Additives

[Leonard S]

Thinking about experimenting with Juniper berries and lemon/orange peel when dry hopping with a pale ale. Does anyone have experience with these additives?

[Rob Courtney]

18 hours ago, Leonard S said:

Thinking about experimenting with Juniper berries and lemon/orange peel when dry hopping with a pale ale. Does anyone have experience with these additives?

Dried Juniper berries?

 

Have a brewer down my way who has done that and he crushed the juniper berries in pestle and mortar and added it to the brew but did it near the beginning of brew

[Leonard S]

Using dried juniper berries and will add when dry hopping. Hopefully will be a successful experiment.

[Thagomizer]

I am quoting from a post by C3D.  This was intended for fresh juices but should also apply to fresh fruit or even berries:

Heat the juice to about 70C (158F) for at least one minute, stirring frequently.  Keep it at 70C (158F) for at least one minute.  This will make sure that all E.coli 0157:h7 bacteria and other germs such as mold are destroyed.

For dried fruits, you could make a tea by this method.

This should be a low enough temperature to avoid purging the essential oils and fragrances while rendering the fruit safely for brewing.

🙂 Happy brewing

 

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

On 27/08/2023 at 12:55 PM, Thagomizer said:

I am quoting from a post by C3D.  This was intended for fresh juices but should also apply to fresh fruit or even berries:

Heat the juice to about 70C (158F) for at least one minute, stirring frequently.  Keep it at 70C (158F) for at least one minute.  This will make sure that all E.coli 0157:h7 bacteria and other germs such as mold are destroyed.

For dried fruits, you could make a tea by this method.

This should be a low enough temperature to avoid purging the essential oils and fragrances while rendering the fruit safely for brewing.

🙂 Happy brewing

 

I use this very same method when using fresh, frozen or canned fruit/fruit juices (and other flavouring additives such as vanilla essence or pods) in the hard seltzers that I brew.

The only difference is that I like to bring the temperature to 80°C and hold for a minimum of 5 minutes just to be sure. There reason for this is the varied times for different food products such as:
In terms of pasteurization, for milk you can start at temps of 62° for 5 minutes and higher temps up for shorter periods up to 72°C
When pasteurizing fruit juice, the FDA recommends fruit and juice is pasteurized at a temperature of 71-73°C (160-163.4°F) for 15 seconds.
When pasteurizing fruit and vegetables, it is recommended to heat to 80°C.

In all cases, after pasteurizing, you want to cool the liquid as fast as you can and remember to keep it covered to keep any bugs and spores floating around from getting into your liquor.

And yes, heating to 80°C, the essential oils and flavour components will be maintained in the resulting liquor.

This is similar to whirlpooling or a hop stand when all grain brewing. After boiling the wort, the wort is chilled to 75-80°C and maintained for 10-30 minutes depending on style and how much hop oils and compounds you want to go into your fermenter, BeerDroid.

For my Hazy/NEIPAs, I like to whirlpool at 75-80°C for 30 minutes to get as much of those hop oils, thiols, etc. into my wort.

[Thagomizer]

Good to know that the extra 10C (18F) will still preserve the essential oils and fragrances of the product while providing extra protection against contamination.  Good scientific data helps.