Fruit flavorings/concentrates - Boil?

[DocBob]

I'm doing a fruit ale with a fruit flavoring/concentrate and am getting ready to rack to secondary...then a question hit me (better late than never I guess!!!) How do I sanitize the concentrate? Should I mix it with some water and boil for a few minutes or is this even necessary?
Thanks in advance all

Bob

 

[Brew-boy]

I just dumped mine into the bottling bucket. The solution should be sanitize from the Mfg. I will never make another batch using a concentrate again I feel the taste is a fake one in my case, Peach.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

That stuff is already sanitary (or it would potentially spoil in the bottle and make consumers sick), at least to a degree, and you now have an alcoholic environment in your secondary which will also help prevent infections.

 

[feedthebear]

I agree, its already sanitary.

I don't know how it is for fruit extracts but the hazelnut extract I used last night was very powerful. If you plan to flavor to taste, I'd recommend having someone in another room do the tasting for you. 5 seconds after opening the extract, the only thing I could smell was hazelnuts. It was really tough for me to gauge how much flavor was coming from the test sample I was drinking and how much I was smelling in the air from the extract bottle. And let me tell you, it fatigues your tastebuds fast.

Thankfully my plan all along was to have my wife approve the final amount of flavor.

It really freaked the hell out of my cats too. They started yowling at me because it was so over powering.

 

[Torchiest]

The bottle of blackberry flavoring I have is from ID Carlson. The lady at the LHBS told me it was relatively weak, but that may have been because she was trying to pawn off this other bottle of blackberry they'd received on accident. :cross: The instructions say add 4-5oz to a five gallon batch. I added 2oz (half the bottle) to the last gallon of beer before bottling it, no sanitization or anything.

 

[cap46]

So do you get more flavor from putting the extact in bottling bucket or would you get more form putting it into secondary. Going to use blackberry extract in my next recipe it calls for it in secondary. I have used juice in secondary before but not extract. Thoughts

 

[Torchiest]

IMO extract can be added to the bottling bucket along with the priming sugar solution. If you're using real fruit, that's when you add it to the secondary. Extract is already extracted and concentrated by definition; letting it sit in the secondary won't have any extra positive effects on the flavor.

 

[DocBob]

Thanks for all the replies...maybe I'll just wait to add it to the Keg instead...That's easy enough.
I know I shouldn't add an extra question to my existing post but it's along the same lines. This is a cranberry flavoring...any thoughts on amount? I don't want to overpower the beer, but I do want to taste it. It's a four ounce bottle and I was thinking half (2 ounces) to a 5 gallon batch??? Sound about right? Or should I start less and taste test...I'm always up for taste testing!!!

 

[Torchiest]

I think 2oz for a five gallon keg will give you a pretty mild flavor and would be a good starting point. Even after I added 2oz of blackberry to barely more than a gallon, it was only somewhat noticeable. Of course, this was a stout. You can always just add 1oz but I think you won't notice it at that amount.