Fruit Extract....again.

[SailorJerry]

So, I'm curious, is there a reason we'd need to secondary a beer for any amount of time if using a fruit extract only? Wouldn't racking the beer on top of it mix it in enough to then bottle right away, or am I missing something?

 

[mikeal]

Nope! There's no reason to secondary when you are just adding fruit extract.

 

[SailorJerry]

Nope! There's no reason to secondary when you are just adding fruit extract.

So, I can just put 2-3 oz in the bottom of my bottling bucket, rack the fermented beer on top, probably give a light stir or two to mix, and then bottle?

 

[porterpounder]

You can do that with the extract, but if you have pre-tasted to the level you want, dosing each bottle with a syringe or dropper at bottling is going be give you a more consistent end-product.

 

[SailorJerry]

You can do that with the extract, but if you have pre-tasted to the level you want, dosing each bottle with a syringe or dropper at bottling is going be give you a more consistent end-product.

This seems like a brilliant idea. However, I'm not sure how to make it work, as we haven't pre-tasted anything. Do you just fill a few bottles differently, note which ones are which, then taste and finishing bottling later?

It'd have to be a small dropper, I was thinking the little syringe's I use for the kids medicines, but I think that would even be too much quantity. Would have to be a smaller product than that to insert small amounts into each bottle. Hmm...

 

[SailorJerry]

Looks like 4 oz = 118 ML
Thinking approx 48 bottles
That'd equal 2.45 ML per beer, which seems like it'd be pretty potent.
I wonder if like 1.5 ML would work better...which would be like 2.5 oz total for the batch

 

[mikeal]

So, I can just put 2-3 oz in the bottom of my bottling bucket, rack the fermented beer on top, probably give a light stir or two to mix, and then bottle?

Yep. The other folks are right about having more control with the per-bottle additions, but I just add to the keg and stir the crap out of it. What fruit is it?

 

[SailorJerry]

Pear, so it'll be pretty light flavored.

 

[porterpounder]

This seems like a brilliant idea. However, I'm not sure how to make it work, as we haven't pre-tasted anything. Do you just fill a few bottles differently, note which ones are which, then taste and finishing bottling later?

It'd have to be a small dropper, I was thinking the little syringe's I use for the kids medicines, but I think that would even be too much quantity. Would have to be a smaller product than that to insert small amounts into each bottle. Hmm...

By pre-tasting I mean taking, say, a 3-4 4 oz pours of the beer pre-bottling and add a drop, 2 drop, 3 drops, etc to each and taste. When you get the flavor you like add one less drop to each bottle you package. Something happens after bottling that brings the flavor forward a bit more, so it's easy to over-do it.

 

[SailorJerry]

I like this idea, thank you.