20 replies to this topic

[ANUSTART]

I guess this is what happens when you put 4.5 lbs of raspberries in a 5 gallon batch of wheat beer.

[Mya]

lol, taste good?

[Big Nake]

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

[strangebrewer]

I warned you, but did you listen to me? Oh no you knew it all didn't you? Oh it's just a harmless little bit of raspberry in a wheat beer isn't it!

[djinkc]

It looks special

[BarelyBrews]

Want.

[jammer]

Never mind what it looks like. How did it taste?

[ANUSTART]

Pretty tasty. It's pretty dry, not as tart as I hoped. I'll see how it is when it's carbonated. I still may backsweeten, but probably not.The KMETA turned the berries into a more pukey red than a deep raspberry red. Maybe next time I'll skip that step.

[positiveContact]

Yeah, KMETA does lighten fruit colour intensity. You should do something to sanitize the fruit in a low ABV beverage though. For mead, the acidity and ABV is enough to prevent beasties, but not for beer.

would freezing or soaking in vodka work?

[ANUSTART]

I shouldve stated... the fruit was the flash frozen stuff you get in the smoothie section at the grocery store. So it was probably already sanitized by the freezing. That's why I'd be willing to risk it next time around. Vodka would be terrible, I don't want a 12% ABV fruit wheat beer.

[davelew]

Yeah, KMETA does lighten fruit colour intensity. You should do something to sanitize the fruit in a low ABV beverage though. For mead, the acidity and ABV is enough to prevent beasties, but not for beer.

If you want good color intensity, add some fruit to the boil at the end. You lose some aroma that way, so you still need to add fruit to secondary, but I find you get much better color from late additions to the boil. Most of my experience is with blueberries, but the same trick might work for raspberries or other fruit.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Yeah, freezing, especially flash frozen, is best unless you use KMETA. I'm not a fan of using liquor to sanitize.

How/why do you use KMETA to sterilize fruit going into secondary (that's the gist I am getting here)?

[SchwanzBrewer]

KMETA is what winemakers use to sanitize grapes before fermenting and after fermenting to stabilize the juice/wine. You add (IIRC) around 100ppm sulfite to fruit to sanitize before adding to anything so the residual natural yeasts and bacteria don't infect the beverage. Beer usually doesn't have enough alcohol to sanitize on it's own.

So if I wanted to do a peach wheat beer I just cut my peaches and add them with the kmeta maybe in a boiled/cooled water solution into the secondary?

[SchwanzBrewer]

You'd do one or the other. Boiling peaches would set the pectins and make a haze. For a wheat beer, that would be fine. If you want a clear beer, then only add KMETA and don't boil.

I wasn't gonna boil the peaches, just a water solution to add them and the KMETA to. The beer will already be hazy so that's not a problem, but I wouldn't want to lose flavors if I boiled the fruit (not sure that would happen).

[strangebrewer]

I've removed fruit from my freezer to thaw only to find a pressurized bag in the fridge a week later. So in my experience freezing is not adequate for sanitation.Also a note on KMETA. Wild yeast have very low sulfite tolerances. Brewing yeasts for mead, wine, and beer all tend to be very sulfite tolerant. By adding KMETA your shocking the wild yeast and giving your selected yeast a leg up to get busy, make alcohol, and hopefully surpass the ABV tolerance of the wild yeast. If at any point your sulfite level drops below the limit of the wild yeast it'll start reproducing and fermenting. However if you had a big healthy yeast population from primary fermentation then you've already got more natural yeast than wild yeast. I'd consider just tossing the fruit into the beer and then sulfiting the whole beer to 50-100PPM.

[ANUSTART]

I'd consider just tossing the fruit into the beer and then sulfiting the whole beer to 50-100PPM.

I'm way too cheap for that. My bottle of KMETA lasts a lot longer if I'm getting 1/2 gallon of fruit sludge up to 100 ppm than 5.5 gallons of beer up to 100 ppm.

I wasn't gonna boil the peaches, just a water solution to add them and the KMETA to. The beer will already be hazy so that's not a problem, but I wouldn't want to lose flavors if I boiled the fruit (not sure that would happen).

In my experience, you only need to add enough water to dissolve the powder in. I use about 1 cup for 4.5 lbs of frozen, then food-proccessored fruit. When the fruit melts, there's plenty of liquid in there from the fruit juice. Just give it a swirl the next morning to make sure it's all mixed up.

[strangebrewer]

I'm way too cheap for that. My bottle of KMETA lasts a lot longer if I'm getting 1/2 gallon of fruit sludge up to 100 ppm than 5.5 gallons of beer up to 100 ppm.

1lb of KMETA costs $5. Enjoy your pink beer

[ANUSTART]

Now that the beer is mostly carbed, I don't think I'll backsweeten or add acid or anything. It's not very boldly flavored, but it's very refreshing. Kinda like a fruity soda, but not sweet at all. It's ~6% ABV plus whatever the fruit added, but it drinks like a 3.2 beer. I will enjoy my pink beer, thank you very much!

[Mya]

Now that the beer is mostly carbed, I don't think I'll backsweeten or add acid or anything. It's not very boldly flavored, but it's very refreshing. Kinda like a fruity soda, but not sweet at all. It's ~6% ABV plus whatever the fruit added, but it drinks like a 3.2 beer. I will enjoy my pink beer, thank you very much!

6% and drinks like a 3%, winnah!

[BlKtRe]

Not sure why after 8 years I haven't made a pink beer for our Komen fundraiser????Thanks for the idea. Its gonna happen, on purpose.Im going to do my best to get it to come out like the Komen pink without any flavor contributions to the base beer.