

- Use grapefruity hops, add grapefruit zest to flame out, add grapefruit peel to the end of the boil, add grapefruit juice in secondary, make a grapefruit essence with vodka, etc.

The only one that I would question is roasting the peel. I've never heard of anyone doing this before and to me, I would think roasting the peel would drive off the volatile oils and also add a nice bitter burned vegetable flavor to your beer.
 
thestraggler611 said:
Had a fresh squeezed 2 weeks ago. Amazing beer. Waiting on someone to figure out a clone for
Click to expand...

This is my recipe and it's pretty daggone close. You can cut it in half for 5 gallons:

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Fresh Squeezed IPA

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 11 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 12.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.058
Efficiency: 75% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.066
Final Gravity: 1.018
ABV (standard): 6.24%
IBU (tinseth): 61.52
SRM (morey): 9.01

FERMENTABLES:
22 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (83%)
2 lb - American - Munich - Light 10L (7.5%)
1.5 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 60L (5.7%)
1 lb - American - Wheat (3.8%)

HOPS:
1 oz - Nugget, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.3, Use: FWH IBU: 21.36
2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 19.92
2 oz - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.7, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 20.24
2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 0 min
2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 72%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 59 - 75 F
Fermentation Temp: 68 F
Pitch Rate: 0.75 (M cells / ml / deg P)

NOTES:
152* mash
1 Hour boil.
 
One of the people I brew with got a grapefruit IPA (I think it was the Stone one, actually) and it really wasn't that great. I got a better "grapefruit" flavor out of Zombie Dust. I think plankbr is on the right track with the Citra hops
 
plankbr said:
This is my recipe and it's pretty daggone close. You can cut it in half for 5 gallons:



HOME BREW RECIPE:

Title: Fresh Squeezed IPA



Brew Method: All Grain

Style Name: American IPA

Boil Time: 60 min

Batch Size: 11 gallons (fermentor volume)

Boil Size: 12.5 gallons

Boil Gravity: 1.058

Efficiency: 75% (brew house)



STATS:

Original Gravity: 1.066

Final Gravity: 1.018

ABV (standard): 6.24%

IBU (tinseth): 61.52

SRM (morey): 9.01



FERMENTABLES:

22 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (83%)

2 lb - American - Munich - Light 10L (7.5%)

1.5 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 60L (5.7%)

1 lb - American - Wheat (3.8%)



HOPS:

1 oz - Nugget, Type: Pellet, AA: 13.3, Use: FWH IBU: 21.36

2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 19.92

2 oz - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.7, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 20.24

2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Boil for 0 min

2 oz - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.5, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days



YEAST:

Fermentis / Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05

Starter: No

Form: Dry

Attenuation (avg): 72%

Flocculation: Medium

Optimum Temp: 59 - 75 F

Fermentation Temp: 68 F

Pitch Rate: 0.75 (M cells / ml / deg P)



NOTES:

152* mash

1 Hour boil.
Click to expand...



Awesome. Now can we convert it to an extract. I'm not sure how to do that.
 
Random (semi-related) question: has anyone ever tried using fruit juice instead of water for the boil? Just a random thought. Would be easier for a small one gallon batch, instead of buying 5 gallons worth for a full batch.
 
Darwin18 said:
Obviously because you want a bitter burnt vegetable flavor in the beer.

OP, you're making this way too complicated. There are several ways of going about adding grapefruit flavor that's been well established with other citrus fruit:

- Use grapefruity hops, add grapefruit zest to flame out, add grapefruit peel to the end of the boil, add grapefruit juice in secondary, make a grapefruit essence with vodka, etc.

The only one that I would question is roasting the peel. I've never heard of anyone doing this before and to me, I would think roasting the peel would drive off the volatile oils and also add a nice bitter burned vegetable flavor to your beer.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the point of roasting it is. Like I said, I got the recipe from Brooklyn Brew Shop's book and it's worked for two batches. All I can say is that it doesn't add a burnt vegetable flavor, but it adds a slight grapefruit aroma and maybe some flavor. It's tough to even identify it as grapefruit. It does add bitterness from the pith, but it's a pale ale, so that's ok.

I've also added pumpkin to beer, and that was roasted as well. No burnt flavor, although definitely a little squashy (compared to most pumpkin beers that are really pumpkin pie spice flavored).

I don't think the roasting drives off volatile oils, I think it's the boiling that does that, so you have to add it at the end. The roasting really seems to dry it out more than anything.
 
You roast pumpkin to help break down the cellulose and starch. I consider strange directions in retailers' recipes/instructions with the utmost suspicion. Of course if you liked it, you liked it, but I still recommend doing this in secondary (or after main fermentation finishes), citrus is all about aroma.
 
fearwig said:
You roast pumpkin to help break down the cellulose and starch. I consider strange directions in retailers' recipes/instructions with the utmost suspicion. Of course if you liked it, you liked it, but I still recommend doing this in secondary (or after main fermentation finishes), citrus is all about aroma.
Click to expand...

But you would add dried orange peel from the brew store to a beer, right? I wonder if that's dried with heat.

I have to explain better: I'm not talking about roasting it until its burnt or charred. Not roasting it like you do with pumpkin, where you want things to get brown.
 
I think bitter orange peel is dried solely to preserve it so it can be sold like a spice. Given the volatiles, probably not with heat. Even many home dehydrators have a "low heat" setting for things where you want to preserve aroma (though some only do high heat).
 
fearwig said:
I think bitter orange peel is dried solely to preserve it so it can be sold like a spice. Given the volatiles, probably not with heat. Even many home dehydrators have a "low heat" setting for things where you want to preserve aroma (though some only do high heat).
Click to expand...

We could both be wrong but I agree with this. Without drying the orange peel it doesn't really have any shelf life. I'd think(my assumption here) that you'd preserve the most aromatic and flavor compounds by dehydrating with cool temps and low relative humidity.
 
Apparently centennial and cascade hops have been adding a butt load of grapefruit to my beer while I sleep... Not a fan personally. But that's my two cents.


____________________________
Primary: Cider
Primary: Empty
 
I know this thread is older then hell, but it's one of the first results for "Grapefruit beer" on Google, so I found myself reading it like other folks might.
Best methods I found:

- I have used grapefruit peel with great success, it adds nice aroma and flavor.
- Something else I found but haven't tried yet is Basic Brewing dudes did a Grapefruit Pale Ale that they absolutely loved. It's next on my to-do list.
 

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