Adding Fruit To A Beer Recipe

[Steve1262]

Has anyone had any success in adding fruit to a beer to impart a slight fruit flavour ?
The micro that I work for has been asked to produce a rhubarb beer and knowing I'm into homebrewing one of our brewers has asked me if I had tried doing one.
We would want to do it using proper fruit rather than flavourings or extracts but our brewing consultant has sugested that we may have problems with haze due to pectins, tannins, proteins etc.
If you have managed it, at what stage did you introduce the fruit and proportions etc.

Cheers, Steve

[DeadFall]

Never done it, but you might get away with using pectolaze to get rid of any pectins. Your LHBS will have some.

[simco999]

Tried adding bananas to a Weiss (start of boil) - half a dozen to 40 pints. No difference.

More luck with the old Orange in a Hoegaarden clone.

Good luck - let us know the results.

[critch]

some fruit works well in beer some not
strawberries? crap! need tons of the buggers to get dicernable taste(much the same as laris nanas i suspect). know a brewer who used to blanche then puree loads of the little red blighters before adding them to the secondry and you could taste that, but it looked like hed been involved in an axe murder for days afterward
cherries? good! leifmans kriek, nuff said

got extreme brewing by sam calagione he says to put fruit in at 80 post boil to help stop haze, all the fruit beers ive done have been wheat based so i didnt give a toss about that. damsons in beer are great btw(providing you like light tart beers) never tried rhubarb as itll probably go into a pulpy mess thatl get everywhere!

[fatboylard]

I wonder if it would be worth making some kind of rhubarb syrup (cook a couple of kilos of sliced stalks in water until really mushy, strain and reduce) to use at bottling? You could overcome the haze issue with pectolase as said above.

Sam

[simco999]

I wonder if it would be worth making some kind of rhubarb syrup (cook a couple of kilos of sliced stalks in water until really mushy, strain and reduce) to use at bottling? You could overcome the haze issue with pectolase as said above.

Sam

That could work - concentrate the little buggers before adding.

[greenxpaddy]

Yes +1 . Nice idea

[Befuddler]

I prefer fruit beers when it's been added post-fermentation usually. I've had some very bad fruit beers at festivals where the fruit sugars had fermented right out and it just tasted like shit cider.

[simco999]

I'm excited - new trick!!!

[fatboylard]

Holy crap I might have had a decent idea

[simco999]

Concentrate - don't scare it it might go away.

[richc]

You need a lot of fruit to get much flavour into beer. I used .25kg/l of fruit (I used raspberries and cherries) in a sour beer and now think it was way to little. Advice I have heard is to fill the fermenter with fruit and then pour the beer into the gaps!

[jmc]

I've only used the Polish fruit syrups but I've had really varied results depending on when fruit added.

Best result was adding 1.5 bottles Raspberry fruit syrup to a demijohn and topping up to a gallon with wheat beer at a stage when it was ready for bottling.
I didn't bottle it then but left it to slowly ferment for another month. (Balance of AG wheat beer to a cornie)

It was an experimental gallon and proved lovely. Loads of raspberry flavour and it also retained some sweetness which I think is the hardest thing to achieve without resorting to sweetners or pasturising...

I had last bottle this week 13 months since AG started and it was lovely. Still tasting like a summer raspberry brew with lovely colour, fruit and acidity and a touch of sweetness.

I tried a couple of subsequent brews
* An Abbey single with raspberry at secondary
* A pale ale with raspberry addeded at flame out
Unfortunately both these proved disapointing as initial raspberry flavour seemed to disapear after a coouple of months leaving an odd sort of artificial taste behind. Its drinkable but not something I'd be proud to give my mates.

Cherry versions of above 2 were worse with artificial taste starting earlier.

I think there is a reason the Belgians add beer to barrels full of fruit when doing a lambic. I think the fruity taste and sweetness is dificult to retain and just gets blown away if fruit added too soon.

I think rhubarb or maybe grapefruit would be easier to retain flavour.

Good Luck! ATB John

[Wezzel]

I'm planning to knock up a batch of Golden Glory tomorrow (Badger clone). I have the dried elderflower but the genuine version also has peach flavour. I understand that the flavour of fresh peaches is not robust enough to last when added directly to the fermenter and some people use apricots instead as they are a little stronger and are supposed to taste very similar.

I was thinking about adding peach essence or flavouring when kegging but it is only available in tiny one ounce bottles at £2 a pop. It would work out more expensive that buying the real thing!

[jmc]

I'm planning to knock up a batch of Golden Glory tomorrow (Badger clone). I have the dried elderflower but the genuine version also has peach flavour. I understand that the flavour of fresh peaches is not robust enough to last when added directly to the fermenter and some people use apricots instead as they are a little stronger and are supposed to taste very similar.

I was thinking about adding peach essence or flavouring when kegging but it is only available in tiny one ounce bottles at £2 a pop. It would work out more expensive that buying the real thing!

Come spring, I'll be doing another brew with fresh elderflowers as they work very well.

I doubt whether you'll need more than 1 bottle of the essense as it goes a long way.
I'd do a test tasting with a sample to calculate amount of essence / L before adding to the the whole batch.