Category Archives: fruit beer

The Ones That Got Away…

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For a variety of reasons, I haven’t been able to blog about every single batch I brewed in 2018. Many of the ones that didn’t make the cut were repeat brewings of successful recipes. Because I’m not likely to get all of them with full blog posts at this stage, I’m giving myself semi-amnesty by listing them with brief comments.

  • Cerveza de Jamaica 1.1
    • This was a rebrew of the first version, which I really liked. Version 1.1 was modified very slightly to add a little more hibiscus and a little more orange peel, and the result was an incredibly tasty beer!
  • Double IPA / Hoppy Blonde Ale
    • This was an experiment with parti-gyle techniques, co-brewed with a friend. The double IPA ended up at around 7.8% abv, and was fairly tasty. The blonde ale rounded out at 4.6% abv, and was also pretty nice. The experiment was a lot of work on brew day, but a fun attempt.
  • Raspberry Belgian 2018
    • I rebrewed a house favorite recipe for a beer festival, and thus didn’t really get to taste the final result (sadly). Everything on the process was tasty, though, so I’ll be doing this one again too.
  • Bavarica Session IPA
    • This one was pretty disastrous! The flavors clashed horribly (never again will I use Munich malt in a session IPA), and I dumped most of the batch.
  • Grab Bag IPA
    • Basically to use up a bunch of ingredients. Nothing memorable here, although it was pretty drinkable.
  • Grapefruit Wheat Ale
    • I don’t have many notes on this, other than that I used Amoretti grapefruit craft puree for some of the flavoring.

Peach IPA

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This is a recipe I’ve been wanting to try for quite awhile…fruit beers intrigue me, and a well executed fruit IPA can be exquisite. This particular recipe is modified from the Peach IPA recipe by Mitch Steele in the March/April 2016 Zymurgy magazine. I adjusted the base malt, hops, etc., to match some of what I had in stock. I also upped the dry hop quantities to provide the more intense hop aroma that I like.

Peach IPA

  • 11.25 lb. 2-row pale malt (Rahr)
  • 0.75 lb. Munich I malt (Weyermann)
  • 0.5 lb. Carapils malt (Briess)
  • 1.10 oz. Warrior hop pellets (15.8% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Galaxy hop pellets (14.0% alpha), 5 minute whirlpool
  • 2 oz. Helga (Southern Hallertau) hop pellets (5.6% alpha), 10 day dry hop
  • 1 oz. Galaxy hop pellets (14.0% alpha), 10 day dry hop
  • 1 oz. Mosaic hop pellets (12.25% alpha), 10 day dry hop
  • 4 oz. peach puree, added on day 3 of fermentation
  • 1 pkg. California Ale yeast (White Labs WLP001)

Target Parameters

  • Single infusion mash to hit target of 152°, 60 minute rest, batch sparge
  • 1.063 s.g., 1.014 f.g., 6.5% abv, 64 IBU, 4 SRM
  • Water adjusted to 113 ppm Ca, 22 ppm Mg, 24 ppm Na, 194 ppm SO4, 42 ppm Cl, 170 ppm alkalinity, 76 ppm RA

Procedure

  • Two days before brewing, I prepared a 2L yeast starter, and let it go for 36 hours before cold crashing in the fridge. I’ll set aside ~0.6L for a later batch.
  • I prepared my mash water and sparge water in two equal batches of 4.25 gallons. To each, I added 3.1g gypsum, 1.7 g epsom salt, and 0.7 g calcium chloride. To adjust the mash pH, I added 2 tsp (10 mL) of 75% phosphoric acid.
  • I mashed in with 4.25 gallons of water at 160.5°, to hit my mash target of 152°. After 45 minutes, I was down to 150°.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 0.75 gallons of water at 185°, let rest for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the first runnings.
  • Next, I added 3.5 gallons of water at 185°, let rest for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the second runnings.
  • In total, I collected 6.5 gallons of sweet wort with a gravity of 1.053, for 75% efficiency.
  • I brought the wort to a boil, and added the hops and other ingredients per the recipe. After 60 minutes, I added the final hop dose and then turned off the flame before chilling as far as I can.
  • I got the wort down to about 85°…that’s the best I could do in the midst of this heat wave! So, I transferred the wort into the fermenter and put it in the fermentation chamber overnight to chill down to 66°.
  • Starting gravity was 1.062. I brewed this beer on 1 September 2017, and pitched the yeast on 2 September 2017.

