How many use it? Better or worse than real fruit. I know, easier…but what about results for yo?
I used Peach flavoring in a 4.5 gallon kegging. It said to use 4-6 ounces for 5 gallons,…so I used only about 2 thirds. And it still came out tasting very peachy. It’s good, mind you, but strong. The Peach Wheat Ale itself is 6.1%.
The weird thing though?..it made my urine smell like peaches, I kid you not! Anyone else have a similar experience, or am I just the lucky one! HAHA!
IMO worse…way worse. I never made a fruit beer until I met my wife. Since then a few per year, to pay back her acceptance of my time and $$ intensive hobby/obsession. Some of the flavorings are better/worse than others - none of them approach the quality of a real fruit beer. I remember the Brewer’s Best flavorings as especially s!#**y. OTOH a fruity beer made with real fruit or good fruit purees are expensive. That’s the tradeoff I guess. I make really good fruit beers with good fruit purees and no flavorings. Can’t speak to the ‘peachy pee’ though, bro. ;D
Recently I was walking down the grocery store isle and grabbed a box of Jello Peach gelatin with the thought of putting it in a keg of beer but I sobered up by the time I got home.
I like to use the fruit flavorings in addition to real fruit. If the beer falls a little short of my expectation of fruit flavor, I will add a small addition of the artificial fruit flavor to pump it up. Raspberry wheat is a good example - seems like no matter how much raspberries I add it never quite hits the mark. Add a touch of the fruit flavorings, perhaps a bit of sweetener, and it improves the taste. I never use artificial fruit flavorings by itself.
I use the flavor extracts from www.olivenation.com. I used strawberry in a blonde, and cherry for a couple ciders. I also have chocolate and cinnamon that I haven’t tried yet. They make some high quality extracts and more potent than the brewer’s best stuff so go easy. I think I use 85ml of the strawberry in a 5 gallon batch…nice strawberry flavor without being overpowering.
Thanks, y’all… I just think I put too much in. I mean, it’s good and the wife likes it, but I think it is too peachy and covers up the hops characteristics too much.
I still have an apricot flavoring, but will go easy on it. Maybe in my next Wheat?
I may look into those, to supplement the real fruit I use. I used to use the Brewer’s Best along with real fruit until I ran into a couple of theirs that I hated. These sound quite a bit better. Thanks !
To determine how much to use, pour 4 samples of the beer, 2-4 oz. each. Dose each with a different, measured amount of extract. Taste and decide which you like best. Then scale that amount of extract up to the size of your batch.
When you do this, especially if you’re going to use concentrated extracts from somewhere like OliveNation, you will have much better results if you make a serial dilution with some of the extract.
