I was recently taking part in discussions on a
German homebrew chat page when the topic came up of
putting fruit into your beer. One of the fellows responded to the request for
information with "haven't you ever heard of the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot
of 1516?". He then went on to give his opinions about putting fruit into
beer, and what a travesty this is. Well, anyone who knows me certainly knows
that one of my first loves is just about anything German - not the least of
which being their beer. And I do have the utmost respect for the
Reinheitsgebot, and the quality of beers it has helped ensure in that country.
To the fellow with the attitude, however, I'd just like to suggest he take a
trip to Belgium some day, and have a taste of what fruit beers are all about.
(I'll also point out to him that German breweries put a type of plastic -
called Polyclar - in their beers as a clarifying agent. It's allowed under the
Reinheitsgebot because it is completely filtered out afterwards, so it's
technically not an ingredient.) The Belgians will certainly give the Germans a
run for their money any day of the week as the brewers of the worlds best
beers.
The truth is that - Reinheitsgebot
notwithstanding - beer brewed with fruit can be exceptionally tastey. In fact,
by far our most popular beer among anyone who's ever been to one of our
parties is the Cherry Ale that we regularly brew. Even with as little as 3
jars of cherries (which is an awful lot less than some of the beers we make),
patrons just keep coming back for more. We are guaranteed to empty a keg of
Cherry Ale no matter how few people show up for our party.
Although some folks make great fruit beers by
adding fruit extracts to the bottling bucket, we personally consider that to
be somewhat sacreligious. Please don't take that personally if you happen to
like using extracts to make fruit beers. As with anything in brewing beer at
home, the number one motivating force should be that you brew beers the way
you like to drink them. And if you like drinking ones with fruit extracts,
then you should continue to brew them. But we like doing everything from
scratch, so nothing will do but the real fruit.
You've got several choices when selecting fruit
to use in your beers. There is fresh, frozen, or bottled/canned. One key
advantage of using bottled or canned fruit is that the contents of the bottle
have been pasteurized, so you don't have to worry about taking care of that
step yourself. Just open the jars and in they go! Fresh or frozen fruit is not
pasteurized, however, so you may want to do something about that. Personally,
we never do because the bacteria and yeasts which live on fruit tend to be
beer-friendly, but we'll try to give you some tips on doing it if you feel the
need to.
When selecting your fruit, no matter which of
the 3 forms you choose, make sure you select fruit which contains nothing but
the fruit. If there are preservatives or other chemicals in there, then forget
it and keep looking. For one thing, many of the preservatives in these
products are designed to kill bacteria and yeast, so they may not even ferment
when you put them into your beer. The only acceptable exception here is that
it is perfectly fine to choose frozen or canned fruits which have some sugar
added. The sugar content is usually about 10%, and so will not have an adverse
affect on your beer. But please do read the ingredients list carefully, to
make sure that you are getting a quality product. One little tip here is to
check out the pre-prepared fruit pie fillings. Although some of them have a
lot of additives that you wouldn't want in your beer, there are some very high
quality pie fillings which contain only fruit and sugar.
If you want to pasteurize your fruit, there are
several possibilities depending upon how you make your beer.
If you make extract beers and do not do a full
wort boil, then you can add the fruit to the brewpot at the end of the boil,
after you have turned off the heat. Give the pot a good stir after adding
them, and let it set for 5 minutes before you begin to chill. Note that if you
use a counter-flow wort chiller, then this method of pasteurization will not
work for you. If you do all-grain beers and use an immersion chiller rather
than a counter-flow chiller, then you can use this very same method. In both
cases you will then want to transfer your wort into a wide-mouthed
fermentation vessel like perhaps a regular food-grade white bucket, or a stainless
steel milk jug. Keep in mind, though, that depending
upon how much fruit you use, your volume could be considerably more than what
you are used to fermenting, so your current primary fermenter may not be big
enough. Make sure you determine that well in advance of brewing the beer! In
using this method you may want to consider putting the fruit into a large
muslin bag or reusable hop bag, then putting it into the brewpot to
pasteurize. That way the fruit will be much easier to remove when the time
comes.
If you make all-grain beers and employ a
counter-flow wort chiller (or if you do extract and use a CF chiller), then
you cannot put the fruit into the brewpot because of the way the chiller
works. Well, actually you could put it into the brewpot in a bag (after you've
turned off the heat), and then after chilling transfer the bag to the
wide-mouthed fermenter. We use a CF chiller ourselves, but since we've never
actually pasteurized our fruit, we've never had to figure out the best way to
do this. Another possibility would be to put the fruit into a pot and heat it
up in there. You will need some amount of water to do this, which means more
water being added to your beer. But if you use a very small amount, you may
get away with it. Just make sure to use low heat, and to sit over that pot and
keep stirring constantly so that nothing burns to the bottom of the pot. You
want to slowly bring the fruit up to 170F, and then keep it there for 5 or 10
minutes. Note that if you use this method to pasteurize your fruit, then you
are free to add it whenever you want, and not just in the primary fermenter.
It is extremely important when pasteurizing
fruit that you do not boil the fruit. If you boil the fruit
you will set the natural pectins in the fruit, causing them to gell-up (that's
how jam is made, afterall). This is going to cause considerable haze problems
in your beer.
Note that it is really crucial to use a
wide-mouthed fermenter when using fruit. First of all, this makes it much
easier to get the fruit in and back out again. But more importantly, if you
use a narrow-mouthed fermenter you risk having the mouth get clogged up with
fruit during fermentation, which could prevent the CO2 gas from escaping, and
cause an explosion.
If you are pasteurizing and putting fruit into
the primary, you would do something like this :
- primary on fruit, 1 to 2 weeks
- transfer to carboy, leaving fruit behind (just lift out
the bag if using one, making sure to squeeze out as much liquid as you can
first)
- leave ferment in carboy another 2 weeks or more
- proceed as normal
The way we use fruit in our beers is as follows
:
- 1 week normal primary fermentation in carboy (no fruit)
- transfer into a wide-mouthed vessel (we use the stainless
steel milk jug, but you can use a regular
bucket)
- add fruit to fermenter
- cover fermenter with piece of plastic held in place with
elastic band
- let ferment 1 to 2 weeks
- transfer to another carboy, leaving fruit behind (just
lift out the bag if using one, making sure to squeeze out as much liquid
as you can first)
- leave ferment in carboy another 2 weeks or more
- proceed as normal
The reason we use the milk jug instead of a
bucket is that the mouth on it is considerably narrower than that of a regular
bucket (see photo), so our large muslin hop bag will actually drape inside the
bucket in such a manner that the mouth of the muslin bag goes around the
entire mouth of the bucket. We then pour the fruit into the bag which is
draping into the bucket. Finally we put the plastic on top, and the rubber
band hold both the plastic and the muslin bag in place. If you didn't do it
this way you'd have to tie the mouth of the muslin bag and throw the entire
bag into the fermenter. We like doing it this way because we feel it allows
the fruit to float around in the fermenter more freely, and so does not
interfere with getting the maximum flavour out of the fruit. But that's only
what we think - we have absolutely no proof that it really
does work this way.
As for the amount of fruit to use, that's
really up to you. We've put as little as 2 jars (each about 600ml), and as
much as 5kg (11 lbs) into a regular 20 litre (5 US gallon) batch of beer. The
best way to do it is to try a certain amount, and then next time around adjust
it up or down according to your own tastes.
And that's all there is to it, really.
