I am pretty new to home brewing (5 batches so far. I am curious to try some fruit flavored beers (strawberry, watermelon, peach raspberry come to mind) but don't really want to do 5 gallons in case we don't like it. What I was thinking of doing is brewing a 5 gallon batch and splitting it into two smaller fermentors and trying a couple of different fruit flavors. Are there any suggestions of what beer to use for this. Also, any fruit beers you are particularly fond of?
Base brrew suggestions to add fruit flavors to.
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SteveM
Well-Known Member
You need to make something a bit lighter than normal in order to let the fruit flavor find its way through. I use a regular pale ale recipe except that I substitute rice extract for half of the barley, and I use about half the hops than I normally would. I see no reason why you could split this ito two batches. You would add fruit in the secondary, so just find a way to hold two 2.5 gallon batches. Once upon a time, I posted a raspberry pale ale recipe and it's probably still around - I went into a fair amount of detail on how to work through the whole process.
Wheat, blonde, Berliner Weiss, and cream ale all come to mind. Basically, a light on flavor beer with low hopping to showcase the fruit flavors.
Thanks for the suggestions. Didn't realize fruit flavor was added in the secondary, so that will make things easier. I haven't worked up to all grain brewing yet, just kits. I think I can order a mini mash with grains packaged separate so I could remove half the barley and order the rice extract.
pcollins
Well-Known Member
I do my fruit beers with a pils recipe. My latest is a Raspberry Imperial Pils (RIP) which is my basic Pils recipe but upped a bit to bring it to about 6.5%. Not really imperial but definitely more than the 4.5% that it normally sits at.
No need to remove half the barley, no need to secondary, no need for rice extract. You could order a kit that is on the lighter end of flavor/bitterness, make it, and add your fruit to primary with good results.
norsk
Well-Known Member
A basic simple Wit recipe works well with fruit. Cut down on the hops a bit and add the fruit after fermentation is completed in 4-7 days..
Nightshade
Well-Known Member
I would definitley take a look at the recipe database here to see what others are doing with fruit additions in various styles.
That said lighter beers such as blonde, hefe, wits etc. are easy to work with and accept fruit flavors easily, even more delicate ones.
With bolder flavor fruits you can work them into porters, stouts and heavier flavors easily enough.
The key is to know when to add, how long to leave them in and what type of flavor to realistically expect from it including the addition time. So if you add at secondary or after fermentation you will get a different flavor than if you add it during fermentation and so on.
In the end get some basic guidelines from the recipe database for the fruit you wish to use and adjust it to what works for you....then take very good notes so you can adjust in future batches.
That said lighter beers such as blonde, hefe, wits etc. are easy to work with and accept fruit flavors easily, even more delicate ones.
With bolder flavor fruits you can work them into porters, stouts and heavier flavors easily enough.
The key is to know when to add, how long to leave them in and what type of flavor to realistically expect from it including the addition time. So if you add at secondary or after fermentation you will get a different flavor than if you add it during fermentation and so on.
In the end get some basic guidelines from the recipe database for the fruit you wish to use and adjust it to what works for you....then take very good notes so you can adjust in future batches.
