Adding Fruit to your brew

[Derren Green]

Hello All,

Just wondering if anyone had experimented with fruit in their brews, like making a mango beer.

How might you have achieved it?  Did you add fruit to the primary or secondary stage?  Did you boil or freeze it to kill the bugs?

Any suggestions/recipes would be great.

Thanks All.

[Beard Droid]

Hi Derren,

I have experimented a lot with fruited beers, My personal favourite is Pineapple IPA. 

The things to keep in mind when using fruit is:

1) Fruits contain additional sugars. So if you're adding it after fermentation expect the fermentation to restart.

2) Fruits can contain wild yeasts and bacteria. So you need to be careful not to introduce any unwanted organisms into your beer. 

For my Pineapple IPA I use straight Pineapple juice (start with 1L) when I add the water, this means the yeast can consume the sugars from the Pineapple juice prior to the more complex malt sugars, meaning you will not be left with a lot of Pineapple flavour but more aromas of Pineapple in the finished product. Most pineapple juice you purchase is pasteurised so there is no need to worry about wild yeasts and bacteria, but if it isn't you can pasturise it yourself by heating it to 72°C prior to adding it. 

Keep us posted on your results if you do it