I apologize if this is not the proper forum for this question, but I have a general question about adding fruit to beer. Well, maybe a couple questions. So far I’ve only ever used recipe kits but wanted to spice up a wheat beer kit by adding some strawberry.
What is the best way to do this? Whole fruit? Puree? Concentrate? Any suggestions of specific products would be welcomed.
When does the fruit get added? During fermentation I’m guessing but haven’t found much guidance on when in the process.
How much fruit/puree per gallon? Thanks in advance for any info y’all can provide.
You might get favorable results using the new strain from Omega - OYL401 Sundew Ale - Omega Yeast. It is a genetically selected yeast that cannot produce phenolics and emphasizes strawberry, passion fruit and similar flavors. Something worth considering. I have not used it, but have heard from some brewers who liked the results. Combined with an extract flavoring, it might be too much, though. Like I said, something for your consideration.
Good luck!
I probably chime in on every fruit beer thread and I’m sure that I sound like a broken record by now. I used to try making fruit beers and the issue I always had was the addition of the fruit creating extra/additional fermentation because of the sugars in the fruit and the yeast metabolizing those sugars and drying out the beer making it mouth-puckeringly dry. That got me into extracts, sugar-free drink mixes, killing the yeast after the fruit was added so the yeast couldn’t metabolize and also adding the fruit to the beer when it was cold so the yeast was dormant. I did have some success with McCormick Raspberry extract that you can get in the grocery store. There is a strawberry flavor as well but it says it’s artificial so I did not try it. That said, I feel like the world of “flavor extracts” is exploding right now. My son actually worked at a “flavors” manufacturing plant. A fellow brewer told me he had a “toasted marshmallow porter” that was delicious. He started asking about ways to introduce the flavor to the beer, how many marshmallows to roast and when to add them, etc. I said, "No way that a commercial brewery added toasted marshmallows. It had to be an extract/flavoring. A friend of mine told me about a chocolate and peanut butter beer he had. Same thing… that HAD to be a flavoring. Try checking out OliveNation.com and see what they have in the way of strawberry extracts that are natural. Good luck & keep us posted. I’d love to hear if you had success.
Thanks for all of that input. When you had luck with extract, when are you saying you added it? I’m probably just too much of a rookie to interpret what you said, haha. And how much extract were you using per gallon of beer?
The proper time add it is near the end of primary fermentation or in a secondary fermentation. As Denny said, strawberry might be difficult to procure real flavor. You may have better luck with other fruits.
I love fruit puree, either home made or aseptic purees. I’ve had good luck with frozen fruit that I have slightly thawed then purees in a processor or blender.
Most of those old raspberry wheat type of fruit beers are extract flavored. Some of the modern fruited beers have a massive amount of puree to get intense fruit flavor but then address the drying effect of fermenting all that sugar with an equally massive amount of lactose. That’s how those smoothie beers in particular are brewed.
I buy extracts and food grade essential oils for carbonated water. I feel like the extracts available these days are way better than the old ones you used to get at homebrewing shops that were close but always tasted a little medicinal. I bought a sample pack of flavorings from LorAnn which I believe are popular for food production. Although not every flavor is my preference only they cherry gets close to a medicinal flavor and maybe that is just because cherry flavoring is used so much in medicine. They are a bit more candy fruit flavor than actual fruit. The citrus fruit oils I also buy are closer to actual fruit.
I’ve only added extract once to a beer and that was a questionable raspberry flavoring in a wheat kit that was my second or third homebrew. If I tried again I would add it in the bottling bucket or keg depending on how you serve your beer. You never know if something natural or artificial in the extract will metabolize into something weird by the yeast. The less yeast in contact with the flavoring the better.
Great post and AMEN to the bolded part. I have been brewing since 1999 and some of the extract in the old days was brutal. There are much better extracts now. I know it makes a better story to tell your friends that you climbed the neighbors apple tree and crushed the apples and added them to the beer, etc. but just use a good, gourmet extract and tell them the same story. :D Also, if the original poster is a new/newer brewer, I feel compelled to put up the yellow caution flag because packaging your beer when there could be sugars from the fruit still available (and then bottling) could create exploding bottles. If you decide to add real fruit or a fruit puree with a lot of sugar you’re either going to have to let the yeast metabolize those sugars or you’re going to have to stop the yeast from metabolizing them. When yeast metabolizes sugar it creates CO2 so whatever vessel the yeast and sugar are in, it cannot be sealed up. If it is, pressure will build and bottles would break. If they were in a keg together the beer would begin to carbonate and possibly overcarbonate. Making a fruit beer is not for the squeamish. Lots of little variables but a good flavoring could remove ALL of that worry. You can add it right before bottling or kegging.
I am reminded of a time I had a brett beer that I wanted to serve at Club Night at NHC. I added a bunch of frozen cherries to the flat beer in a small keg and shipped it ground from Tampa to Baltimore. It was slightly overcarbed by the time it got there, but was really good.
I think the biggest issue with strawberries is that acid and sweetness are both needed to “complete” the flavor picture, and most beers don’t have enough of either to really get the flavor across. Even real strawberries don’t taste like much except for about 2 months out of the year when they are at peak ripeness (in my opinion). Outside of June to mid July I only eat strawberries cut up with pineapple.
That makes sense. That said, the beers I have had strawberry in have not been very good, either. I love strawberries and I love blue berries but neither of them work in beer for me. Of course, that’s just like, my opinion, man.
When I would try this I would buy frozen, unsweetened fruit (natural sugars are there but no added sugar), let them thaw and crush them as best I could and then I think I would bring the mush to 170° or so in a pot to sanitize it as best as possible. There was some discussion about not bringing the temp higher because it would “set the pectin” and cause some problems with clarity, etc. I’m pulling this out of long-term memory so if I have misspoken, please correct me. Then I would add that to a secondary and transfer the finished beer on top, leave it for a week or two and then bottle or keg. But in doing that, the flat, finished beer would kick up a second fermentation that seemed to go on FOREVER. There would be enough yeast in the beer to start another fermentation. That lengthy process ended up drying out the beer. Also, I do not use secondaries anymore and I threw all of mine out. So I would have to add the fruit to the main fermenter, let it do its thing and then transfer directly to a keg. I feel like there are so many caveats to fresh or frozen (or purees) that I always come back around to extracts. I remember a brewer saying that he would make a wheat beer (50/50 2-row, wheat, one hop addition) and then transfer it to the keg after dropping TWO small tubs of Crystal Light lemonade powder into the keg. He said it provided the perfect lemon character in the wheat beer. I know some of you are wincing right now and I get it. But sometimes you see the finish line and there are a number of ways to get there. I believe I tried using unsweetened strawberry drink mix one time to get strawberry flavor into a wheat ale. The result was questionable but it was also a long time ago and I might do it differently now. The point is that there are various ways to achieve this. I saw sugar-free raspberry and strawberry syrups at my local grocery store thinking that might be a way to go. I didn’t try it but you never know.
Another loosely-related tangent: If you’re going to have to add A LOT of fruit to achieve the flavor you want, you’re going to run into a volume issue. You might have to brew only 4 gallons of beer because the rest of the volume might be made up of fruit depending on your vessels and your type of packaging. Seems like another nod to extracts… you don’t have that problem.