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How Do You Add Flavors to Beer?
How do you exactly add flavor to your beer. Lets say that I want to t make a strawberry beer how would I do that. Would it interfer with my brewing any?
There are a few different methods to adding a fruit flavor to your beer. Let's put my research skills to the test & find a few:
- Stephen Snyder (The Brewmaster's Bible) advises one and a half pounds of fruit per gallon of beer. This amount can vary depending on the fruit used, the freshness & ripeness, and the length of the ferment. The fruit can be added to the kettle, the primary, or the secondary, but if you are crushing it you need to remove any pits or seeds, as they will impart a harsh, bitter taste. Crush the fruit very lightly, as your aim is not usually to make pulp.
- Snyder also advises adding the fruit to the hot wort at the end of the boil and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes with the heat off. Fruit should never be boiled, as the pectins contained will produce a gelatinous haze in your beer. Another method to sanitize the fruit is to pastuerize it at a temperature of 145 degrees F for 30 minutes, and then chill it quickly down to 40 degrees before adding to the fermenter.
- If you add the fruit into the primary, you may wish to use a larger-diameter blow-off hose on your fermenter, as there is the danger of seeds or pulp blocking off the airlock or blow-off. Another solution is to use a larger fermentation vessel than you would otherwise use for your batch.
- Snyder's personal recommendation is the addition of fruit to the secondary fermenter, the way the Belgians do it. The most vigorous portion of the fermentation should be over, and the sugars in the fruit should not be enough to cause any blockage in the blow-off. Also, much more of the subtle flavor and aromas of the fruit will be preserved, and the pH and alcohol level of the fermented beer should help protect against infection.
- Randy Mosher (Radical Brewing) has a technique of using "potions", which involves steeping the fruit in vodka (Ratio is about one pound of fruit in one liter of vodka, but I could be wrong...pulling this from memory at the moment!), and adding the strained vodka into your secondary fermenter. The advantage here is that the vodka will remain sterile, so no worries about infection. Another method he advises is to find a low-alcohol liquer in the flavor you like, and add it into the primary fermentation. This will leave a residual sweetness, so take note of that and adjust the grain/hop bill as needed.
- Finally, for those of us who are lazy, there are pre-made fruit extracts available at your local homebrew shop. Just add these into the secondary or at bottling, and you got yourself a whole batch of flavored beer! While it is much easier, there isn't as much of a sense of accomplishment. I used this method to make a Raspberry Hefeweizen, and the overall result was good, but not great. Perhaps the use of actual Raspberries would have made the difference!
Just a couple other things to keep in mind:
The style of beer will have a lot to say about the quantity of fruit to add! It will take a lot more fruit flavor to shine in, say, a Porter, than in a Wheat beer. Also, the type of fruit will have quite a bit to say about how much to add. The most popular additions are Raspberries and Cherries, because they have a strong, tart flavor that will shine through most beer styles. Strawberries are not unheard of, but their soft flavor means you have to use more fruit and choose an appropriate beer style. The one recipe I could find for a Strawberry Ale called for eight pounds of strawberries in a pretty light ale style (Finished product is supposed to fall between 4-7 SRM)
http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/colorchart.html to see SRM approximations.
I hope that clears things up for you! If I find my copy of Radical Brewing soon, I will post again with Mosher's methods. Also, I will look and see what Charlie Papazian has to say about the whole thing!
Just a quick PS: All three authors I recommended (Mosher, Papazian, and Snyder) are truly worth reading. If you see their books on sale, I advise you pick them up at the earliest opportunity. All of them are also available off sites like amazon.com.
OK, just a quick edit to my last post. Mosher's "potion" tip actually is for adding herbs/spices to a beer, not for adding fruits. My mistake.
Mosher also advises adding the fruit into the secondary, and letting it sit for the desired length of time. One of the problems with brewing with fruit is that the fruit flavor will lose its luster as its acidity decreases. This can be balanced out with the careful addition of citric or malic acids. This acidity adjustment can be made right up until the bottling!
Mosher also gives good accounts of the various fruits he has brewed with:
- Backberries: Similar to Raspberries, but with a consideably less specific aromatically intense flavor. They have a beautiful purple color, and may be used in other fruit beers for that effect alone. Use one to four pounds per gallon.
- Blueberries: Blueberries are another fruit that does not hold up well in fermentation. The fresh blueberry character is so delicate that it often gets lost in the context of a beer, even a light one. In beer, their color is not blue; it's more of a purplish pink. Cooking may actually enhance the flavor of blueberries, so you may be able to use a couple jars of jam in a beer like a wit or a weizen, where the pectin haze won't be a problem. Wild berries have much more aroma than cultivated. Use one to three pounds per gallon.
- Cherries: Of all fruits, cherries are the most traditional, as well as one of the most elegant. The subtle flavor of cherry blends well with the tastes of malt, without completely overtaking it. Not all cherries are well-suited to making beer, and it requires at least a pound per gallon to make a worthwhile beer. Sour cherries are best; sweet ones just don't have the guts to do the job. If you want to make a beer that tastes just like cherry pie, use the Montmorency cherry. It will send you back to your childhood. Other sour cherries have a less specific point of view. Remember, it may take a blend of different cherries to make the best beer-some for color, some for intensity, and some for acidity. Use one to four pounds per gallon.
