smoked peach flavor in beer

[anotherbeerplease]

Gonna make a summer brew, smoked peach saison.

Has anyone done this before - any tips for me?

I think I'll add the peaches to the secondary, maybe 2-3 whole peaches in a 5gal batch.

Would you smoke the peaches directly, or would you add smoked malt instead?

Cheers!

 

[Beernik]

If it were me, I’d use smoked malt and I’d use 1 or 2lbs of peaches per gallon of wort.

Freeze them, peel them, pit them, and at a minimum cut them into quarters.

I’m not sure you’d notice 3 peaches.

 

[TheMadKing]

Gonna make a summer brew, smoked peach saison.

Has anyone done this before - any tips for me?

I think I'll add the peaches to the secondary, maybe 2-3 whole peaches in a 5gal batch.

Would you smoke the peaches directly, or would you add smoked malt instead?

Cheers!

+1 to what Beernik said. Peach is not a flavor that comes through well, like strawberry, so you have to put in a metric crap-load 2lb/gallon is on the low side IMO. Also plan to lose a bunch of beer to the beer/peach slurry, and be prepared for it to referment.

Add it to the fermenter after primary is complete to reduce the CO2 scrubbing effect. Go VERY light on the smoked malt and use something like alder or cherry, definitely not peat. Oxygen on the cold side is your enemy - keep it out as best you can.

Something that might help is keeping your pH a little on the high side by adding a little baking soda at the end of the boil (2 grams or so.. WAG). It's not ideal for mashing or proteins but it will help to stabilize those volatile flavors a bit.

 

[anotherbeerplease]

Ok thanks for the tips guys, I'll do 10 - 12lbs peaches then. I do want to throw it on the smoker, do it for real... so maybe I'll only smoke half the batch so as not to over do it.

One question though, you said keep the ph on the high side, I was thinking keep it more on the low side - it's a fruited saison, wouldn't I want to accent that?

 

[Calder]

Use smoked malt, and use apricots instead of peaches. Apricots will give you more peach flavor than peaches.

 

[TheMadKing]

Ok thanks for the tips guys, I'll do 10 - 12lbs peaches then. I do want to throw it on the smoker, do it for real... so maybe I'll only smoke half the batch so as not to over do it.

One question though, you said keep the ph on the high side, I was thinking keep it more on the low side - it's a fruited saison, wouldn't I want to accent that?

Some of the volatile flavor compounds in peaches and strawberries are pH sensitive so a lower pH results in less flavor. A lower pH also results in a crisper/brighter beer, so it's a trade off really.

for the record, smoked peaches sound pretty gross