Nut Brown Ale - with dates

[Bustabrau]

Greetings fellow homebrewers! I am a recent homebrewer (6 batches under my belt), and have found success using BSG Select and True Brew kits, as well as kits from Austin Home Brew. I live abroad and have easy, cheap access to fresh ingredients like dates, pomegranates, strawberries, cherries and apricots. I like to cook and use local ingredients in general, and I've thought of ways to incorporate them into my brewing. I've already done a Pomegranate American Wheat, where I added home juiced pomegranate juice to a secondary fermentation, that came out pretty decent.

So - to my current batch idea - a "date" nut brown ale, using the BSG True Brew Nut Brown Ale kit. I've done some reading among several threads, and I was thinking of making a date sugar from 2 lbs of fresh dates to add to the last 15 min of the boil, looking for a 6-6.5 % ABV. I have a few questions to throw out to elicit any advice from you, more experienced home brewers.

1. Is adding 2lbs of a date sugar to the boil the best method? Or would another method be better (blending the fresh dates with the wort prior to adding to the boil, adding to dates directly to secondary etc.)

2. Is it an appropriate amount of added fermentable sugar to a batch that already has 3.3 lbs hopped LEX, 2 lbs DME and 1 lb brown sugar? Or should I decrease or substitute for another fermentable? Can regular ale yeast handle a higher OG? say of 1.07+?

3. Ive decided to use whirloc to try and remedy clarity in the beer. Would that help mitigate any pectin in dates?

4. Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks y'all!


primary - imperial oaked stout
secondary - empty
bottled - pomegranate wheat, pumpkin spice, citrus american wheat

 

[giraffe]

Date sugar is the safest, there would be less pectin problems that way. Id add it with like 5 minutes left in the boil. If you want to use fresh dates, i wouldnt throw them in the boil. Id add them to a secondary fermentation like you did the pomengranates.

2. Id drop the brown sugar, too much sugar will make the beer thin in body,

3. Whirlfloc is great, but i doubt it would do anything to pectin. Id just try to avoid pectin formation, by not getting whole fruit above 180.

Also, most ale yeasts will handle 1.070 without a problem, over 1.085 is where id be looking at the strains details to make sure it has a good alcohol tolerance and decent attenuation.

 

[Bustabrau]

Thanks Giraffe, I think dropping the brown sugar in lieu of the dates is a good idea.

My fear of putting the fresh dates in the sugar is contamination by natural yeasts that may be on the dates (like raisins - Ive heard that you can use raisins to help start a ginger beer fermentation). I was thinking of turning the dates into a sugar of following a recipe like:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/546200-tips-on-baking-with-date-sugar/

Maybe at such a low heat to dry out the dates, the pectin wont set? But would it in the boil?

Adding the date sugar to the last 5 minutes of the boil would help keep the date flavor to a maximum?

 

[unionrdr]

That does sound interesting nutbrown date, maybe another batch with lite spice added? The trick to me would be preserving the date lavor without trampling the nut.

 

[beergolf]

I did a date dubbel, that turned out great. I used chopped up dates and added them after the boil and the wort started to cool. That way it will kill off any wild yeast and not form a lot of pectin.Put them in a hop sack and left them in through fermentation. I also added some date sugar at the end of the boil. I found date sugar at the grocery store, so instead of making you can just buy it.

 

[Bustabrau]

Beer golf - interesting idea to chop up the dates and add at the end of the boil and keep through the fermentation - how much did you put in? This might be the best alternative and save me from the etra work in making the date sugar. I have nearly 6 lbs of fresh dates that I got as a gift - I wont be eating that many!

Unionrdr - I won't be brewing this batch until after the holidays - what spice would you say? I do have some black cardamom that I was sent by mistake when I ordered coriander - but that might be a bit strong in this brew.

 

[unionrdr]

The usual spices- cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, maybe a little ginger...