Fruit Purée

[jmart84]

Has anyone tried using fruit puree in extract brewing? My local brew shop sells some fruit purée for brewing and I was thinking about making an apricot ale. Is this appropriate for extract brewing, and if so, when should it be implemented? Thanks

 

[ArcaneXor]

The purees work exactly the same in extract and all-grain brewing. Best practice is to do a proper secondary with these - pour puree into sanitized fermentor and rack the beer on top. What will happen is a more gentle fermentation of the simple fruit sugars than would be the case in primary, preserving more of the aromatics.

 

[jmart84]

Should the puree be prepared in any way, such as boiling first?

 

[nettekdl]

Not sure how necessary it is but I am very finicky about sanitation of secondary additions so I personally always boil or pasteurize fruit before i add it to secondary.

 

[tlucarelli]

I just got done reading Home Brew: Beyond the Basics, and I can honestly say it was my favorite brewing book BY FAR. I would highly recommend it.

Anyway, the reason I mention it is because at the end of the book he talks about adding fruit. I've never done it, but the way he laid it out seemed to make sense. He said you can do a few things to sanitize...clearly don't use Star San, but you can freeze them for a couple days and that will get rid of most of the undesirables. After that you can add it directly into the primary after fermentation is complete (say 7-10 days), or you could then put them in the oven at I think he said 160 for 30 mins or so to try to kill more.

This is all for whole fruit (not puree). And if you go that route, he said 2 lbs of fruit per 1 gallon is a good ratio, though it changes based on what type of fruit you are using. So if you wanted to go the fresh route, get 10 lbs of apricots for a 5 gallon batch, freeze them, then drop them in the fermentor. I'll be trying this in a batch soon, probably using some tropical fruit combination of like papaya, guava, passion fruit.

If you use a canned puree, I believe you can dump it straight into the fermentor without boiling.

Cheers!

 

[TycoRossBrewing]

Should the puree be prepared in any way, such as boiling first?

I generally only puree certain fruits...not all fruit works well with the puree method. However, when I do puree I generally peel and cut the fruit into small chunks and then freeze the fruit. The freezing breaks the cell walls of the fruit and assists in the pasteurization process. After freezing the fruit I cook it at about 170-180 for thirty minutes or so and let it cool in a sanitary vessel...perhaps just a sanitized secondary fermentator And then rack on top of the puree.

 

[TycoRossBrewing]

There are a handful of fruits that just work better by freezing them and then adding to the secondary. Usually the common ones are blueberries, apples, oranges or grapefruits with the rind and white portions peeled away, blackberries (use the sparingly), and cherries.

 

[Calder]

If it comes from a can, it is fine to use straight.

Never boil fruit. It will set the pectins and never clear.