Grapefruit beer

[noob1979]

I'm thinking about making grapefruit beer. The idea is to make a light pale ale with safe ale number 5. After primary I plan the grapefruit addition, but I'm not sure if I need to let a second fermentation happen, or if I make the addition and bottle right away. Any suggestions?

 

[IslandLizard]

The leftover yeast in the beer will ferment the sugars from the grapefruit, leaving only the acidity of the citrus fruit. If you want to retain the real grapefruit juice in the beer such as in a mimosa or shandy, you'll need to kill or filter out the yeast before adding. Or instead, add grapefruit juice to your glasses at drinking time.

 

[noob1979]

I hadn't though of that. It's really a great idea.

 

[David_Trucks]

Grapefruit zest in secondary.

 

[day_trippr]

Do anything that strikes your fancy, as long as it doesn't include pith.
Bad juju, that - unless you're into "dumpster notes"...

Cheers!

 

[noob1979]

Zest could work. Ads the citrus with little sugar.

 

[David_Trucks]

Zest could work. Ads the citrus with little sugar.

Zest adds a lot more citrus than you would think. Adding your beer to juice when you pour it sounds ridiculous.

 

[billl]

In general, I don't think hoppy/bitter and sour play well together. All of the grapefruit beers that I've liked used just the zest.

 

[Novacor]

I added an ounce of dried grapefruit peel at flameout. I also used Galaxy, Citra, and Cascade as late additions and dry hops. Gave me a nice bitter grapefruit flavor and didn't taste too much like a fruit beer.

 

[psujeeperman02]

I added the entire package (2oz) of dried grapefruit peel that i bought from my LHBS into the secondary of an IPA, with dry hops, for about 10 days.
beer is still still very young, but it has a very bitter bite to it as if you were eating the peel itself.
Maybe I should have only used 1oz, or skipped that package and used zest.
regardless, i think my beer is ruined unless I try to add juice either to each pint, or possibly open the keg and add juice to it.

 

[Brian77095]

This is my Favorite Grapefruit beer. Problem is it has not grapefruit in it. Not sure you can get it in your area but, you might try something like this. When it is fresh it is very grapefruity!

Lone Pint Brewer

Yellow Rose
A SMaSH, Single Malt and Single Hop, IPA using a caboodle (technical term for a large amount of malt) of malt and a new hop released in 2012 called Mosaic (HBC 369). It is a daughter of Simcoe (YCR 14), one of our favorite hops. Whole cone Mosaic is used for bittering, flavoring, and aroma in the kettle; it is also massively dry hopped. The beer is named after a Texas Heroine.
Tasting notes: chalk-white head with a very clean malt backbone. The hops impart strong grapefruit, pineapple, and blueberry flavor and aroma. A strong beer that is extremely quaffable.
ABV: 6.8% IBUs: 62


Hope that helps!
Brian