26 replies to this topic

[jammer]

McMenamins Ruby Ale is every Portland beer drinker's guilty pleasure. Don't let your hop-head buddies catch you drinking one in the back at the Crystal Ballroom! And yes, Oregon Fruit Puree is the way to go.

hehe. I prefer to drink my Ruby at Edgefield while playing a round of pitch 'n putt. I actually made a few country wines with the Oregon Fruit Puree a few years ago. Raspberry and blueberry, and they turned out pretty good.

[Genesee Ted]

I have found some fruit syrups from Eastern Europe that seem to work pretty well for meads. The ingredients listed are the fruit's juice and sugar, in that order. The ones I have seen are black currant, blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry. I have tried to find info about them online but I have only turned up retail sites that are selling them. I can't recall offhand their name brand. I like using fruit more in meads, but I think these would work in beer as well. I have used the flavor extract stuff that Crosby and Baker sell in the past with mixed results. Apple sucks. Cherry sucks. Raspberry was too fake tasting. Strawberry was horrid. Apricot worked pretty well though. Although, I would only use 3 of the 4 oz, maybe even a bit less than that. I have used real apricots in mead with great success and do prefer the real fruit for flavor purposes, but all that pulp and whatnot is definitely a PITA. To compensate, what I do is to puree the fruit ahead and then press it through a chinois (fine mesh strainer) to collect the juice and then add it to the secondary. For beer and real fruit, I mash higher to make up for the extra fermentability. Although, if you were to use some Belgian styles of beer, like tripel or saison, the dryness could be looked at in a positive light.

[chadm75]

I have tried numerous times to make a fruit beer (extracts, puree, real fruit, etc.) and the sugars from the fruit always kick up a secondary fermentation that ends up drying out the beer. I just racked a raspberry ale from secondary to a tertiary (to get it off of 1½ pounds of fresh raspberries that were frozen, thawed, pureed, heated to 160° and added to secondary) and it tasted like jet fuel and a wine cooler mixed together. I think I'm done trying to add real fruit to beer. I have failed too many times. So I have a bottle of THIS that I picked up at Sam's club and I wonder what you guys think. My bottle looks slightly different and it's sugar free... but it's the same brand name raspberry syrup. This bottle is 25.4 ounces and the label says that you can use anywhere from ½ ounce to 1½ ounce in 12 ounces of things like coffee, espresso, latte, Italian soda and lemonade or ice tea. So I'm thinking, "why not beer"? Anyone see an issue with it? I would consider dumping it right into the keg and racking a cream/blonde/wheat on top of it. Ingredients: Water, natural flavor, cellulose gum, Splenda, sodium benzoate, citric acid, Red 40, Blue 1. The cellulose gum sounds a little off-putting, but this stuff is not really syrupy... it's got a thin consistency. I know some of you wouldn't even consider this... sorry to disturb that thinking but you'll have to avert your eyes. Thanks guys.

Ken - You can add me to your list of fruit beer failures! But this time, it wasn't my process. It was the extract....DON'T use LD Carlson's Blueberry extract. AWFUL! I pitched four ounces into a perfectly good keg of wheat beer and turned it into 5 gallons of liquid Lysol! F****************************KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! I'm so pissed. I just brought home some watermelon extract from my LHBS but am very leery at this point to even try it. I'm gonna try and choke down this sh*t but I don't know if I can take it...Add me to the list of casualties!

[Big Nake]

Chad: So sorry to hear that. I have a bottle of the C&B blueberry (I have actually had it for quite some time) and I thought it smelled very nice, but I never used it. I am going to order some gourmet extracts from a few websites I found and I don't think I'll go back to real fruit or the LHBS-style extracts again.Matt: Yes, I have had that conversation with a few local winemakers and that is one way to go, no question. A few others mentioned that another way to do it was to chill the beer, add the fruit, keep the beer cold (maybe add it to cold secondary, then rack to a keg, keep it cold, etc.) so the yeast goes dormant and cannot begin a second fermentation. I probably won't go that route though... some sort of great-tasting extract sounds too easy!Cheers guys.

[BlKtRe]

I use Potassium Sorbate in the juice for a few days before pitching my desired yeast strain using fresh apples picked from the Orchard when making Hard Cider. Kills any wild yeast that came on the apples. I haven't been brave enough yet to let a natural fermentation take place.