Blond base for fruit

[Cazamodo]

Ok, my porter fruit brew failed, and I dont have the grain to do it again as of yet. so I thought Id try a light beer on a few fruits!

This is a recipe ive seen and thought would be a good base. just looking for some idea on it. Im ideally after something not too bitter. slightly spicey/sweet to complement the fruit. Ill be using peach/banana/blackberries/orange peel/whatever I can find all seperately in 1 gal demijons. all added after primary fermentation.

Name Type # %/IBU
3.18 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 84.8 %
0.34 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3.9 EBC) Grain 2 9.1 %
0.23 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 3 6.1 %
7.09 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 55.0 min Hop 4 6.1 IBUs
7.09 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 35.0 min Hop 5 5.2 IBUs
7.09 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 2.1 IBUs
7.09 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 0.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 8 -

[seymour]

That sounds like a really tasty beer in its own right, but I think the hopping schedule is a bit fancy if you're wanting to highlight the fruit flavors and aromas. Perhaps all you need is a 60 or 90 minute boiling addition, or that plus one small late addition.

I'd also think about the hops cultivars. Centennial and Cascade both have a strong, distinctly American grapefruitiness. If that's what you're going for, great, but it could definitely overpower your real fruit. Again, if you're wanting to highlight the fruit, I'd select a single, neutral, English hop.

Just out of curiosity, in what way was the fruit porter a failure?

[floydmeddler]

I love the sound of this! I tried Lugsy's apricot Saison recently and was blown away by the delightful pungency of the apricots. Can't wait to do one myself. Here's his thread: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=52341&hilit=+apricot

I think Windsor is a good yeast choice. If you mash at around the 67c-70c mark you'll end up with a high gravity beer - around 60%-65% attenuation. That way when you add the fruit, the fermentation of the simple sugars won't result in a too dry beer. You'll hopefully end up with a full bodied fruit beer. This is what I plan to do.

Please keep us posted!

[Cazamodo]

Hmm I don't have too much experience with hops! What would you suggest? I'd like the fruit to come through and not be over powered by the hops.

Also, the porter I brewed in a rush, put it in a no chill cube, and a week later found my sanitation must of been off. Had a taste of it to see if was worth chucking the yeast in, in a hope to save it but it tasted rancid and made me wretch. So unfortunately it went down the drain!

[seymour]

...I don't have too much experience with hops! What would you suggest? I'd like the fruit to come through and not be over powered by the hops...

Oh, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I'd think Fuggles, Goldings, or Whitbread Goldings Variety would be a bit more harmonious. Your American hops idea is fine too, just different and bolder.

...a week later found my sanitation must of been off. Had a taste of it to see if was worth chucking the yeast in...

I may have misunderstood you, but (unless you're making a lambic) you never want to wait more than a day to pitch your primary brewers yeast. There are lots of other microbes perfectly happy to consume those sugars and you don't want to give them time to get a foot hold. The purpose of a wort chiller is so that you can pitch your yeast under an hour. So, even if you had excellent sanitation, a week would make any fermentable fluid sour, whether or not unpasteurized fruit was added.

In any case, good luck next time! A blond ale base can definitely produce a nice fruit beer.

[Cazamodo]

I have some goldings that I may use. Ill have a think!

And as for the porter, I was using a no chill cube technique as I didnt have my plate chiller up and running. They do it in OZ alot, pour the boiling wort into a plastic container, push all the air out and seal. The boiling wort sanitises the cube, and people have used it to store un-fermented wort in a sterile container for long periods of time before pitching yeast. My problem was it wasnt sanitary and got a nasty infection!

[Cazamodo]

Ill go with EKG at 60mins and 15mins, and see how I like it. If I make this recipe again without the fruit ill go back to the original hops!

[super_simian]

Nix the 15min addition if you really want to get maximum impact from the fruit.

[orlando]

I made a Raspberry wheat beer using Cascade as the hop on a fairly simple Pale Malt base and found that the bittering of the hop is the most crucial factor. Too much and it detracts from the fruit. I will do it again for next Summer but this time will avoid any hops at the start of the boil going just for flavour and aroma additions.

[Barley Water]

Generally I don't mess with fruit beers but I have to tell you that one of my nastiest beers of all time was an attempt at a rasberry weizen, God that stuff was awful. To be fair, I suspect the stuff got infected but I am still in therapy over that one. Anyhow, I would keep the bitterness low and completely forgo any late hops if you want the fruit flavors to shine in the beer. Depending on how you add the fruit you may also get some really funky flavors because most fruit will have wild yeast/bugs on the skin that will ferment anything that even resembles a sugar. Of course, you can use that to your advantage but if you expect the fruit to produce a sweeter brew think again, it will jack up the gravity and possibly ferment everything else in sight. Also, some fruit does better than others in beer, cherries, rasberries and aprocots seem to do well so if you want quick sucess you might want to start with "known winners" as it were. Anyhow have fun and good luck.

[Cazamodo]

Only saw the replies after I brewed today. Used two additions of goldings. I used the EKG that id picked a few weeks ago myself. 20 at 60mins and 20 at 15 so will see how it comes out.

[seymour]

...20 at 60mins and 20 at 15 so will see how it comes out.

Delicious, that's how

[Cazamodo]

So I split this onto some fruit today. I didn't have the different varieties I had hoped but I have three different types. I was very pleased with how this beer has come out so far! Slightly yeasty but I did stire up some yeats to get some in with the fruit when I split it. So I'm hoping when its cleared it will be tasty!

I put 1 Gallon onto 1KG dried apricots, 1Gal onto 900g Blackberries, and 1gal onto 4 1/2oz of root ginger, just to see what happens!

I will ferment the fruit experiments for a week or so before bottling, and then report back with what worked and what went horribly wrong!

[seymour]

...I will ferment the fruit experiments for a week or so before bottling...

I would strongly recommend waiting at least 2 weeks, if not much longer, for the fruit to dissolve and ferment.

[Cazamodo]

Good idea. I'm in no rush! I have a feeling I will be cleaning it up soon as it starts to ferment. I overfilled the demijohns, oops!