- Peaches: Peaches have been, in my experience, a terrible disappointment. The taste of the finished beer is rather flat and somewhat gummy; very different from the intense bouquet of fresh peaches. Apparently, some of the crucial flavor components of the peaches are transformed during fermentation. Apricots produce a much better beer; in fact, they make a fine peach beer! I have had good experience with the apricot extract being sold for brewing purposes these days. If one insisted on trying a peach beer, it might be wise to have a bottle of apricot extract sitting around to beef up the flavor at the end of fermentation. Use 1.5 to five pounds per gallon.
- Raspberries: The easiest fruit from which to make beer. Their intense, single-mided character hangs in there forever and cuts through almost any other flavor present. Usually the fruit provides enough acidity, but taste before bottling and add acid if the fruit tastes dull. Red raspberries seem to have a better flavor in beer than black. Use 0.25 to three pounds per gallon.
- Strawberries: Strawberries rarely live up to their promise. The familiar flavor fades quickly along with the color, leaving an orange-hued, vaguely fruity beer behind. The best strawberry beer are those made in a light style, to be drunk in their youth. Absolutely ripe fruit is essential, meaning you won't be able to use grocery store berries. Strawberries refuse to ripen further once they are picked, so commercial berries, harvested when they are young and rock-like to prevent rotting in transport, aren't worth bothering with. Unless you can get out in the fields and pick them yourselves, frozen strawberries are your best bet. Use two pounds of fruit per gallon or more, and keep the underlying beer light. Serve as soon as it's ready, and drink it all when it is young. Strawberry beer lives best in one's memories. Use one to five pounds per gallon.
There are a few more fruits that Mosher has not provided as much information on as well:
- Apple: Mild aroma, acidic. Improves head. Best in mead or cider.
- Apricot: Similar to peaches, but better.
- Banana: Used in lambic, but not too common.
- Dates: Lots of sugar, but lack in aroma.
- Fig: Soluble fiber keeps you regular. Not much aroma.
- Grape: Huge variety available. Best in meads (pyment). Aromatic varieties like Muscat are best.
- Guanabana: Whitish tropical fruit. Subtle perfumey armoa. Low aciditiy.
- Guava: Tropical fruit. Mild aroma and flavor.
- Mamey: Delicious tropical fruit with carob-like flavors. Low acidity.
- Mango: Complex and attractive aroma. Modest acidity.
- Papaya: Tropical fruit with protein-dissolving enzymes. Low acidity.
- Passionfruit: Small tropical fruit with intensely aromatic pulp. Beautiful!
- Pear: Soft and subtle aromas add depth to cider or meads.
- Pineapple: Familiar tropical fruit. May be best as a hat decoration or in a mead.
- Plum: Large variety available. Ripeness is critical. Elusive aroma.
- Pomegranate: Delicate acidic fruit with some tannic character. Best in mead or cider.
- Tamarind: Gummy pods with tart, thirst-quenching pulp. Great for mead!
Any other questions?
Wow thats alot ok thank you i will try to attempt to try this and let you know what happen.
what about flavors other than fruits? i have an extract of spruce that i would really like to use in a winter ale someday. do i add that to the secondary fermenter? and how do you know how much to use? i have already searched online for a spruce specific recipe and have not found one.
Thy wish shall be granted! I have a huge database of recipes, so I will dig up a spruce beer recipe for ya! Check the recipes section later!
RE:
# Banana: Used in lambic, but not too common.
Has anyone ever attempted including banana in their brew? Seems like it would be awfully finicky during fermentation.... not to mention, I can't picture how it would taste as an ingredient in beer.
At my house we always use whatever fruit is "on its way out" (i.e. starting to rot) for brewing. Sometimes we make mead using the fruit as the base, and sometimes we make beer. Our method isn't very scientific and didn't come from a book, but it works for us. We boil the cut up fruit in some water for a while, usually about 20 minutes, or until the whole house smells delicious. Then we strain out the fruit and use the fruit water to make the wort. Our favorite fruit to use right now is pears, mostly because we have a tree in our backyard. My housemate sometimes also leaves fruit in the fermenter while it is fermenting, but I haven't done that yet.
When I've added fruit to beers or meads I find I don't like the 'fermented fruit' flavor as much as the 'fresh fruit' flavor. I've used fruit extracts and fruit purees and find they have more of the fresh fruit flavor I desire. I've also had good results with using unfiltered organic fruit juices instead of water in meads. If you do use fruit be sure to sanitize or pasturize it and add pectin enzyme to prevent the pectin haze.
Flavors other than fruit: I've seen agave cactus (think tequila) extract. I have tried a mead with agave and it was very smooth. Tequila flavor without the bite.
MzIce
How about adding Hops to Mead? What kind of flavor would I be able to detect? Would it take the sweetness out of the honey added?
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