Kegging Updates: Raspberry Belgian, Thumbspike Saison 2.1

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I’ve done a decent bit of kegging this past week, to square away some beers slated for the Lake Arrowhead Brewfest that I’ll be serving with Horse Thief Brewers. The festival is just under a month away, but with a new baby soon to arrive in the household I know that time will be tight. Gotta keg while the kegging’s good!

Raspberry Belgian, transferring to the keg

Raspberry Belgian 1.1, transferring to the keg

My cold storage space is also tight, so I’ve decided to get the beers carbonated and conditioned using a more “traditional” keg priming technique. Not only does it cut down on my CO2 usage, but it also should help to eat up any residual oxygen from the transfer and help the beers stay a bit fresher. Now of course it would be ideal to do the full keg purge with CO2 and closed transfer thing. But as I said…I’m tight for time and not keen on always blowing through my CO2 supply. I also feel that these two beers should hold up pretty well (both are fairly high alcohol and one is quite tart); if it was a delicate lager, crystal malt heavy porter, or hoppy IPA, I would definitely do things differently.

In any case, here are the details on everything.

Thumbspike Saison 2.1

I brewed this beer on June 25, and fermented it at the ambient temperature–around 75° on up. I kegged the batch on 12 July 2017, with 2.75 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 1 cup of water. Around 5 gallons went into the keg. Final gravity was 1.003, down from 1.055. This works out to around 6.8% abv.

Raspberry Belgian 1.1

I brewed this beer on 27 June, fermenting it at around 66°. On the fourth day of fermentation, 1 July 2017, I added around 1L (~4.25 cups) of Vintner’s Harvest raspberry puree. After about a week, I moved it out of the fermentation chamber to finish out at ambient temperature, around 78°.

I kegged the beer on 14 July 2017. The flavor was nice and tart, although at this point the raspberry comes through more in the aroma than in the flavor. I will have to see if that changes when I chill it and serve it carbonated; there might be some minor adjustments required prior to the festival, if that’s the case.

Because I wanted to keep this beer for home use too, I split it between two mini-kegs. Three gallons went into one, with 1.82 ounces of corn sugar boiled in 1 cup water (targeting around 3 volumes of CO2). The remaining 2 gallons or so went into another keg, which I force carbonated to around 2.8 volumes.

Final gravity for this batch was 1.013, down from 1.044. That clocks in at 4.1% abv–a very nice session beer!

Raspberry Belgian 1.1

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In another brew for the Lake Arrowhead Event, I’m doing a second attempt at my Raspberry Belgian. The first version turned out reasonably well, although I felt like it needed a bit more tartness as well as a bit more body. I thought the body could be augmented by doing a batch sparge instead of a no-sparge technique; the latter consistently leads to low efficiency on my system and thus a lower starting gravity. As for the tartness…I elected to do a kettle sour instead of improvising with acid malt.

Recently, one of my fellow homebrew club members presented on kettle souring, particularly his approach with using a yogurt-based culture. Now, I’ve done kettle souring once before–with incredible results–but in that case I used a commercial lacto strain specifically for homebrewers. I was intrigued by the thought of souring more cheaply, and thought this was a great batch in which to give it a try.

sour_culture

Sour culture ingredients and tools

For my culture, I chose The Greek Gods’ brand nonfat Greek yogurt–other homebrewers have reported success with it, and it has a nice blend of various lacto strains. So, 24 hours before my planned brew session, I made a 1L starter (1 L water, 100 g extra light DME, and a pinch of Fermax yeast nutrient) with 3 tsp. of yogurt. Because I’m not using a stir plate, next time I’ll want to break up the yogurt a bit; I noted that the first clump I put in never really broke up well, even with some gentle swirling. Greek yogurt is thick! I let the starter sit overnight on a heating pad set for 100° (I taped the sensor on the side of the flask). By the next day, it had a nice sour aroma, so I deemed it ready to go.

