"Juicing" IPAs... Best Practices?

[Blizzz]

Having not attempted this before, I wanted to run a couple idea by you guys to gather your thoughts, basically as a sanity check or to see if there are other methods that may work best.

I have 4 IPAs going right now, three of which I wanted to "juice" or add fruit juice to the finished product before force carbonating them in kegs.

I was originally planning on attempting to kill the yeast with some preservatives and then adding a pasteurized (by me) juice concentrate to the keg and racking the beer to it. My only concern with this, is that the yeast won't get fully killed off and may over carb the keg if they start to ferment the juice sugars.

My other thought was to use a sous vide cooker and recirculate the entire batch with the juice already added to pasteurization temps to kill everything then keg it. My concern here would be oxidation of the beer from the wort circulating. I figured I could potentially get around this by using a cover and filling the head space to the cover with CO2 to limit oxygen introduction.

Are there any best practices that have successfully been used with out screwing up the beer noticeably?

Thanks in advance!

 

[plazola86]

I have added a full gallon of fruit juice to beer before straight from the juice bottle to the keg. You just need to chill the keg down to serving temps (below 40F), this wont "kill" the yeast but its too cold for them to wake up and start fermenting the sugar. With that said you cant take the kegs out or warm them up after doing this, that will wake the yeast back up and you'll have a bomb on your hands.

 

[Blizzz]

In this particular case, I'll be heading to a hunting camp and the kegs will be stored outside, which means the temperatures will be fluctuating from near freezing or slightly below to potentially 50+ degrees. Crazy situation I know

Edit: What's also hilarious, is we have neither running water nor electricity, but we have 4 beers on tap!

 

[plazola86]

There’s no better way to camp than just beer and no water and electricity. Have you tried these concentrates? All natural, no sugar, so no re-fermentation issue and taste really good. I’ve used these as well just put some in my keg and racked the beer on top.

https://www.monin.com/us/products/concentrated-flavors

 

[madscientist451]

Since you're taking them to hunting camp, how long to all the kegs are kicked? If its only a couple of days , and you can at least try to keep them cold, you should be fine. Even if you don't have ice, cover the kegs with old blankets during the day to insulate them from the warmer temps. Take the blankets off overnight to chill them down.
If the yeast starts to kick off, just bleed off some pressure and hit that keg hard!

 

[Blizzz]

There’s no better way to camp than just beer and no water and electricity. Have you tried these concentrates? All natural, no sugar, so no re-fermentation issue and taste really good. I’ve used these as well just put some in my keg and racked the beer on top.

https://www.monin.com/us/products/concentrated-flavors

This looks quite promising, thanks for the link!