I want to make a beer using raspberry juice concentrate (as mentioned by Brian Sellers in a past Zymurgy). I did a google search, and there are some health food examples, but the closest thing to something I might find in my local grocery store is a White Grape Raspberry by Welches. Does anyone have experience with concentrates?
Yes.
My experience with fruit beers is that you need a lot more than you would think- and capturing the sweetness without special means is fruitless.
I suggest fermenting out your beer completely first and blend to taste; and if you choose either concentrate or fresh fruit you need to use something to retard the effects of the yeast on the sugar. Potassium or sodium metabilsulfite will aid you in your efforts.
Flavorings I find to be utterly synthetic tasting. YMMV
I would suggest what Euge said, ferment it out then blend to taste. However, go get one of the high quality concentrates online. The stuff the hombrew shops sell are sythentic and nasty tasting.
http://www.naturesflavors.com/index.php/raspberry-juice-concentrate.html
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/raspberry-flavor-1-oz#1397#
Thanks for the info, but I might just go with Frozen Raspberries… the concentrate is $38.00 a quart? That’s pretty pricey, plus shipping. I was hoping to find something at whole foods or a similar store. I will still look, their websites aren’t that precise.
Keep in mind you’re not going to use the full quart… and the time and effort you’ll save over using real fruit is worth the cost IMO.
The recipe in Zymurgy says to use nearly a quart. Usually, I’m not a slave to recipes, but I never do fruit…
http://digital.ipcprintservices.com/publication/?i=108736
I don’t know if that will let you into the locked content.
mix to taste! example: mix 1-2oz into 5gal, stir gently and taste. Mix in 1oz at a time until you get it where you want it.
I will mix to taste, thanks to your advice, but if I mix juice concentrate in, won’t the fermentation of those sugars change what I taste in the first place?
These concentrates shouldn’t have sugar in them. Or not much.
Really? Isn’t it concentrated fruit juice? That seems like it would have lots of sugars…
A good, high quality concentrate will only have the natural sugars in them… no added sugars. If you’re bottling, I would suggest racking to secondary, adding flavor to taste then let it ferment again, shouldn’t be much though. If you’re kegging I wouldn’t worry about any further fermentation.
I think there is confusion going on between concentrate (real juice, evaporated to a syrup, lots of sugar) and extract (flavour only)
concentrate would referment unless you took steps to prevent that by stunning the yeast and keeping the beer cold, or by pastuerizing the bottles once the proper level of carbonation has been reached. it’s going to take a lot of concentrat (1 quartish as the recipe says)
flavour extracts should be added to taste unless you are confident in the amounts you want to use. They taste nasty to me, even the good ones but that’s an opinion thing.
Has Denny chimed in on this yet? 
Good info… but the crux of the matter is that I can’t seem to find Raspberry Juice concentrate around town (I’m also not looking very hard yet), but I’ll look harder when I get closer to the brew. I might just go with the canned fruit puree… http://www.midwestsupplies.com/raspberry-vintner-s-harvest-fruit-puree.html
We’ll see what I find in the next few weeks.
Perhaps Whole Foods will have the juice concentrate.
I get my Tart Cherry juice from Whole Foods. Not sure if they had raspberry, but they had several different types.
I used 1/2 gal to 5 gal for a batch of kriek, and the cherry flavor wasn’t as pronounced as I’d like. I will probably add 1/4 gal more.
Thanks for the tip!