Sour/funky 'cider' saison...? Will this work?

[dawn_kiebawls]

I'm imagining a refreshing beer to enjoy after a day of raking leaves from the yard as the weather starts to cool, or on a bright, crisp day walking through the apple orchard with my wife as she picks apples while I enjoy the window of time between winterizing my mowers and hooking up to the snow plow. Then it hit me! I've got some frozen gallon jugs of fresh pressed apple juice (fresh is used loosely, they're ~2 years old) and Im wanting to do something other than another cider or apple wine.

I'm thinking of brewing a fruity saison (Huell melon, Mateuka and Nelson late additions and dry hopped with ~10-15IBUs bittering charge) fermented with The Mad Fermentationists Saison blend hoping to get mild funk, slightly tart, big fruit nose and taste and incorporating a gallon or two of the apple juice. Where would be the best place to add it?

I'm only able to brew up to a 6 gallon batch at a time, so I'm thinking of scaling down a Saison grain bill to 4 gallons then adding a gallon of juice to 'top up' the fermentor. (~70% Pils, 25% Wheat malt, 3% Acidulated, 2% De-husked Cara II or Crystal 80)

Since the juice is untreated or unpasteurized at all I'm a little concerned about just adding it straight to the carboy even though the primary yeast is a blend of Sacc, Brett and bugs and would likely outcompete anything to come from the pressed apples. But, I dont want to treat the juice with any Camden incase it will negatively affect the primary yeasts.

The two options I can think of are:

(i) Add the juice to the kettle at flameout and cool to pitching temps in about 20 minutes with my IC.
(ii) Add the juice to primary AFTER primary is over to retain some apple character and hope the beer is high enough ABV and low enough PH to keep any of the potential wild bugs from establishing.

I'm open to advice or opinions!

Also, how do I go about calculating anticipated OG and anticipated ABV when adding juice into the wort? (for calculating grain weights, I know I can use a hydrometer after adding juice to see where it is, but I would like this to be a modest 5-6% beer).


I'm going to get this project underway in about a week so I just want to go into this as prepared as possible with at least a rough idea of how it will turn out. Thanks for any and all help and I will be sure to post how it turns out. Cheers!

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'm a little concerned about just adding it straight to the carboy

There's really no reason for concern.

The two options I can think of are

Option III:
Add the juice 2-4 weeks before packaging (along with some yeast) if you want to retain the most fresh fruit flavor.

how do I go about calculating anticipated OG and anticipated ABV when adding juice into the wort?

After it's done?
Use a blending calculation to determine to the OG. Measure FG. Use the standard ABV calculation.

Planning stage?
If you have an ABV target in mind, you'll need some ideas of the ABV potential of the cider and the attenuation level of the beer, it just becomes another blending calculation.

Cheers

 

[mashpaddled]

I would add the juice at some point in fermentation. You could add it after the wort cools at pitching and let sacc and brett have maximum fun with the apple flavors and acids or you could add a few weeks before packaging to keep more of a fresh apple flavor. I wouldn't be extremely worried about what microorganisms are in the juice. A long freeze will kill a lot of native bacteria and yeast (especially if they have been in an auto-defrost freezer where they have frozen over and over) and what cold didn't kill the inhospitable conditions of an aggressive sacc fermentation will struggle to compete successfully.

Take a gravity reading on the juice and assume it will go to 1.000 or slightly below and then work out the math on the blend of the two. I agree a blending calculator will make fast work of that.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

There's really no reason for concern.


Option III:
Add the juice 2-4 weeks before packaging (along with some yeast) if you want to retain the most fresh fruit flavor.


After it's done?
Use a blending calculation to determine to the OG. Measure FG. Use the standard ABV calculation.

Planning stage?
If you have an ABV target in mind, you'll need some ideas of the ABV potential of the cider and the attenuation level of the beer, it just becomes another blending calculation.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply, I figured I was getting worked up over nothing about adding the unpasteurized at any point in the process. I definitely like Option III the best, thanks for that!

I would add the juice at some point in fermentation. You could add it after the wort cools at pitching and let sacc and brett have maximum fun with the apple flavors and acids or you could add a few weeks before packaging to keep more of a fresh apple flavor. I wouldn't be extremely worried about what microorganisms are in the juice. A long freeze will kill a lot of native bacteria and yeast (especially if they have been in an auto-defrost freezer where they have frozen over and over) and what cold didn't kill the inhospitable conditions of an aggressive sacc fermentation will struggle to compete successfully.

Take a gravity reading on the juice and assume it will go to 1.000 or slightly below and then work out the math on the blend of the two. I agree a blending calculator will make fast work of that.

I'm starting to lean towards letting 1/2 gallon get fermented in the primary feeding frenzy, and re-freezing the other half to make an apple juice concentrate that I will add ~3 weeks before packaging to keep the fresh flavor and also so I dont have a 1/2 gallon of juice kick itself off spontaneously. Considering how many times I took basic algebra in high school you might assume I'm good at math..Thanks for the heads up on a calculator. Cheers!