I’m working on a recipie for a mango beer. Like some of the others, this is my wife’s favorite. She loves Mango Cart. My first attempt at a fruit beer and I’m wondering how much should be added. I was thinking adding to the primary, but what is best? primary, secondary, or both? 5.5 gallon batch…
I recently did a mango Gose, my second time using mango in a beer. I bought 4 kg of frozen chunks (about 9 lbs) and added it to 6 gallons in the primary at >80% attenuation (1.5 lbs per gallon). Tbh, I found the mango underwhelming, which may be partly due to the character of the Gose. It is there, but not very assertive. Next time I would go with 2 lbs per gallon. Thawed, pasteurized with 2 cups of water, pureed, then refrozen in a sanitized container lined with a sanitized coarse mesh bag. Just bring it to the temperature of the beer before adding. I will usually transfer to a secondary when using fruit additions to facilitate the pulp removal, including filtering into the secondary through a finer sanitized mesh bag. I also use a 40-litre primary vessel to accommodate the volume of the fruit.
I was at a brewery awhile back and they had a fruited beer that was well-made. My girlfriend was drinking it and I had a few sips. She used to work at this brewery and she was quite certain the brewer spent some time getting the fruit component just right using real fruit. As a result I made a beer that I had made a number of times in the past but hadn’t made in awhile. A beer with base malt plus some British crystal and Special B (for redness), one hop addition of a neutral hop (Northern Brewer, Perle, Nugget, etc) and then once the beer fermented and was on its way to the keg I added a small bottle of McCormick natural raspberry extract to it. It’s the type of beer that might fall into the “I don’t need five gallons of this” but my kids were here over the holidays and said it was really good. Then my girlfriend tried it and loved it. Anytime she has been here since she has drank this beer … I called it Raspbeery. 