Jump to content

Recommended Posts

16 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

And still not infected so I figure I must be doing something right. đŸ„ł

What a w*nker quoting myself, but I thought I should probably give some context should anyone else wish to try this brewing experiment:

I looked into the best way to use fresh fruit in a brew and discovered some differing opinions on sanitation. Some brewers suggested pasteurising the pulp, others suggested working completely sterile whilst harvesting, and the simplest which I chose, was to freeze it.

So the initial fingers crossed moment related to whether or not I'd been successful killing off any bugs by freezing the pulp. We do not use any chemicals on our fruit trees and a local rat had been enjoying himself gorging on fallen fruit this summer so there was always a fair chance of some nasty bugs getting about.

I put the harvested pulp in a vacuum sealed bag and stored deep in our freezer for the best part of a week. It was frozen rock solid when I extracted it on brew day.

The other method change I employed for both of the partial kit brews was to mix the canned wort, my mini-mash wort additions and any dry adjuncts in a food safe pail that had been cleaned with PBW and thoroughly sanitised. Usually you'd mix up your kit brews in the fermenter but the Droid is not the place for that, so in utilising another vessel there was also a chance of infection when transferring and mixing the ingredients.

The other upside to using the pail is that it has a small enough diameter to fit in the kitchen sink whilst cooling and it's also really tall so there's little chance of splashing when mixing with the long plastic brewing spoon. The walls are a really poor insulator so it cools down the liquid much quicker than a brew pot and it has a well fitting lid to keep the air out whilst chilling.

In both instances I was able to get the wort into the Droid well under 40C which I understand to be the maximum temperature the plastic is rated to.

If both beers turn out ok then I'll continue with this method for future partial kit brews.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Dustin Frothman said:

What a w*nker quoting myself, but I thought I should probably give some context should anyone else wish to try this brewing experiment:

I looked into the best way to use fresh fruit in a brew and discovered some differing opinions on sanitation. Some brewers suggested pasteurising the pulp, others suggested working completely sterile whilst harvesting, and the simplest which I chose, was to freeze it.

So the initial fingers crossed moment related to whether or not I'd been successful killing off any bugs by freezing the pulp. We do not use any chemicals on our fruit trees and a local rat had been enjoying himself gorging on fallen fruit this summer so there was always a fair chance of some nasty bugs getting about.

I put the harvested pulp in a vacuum sealed bag and stored deep in our freezer for the best part of a week. It was frozen rock solid when I extracted it on brew day.

The other method change I employed for both of the partial kit brews was to mix the canned wort, my mini-mash wort additions and any dry adjuncts in a food safe pail that had been cleaned with PBW and thoroughly sanitised. Usually you'd mix up your kit brews in the fermenter but the Droid is not the place for that, so in utilising another vessel there was also a chance of infection when transferring and mixing the ingredients.

The other upside to using the pail is that it has a small enough diameter to fit in the kitchen sink whilst cooling and it's also really tall so there's little chance of splashing when mixing with the long plastic brewing spoon. The walls are a really poor insulator so it cools down the liquid much quicker than a brew pot and it has a well fitting lid to keep the air out whilst chilling.

In both instances I was able to get the wort into the Droid well under 40C which I understand to be the maximum temperature the plastic is rated to.

If both beers turn out ok then I'll continue with this method for future partial kit brews.

Be interesting to see how this turns out, passionfruit has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid as our first house had a whole bunch of fruit trees and passionfruit was one.

 

I also have no doubt the person who bought the house after us, cut all the trees down because hey, why have fresh fruit all summer?

Edited by Rob Courtney
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Rob Courtney said:

Be interesting to see how this turns out, passionfruit has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid as our first house had a whole bunch of fruit trees and passionfruit was one.

 

I also have no doubt the person who bought the house after us, cut all the trees down because hey, why have fresh fruit all summer?

They do need a lot of water 


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kegged this one today.

There were no issues with the passion fruit seeds in the Droid. It looked like they mostly dropped into the trub during the cold crash and the few that made it through the tap got caught by the dry hop filter and acted as a useful flow indicator for my kegging line.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

C93BADBD-E8E4-4853-A05E-F3BC790D51BA.thumb.jpeg.4f202cb5297ddd5e5b4509330d2043b6.jpeg741B1FD8-0715-49E7-933A-1EC3DEB12D59.thumb.jpeg.79bcbd457b27d695ac9dd19278470f54.jpeg

Sampler bottle at 3 weeks.

I was too busy trying to be good and pour the wife a glass so the tide is out a little in the first photo.

The passionfruit aroma is strong but not overpowering - it smells sweet but isn’t to taste. The head and carbonation is great too.

Overall it’s probably a little young so I’ll leave the keg for a few more weeks but this has been a worthwhile experiment - a really nice beer.

Edited by Dustin Frothman
  • Like 2
  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

C93BADBD-E8E4-4853-A05E-F3BC790D51BA.thumb.jpeg.4f202cb5297ddd5e5b4509330d2043b6.jpeg741B1FD8-0715-49E7-933A-1EC3DEB12D59.thumb.jpeg.79bcbd457b27d695ac9dd19278470f54.jpeg

Sampler bottle at 3 weeks.

I was too busy trying to be good and pour the wife a glass so the tide is out a little in the first photo.

The passionfruit aroma is strong but not overpowering - it smells sweet but isn’t to taste. The head and carbonation is great too.

Overall it’s probably a little young so I’ll leave the keg for a few more weeks but this has been a worthwhile experiment - a really nice beer.

Now that does look great, a good experiment, top result.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Wazza_wantsbeer said:

Looks awesome. 

How much does the passionfruit flavour come thru in the finished beer?

It's right there, both in the aroma and the taste.

The aroma is probably stronger than the taste but you certainly know you're drinking a passionfruit ale. I'd do this again. Would probably make the base wort from grain just to change it up a bit.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
  • Create New...