Dry "Hop" with Grapefruit Flesh?

[petrolSpice]

I'm making a grapefruit pale ale for fun, it's a 8 gallon batch. I zested 4 grapefruits and added the zest at flame out, it gave it a subtle hint of flavor, but not enough.

So I was contemplating peeling several grapefruits, around 6 or so, mashing up the flesh, and adding the mashed up flesh and juice to the fermenter in a nylon bag along with the dry hops. I'd let this sit for around 7 days like a normal dry hop.

Any issues with this? My concern is the yeast will eat the sugar from the grapefruit juice and leave behind some bitterness/tartness.

I've read about making a "tea" using vodka and zest and adding it before bottling, but I don't think I have enough time for that. I'm hoping to bottle the batch in about 10 days.

 

[55x11]

I'm making a grapefruit pale ale for fun, it's a 8 gallon batch. I zested 4 grapefruits and added the zest at flame out, it gave it a subtle hint of flavor, but not enough.

So I was contemplating peeling several grapefruits, around 6 or so, mashing up the flesh, and adding the mashed up flesh and juice to the fermenter in a nylon bag along with the dry hops. I'd let this sit for around 7 days like a normal dry hop.

Any issues with this? My concern is the yeast will eat the sugar from the grapefruit juice and leave behind some bitterness/tartness.

I've read about making a "tea" using vodka and zest and adding it before bottling, but I don't think I have enough time for that. I'm hoping to bottle the batch in about 10 days.

Your concern is valid - my experience with grapefruit is that once sugars are fermented out, the bitterness it leaves is very noticeable and not very pleasant. More zest (without getting to white pith) and perhaps some grapefruit-flavored hops (like Amarillo) as dry-hop would boost grapefruit in your beer. 10 days is plenty for both/either approaches. You only need to soak zest in vodka for a few days.

The best grapefruit IPA I ever made had actually no grapefruit in it - just tons of Amarillo along with other hops. While every time I added actual zest, it was too intense, too bitter etc.

 

[govner1]

I make a Grapefruit Wheat IPA several times a year. I take the zest of a pink grapefruit and make a tea by boiling 2.5 cups of water for 3-4 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the zest and let it steep until cool.
Remove the zest and add 2 cups/6 gal directly to the keg.
Avoid the white rind as it is very bitter.

 

[shortyz]

thoughts on the oils from any zests used?

 

[govner1]

I haven't had any issues when making the ""tea" & I've brewed this recipe about six times over the last 18 months.

 

[tgif]

I made a grapefruit beer and used a potato peeler to zest the grapefruit, then I scraped any pith off and added it to the fermenter for 24 hours. This seemed to work better than other methods I've tried. I used the peel of 1 grapefruit in ~2.5 gallons of beer.

 

[alexnova]

a vodka tincture with the zest and/or grapefruity aroma hops (like Citra and Amarillo) are the way to go.

 

[RM-MN]

Many of our foods have artificial flavors added. Why? Because in many cases the natural flavors would be so muted as to be non-existant or because the processing destroys or alters the flavor.

I find that instead of using the real grapefruit for flavor (most flavor is really aroma) I fake it by dry hopping my beers that I want to have grapefruit flavor with a combination of Citra and Cascade hops (there may be other combinations that would work too). Mmm, grapefruit aroma but no weird flavors.