Raspberry Belgian 1.1

  • 5 lbs. Château Pilsen malt (Castle Malting)
  • 2 lbs. white wheat malt (Great Western Malting)
  • 0.5 lb. carapils (Briess)
  • 0.5 lb. flaked oats (store brand quick oats)
  • 0.5 lb. flaked wheat
  • 0.20 oz. Warrior hop pellets (15.8%), 60 minute boil
  • 0.15 oz. Willamette hop pellets (4.9%), 15 minute boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
  • 0.5 tsp. Fermax, 10 minute boil (added before souring)
  • 1 tsp. Fermax, 10 minute boil (added after souring)
  • 1 pkg. Belgian Wit Ale yeast (WLP400), prepared in 1L starter
  • 4.25 cups (1 L) raspberry puree (Vintner’s Harvest brand)

Target Parameters

  • 156° mash, 60 minutes
  • 10 minute boil and 24 hour kettle sour prior to 60 minute boil
  • 1.044 o.g., 1.012 f.g., 4.2% abv, 14 IBU, 3 SRM, 5 gallons into the fermenter

Procedure

  • I prepared the sour culture as specified above, 24 hours in advance.
  • On brew day (part I), I mashed in with 3 gallons of water at 166.5°, to hit my mash target temperature of 156° right on the nose!
  • I added 1.6 gallons of water to sparge, vorlaufed, collected first runnings, and then added 3.5 gallons of water for the second sparge.
  • In total, I collected 6.75 gallons of wort at a gravity of 1.038–81% efficiency!
  • Using 3.5 tsp. of 88% lactic acid, I adjusted the pH of the wort to around 4.2. This was a slight overshoot of my target, but I figured I would be OK.
  • I boiled the wort for 10 minutes, adding the first bit of Fermax. After 10 minutes, I chilled the wort to ~100° and then added the yogurt culture. I left the kettle on a heating pad, with the temperature controller set to 100°.
  • After ~21 hours, the temperature had settled to around 94°, and the pH was down to ~3.1 (a bit too sour for my tastes!). I added 1.5 tsp. of chalk to the kettle to raise things up a bit.
  • I boiled the wort for 60 minutes, adding the various ingredients per the schedule in the recipe. At the end, I chilled the wort down to 80° and then transferred it into my fermenter. Six gallons of wort made it in. I then did the remaining chill to 66° in my fermentation chamber. I pitched the yeast, and let things move along.
  • The final pH prior to the yeast pitching was 3.39; much more reasonable. It may even be a bit too tart yet, but we’ll see. Starting gravity was 1.044, right where I wanted it to be!
  • I brewed the beer and pitched the yeast on 27 June 2017. Initial fermentation was at 66°. After 4 days, on 1 July 2017, I added 4.25 cups of raspberry puree and raising the temperature to 68°.

Beer Tasting: Raspberry Belgian

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20170423_154842My first attempt at a fruit beer was fairly decent…it was quite refreshing on a hot day, and the two gallons or so got depleted pretty quickly. I did squeeze in a tasting before it was all gone, with plenty of ideas for next time.

  • The Basics
    • O.G. = 1.039; f.g. = 1.011; 3.8% abv; 3 SRM; 15 estimated IBU
  • Aroma
    • A very nice raspberry aroma front and center!
  • Appearance
    • Clear and pinkish-red. The head is off-white, low, and modestly persistent.
  • Flavor
    • Slightly tart and dry, with not much in the way of malt character. The raspberries come through as mild and a nice complement to the tartness.
  • Mouthfeel
    • Fairly thin, with moderate carbonation and a dry finish.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • I like where this recipe is heading, but it needs some pretty heavy modifications. I think the low starting gravity (1.039, versus 1.043 as requested by the recipe) hurts things a little bit, and so a bit more attention and adjustment to the starting wort to match the higher gravity is in order. I don’t think mash temperature needs much adjustment–I would likely just add in a bit more base malt and perhaps double the oats to add a bit more mouthfeel. Next time, I might also consider swapping out some or all of the pilsner malt for 2-row, to give the beer a touch more malt character. The raspberry comes across quite nicely; I think the amount and the technique worked out well. I’m pleasantly surprised in particular by how clear this beer turned out! It’s really pretty. Finally, the beer is less tart than I expected. Next time, I might do a 24 hour kettle sour before boiling.
  • Overall
    • 5/10