Modifying with fruit, need some advice!

[BovaFett]

Hi Everyone!

I'm prepping for my second batch ever, and like I do with everything else in the kitchen, I can't tear myself away from the fun of changing recipies and experimenting. I've read that this particular kit - Jawbreaker Wheat Pale Ale from Midwest - is really good and a nice hybrid of a wheat and a moderately hoppy ale. Being that it's summer, and I have a second carboy to use, I wanted to potentially split my batch and follow with half as written, and half with some fruit added before dry hopping. I have about 2 pounds of fresh blackberries that I picked this weekend that are in the freezer. I was hoping to use those, and some Italian Volcano Blood Orange juice. The two make for an excellent smoothie and muffin flavor, so I was hoping to pull a bit of that through to my beer. That being said, I have a few questions I was hoping some more experienced folks could help me with!

1. How much do I need to worry about pH in the secondary? Blackberries are alkaline, and the blood orange juice is pretty acidic.

2. If I'm splitting into two secondaries, one with fruit and one without, should I wait to dry hop both at the same time? And if so, will the unfruited one be fine in the secondary for the week or so that the fruits are playing around in the other, before dry hopping? I don't want to open the package and risk drying them out by doing half at different points.

3. How does one go about calculating ABV when you're adding sugars (fruit) in the secondary? I know it'll change what's expected from the recipe, just not how much.

4. How do I sanitize my berries? I don't want to boil them and lose flavor and start gelling the pectins in the skin. Lower-heat pasteurizing? A Star-san dip? Sanitizing tablets?

Thanks everyone! I'm a chemist, so all of this tinkering is an exciting shift from my day-to-day labwork!

-Tony

 

[BovaFett]

Anyone?

 

[ASantiago]

Please don't hate me for this and I don't want to discourage you, but it's your second batch. Any chance you can get a few more under your belt before you start throwing in fresh fruit and juice?

If you want fruit, any way you'd consider a pre-made recipe kit that comes with flavoring? Most well-known shops have a few of those.

 

[chickypad]

I'm actually not a fan of the artificial flavorings myself. I don't make a ton of fruit beers but I'll take a stab at your questions since you're not getting much traffic.

1) I don't see a need to worry about pH at that point.
2) I would wait to dry hop any beer until right before packaging. If you don't have too much headroom a little extra time in secondary shouldn't be an issue. I will say though that IME too much hop character and fruit don't always go well together. You may consider leaving out the dry hop in the fruited beer.
3) According to this article by the mad fermentationist adding fruit to beer often doesn't change the gravity significantly because the fruit also contain a significant amount of water.
4) I've only done juices and pre-pasturized purees so can't speak from direct experience with this, but you'll find all the options you mentioned described by folks on here. Seems like pastuerizing and using a crushed campden tablet are the most common. You can search around for more details and opinions.


p.s. - I like the username, now that I get it from your profile. Like your dog too