Anyone ever brewed with Dragonfruit?

[RagnarTheRed]

We picked up a Dragonfruit today to just try it and the thing has a very mild, floral flavor. Anyone have any experience with this fruit in primary or secondary, particularly in cyser or mead?

 

[dnr]

I have used prickly pear or cactus pear in a beer with honey and Jasmine. It's perfume-y, but it was good.

The prickly pear and dragon fruit are cousin's, so I would think it's similar.

With any new fruit or adjunct, I add it to the second half of a brew. Bottle half, experiment with half. It also doesn't require as much fruit or whatever to make an impact to 2.75 gallons.

Let us know hot it goes.

 

[RagnarTheRed]

I didn't buy enough to really experiment with, considering they were almost $8ea at the local grocery store I found them at. They really didn't have much flavor at all unless you put sugar on them. I may go buy another and do a 1gal batch with them and also 2.5-3lb of honey just to see how it goes.

 

[dnr]

I started a thread asking about honey in beer for that brew. The consensus was honey almost completely ferments out but will leave a little flavor. So you might need to back sweeten if you're looking for a sweeter beer. Or you could cook the honey to convert some sugars to non-fermentable.

My beer is perfume-y, it has a perceived sweetness, but is pretty dry. You might also want to use a yeast that highlights sweetness rather than dry or neutral.

 

[k-os]

I did a kettle sour with frozen pink dragon fruit. I used 36oz of dragon fruit for a 5 gallon batch (actually 4.5 gallons into the keg). I thawed the fruit, smashed it up in the bags, froze it, then thawed and smashed it up again. I put a bag into my keg and poured the dragonfruit in it and tied it closed and then transferred the beer onto it.

If I were to use dragon fruit again I would probably use double the amount I did on this last batch.

 

[ehall]

honestly, dragonfruit is so mild and pricey, I don't think its worth adding in. just eat it.

 

[k-os]

Forgot I had a picture of my Dragonfruit kettle sour.

 

[RCope]

I added 2 dragonfruit, 2 starfruit, and 5 Kiwis, pureed and put in at flameout into a NZ Pilsner. I literally did it just to name the beer "DragonStar Kiwi". Don't judge me . But it did add a bit of fruity backbone to a delicious Pilsner. The fruit faded after just a few weeks...