tiredofbuyingbeer
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2016
- Messages
- 231
OK, so I'm ready to add 5 pounds of mango to my mango habanero pale ale. I have two questions:
1. How ripe should mangoes be when adding to beer? The South Asian grocery store near me actually has two mango displays, one for ripe and one for unripe mangoes. Their ripe mangoes, in my experience, aren't close to overripe. They're just really sweet and juicy. On one hand, I've heard people say that ripe stone fruits can get putrid. On the other hand, unripe mangoes can be sour, and I don't want this beer to be more tart than necessary.
2. I want to just chop the peeled mangoes up on a sanitized cutting board* with gloves on, remove the stones, dump them in a sanitized secondary, and rack on top of them. Can I get away with this? I've read a lot of conflicting accounts/advice on how to handle secondary fruit additions. Some people puree, some freeze, others cook. How risky is it to dump fruit chopped under reasonably sanitary conditions in fermenter?
If it matters, this is a pale ale of about 5% abv, and it will have a little more than two weeks on the fruit.
*I'll probably put something sanitary over the cutting board and carefully cut. I realize that the cracks in cutting boards can harbor bacteria.
1. How ripe should mangoes be when adding to beer? The South Asian grocery store near me actually has two mango displays, one for ripe and one for unripe mangoes. Their ripe mangoes, in my experience, aren't close to overripe. They're just really sweet and juicy. On one hand, I've heard people say that ripe stone fruits can get putrid. On the other hand, unripe mangoes can be sour, and I don't want this beer to be more tart than necessary.
2. I want to just chop the peeled mangoes up on a sanitized cutting board* with gloves on, remove the stones, dump them in a sanitized secondary, and rack on top of them. Can I get away with this? I've read a lot of conflicting accounts/advice on how to handle secondary fruit additions. Some people puree, some freeze, others cook. How risky is it to dump fruit chopped under reasonably sanitary conditions in fermenter?
If it matters, this is a pale ale of about 5% abv, and it will have a little more than two weeks on the fruit.
*I'll probably put something sanitary over the cutting board and carefully cut. I realize that the cracks in cutting boards can harbor bacteria.