Fruit flavour body question...

[deeve007]

Hey brewers,

This question is predominantly about a sour I brewed, but I figure it probably applies to many fruit beer styles...

I made two sours, passion fruit and a mixed red fruits, both brewed & primary fermented together, then secondary fermented seperately on the relevant fruits.

The former turned out great, the latter lacked a little body... aside from adding more fruit, would adding oats in the grain bill also help giving it more body? Would it also help bring the fruit flavour through a little more too, or would only more fruits do this?

Cheers.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Adding fruit wouldn't get you more body, I don't believe. To increase your body, you can add oats and/or wheat to the recipe, like you stated, or you can mash significantly higher. Not sure where you mashed at on this one but that would be my first step. Again, not sure where you mashed at but for conversation sake, if you mashed at 152*F, you could change it up and mash at say 158*F next time. This should help you with the body issue.

I think your mixed red fruit sour is the one lacking body based on your post? Perhaps there were more readily available sugars in that fruit mixture that the yeast went to town on. Did you get an aggressive secondary fermentation on the mixed red and not on the passionfruit?

 

[Jag75]

What I have found with my sour was adding fruit causes another fermentation but the fruit has water so my gravity changed slightly. So before I added fruit my abv was 4.9 after the 5 #'s of blueberries I thought it be higher abv but it actually ended at 4.7 so there must be enough water in the fruit to slightly thin it. Maybe I'm wrong as I dont know much on fruit beers as I've only done a few . One thing I've learned is I'm not to find of brewing fruit beers .

 

[Rob2010SS]

What I have found with my sour was adding fruit causes another fermentation but the fruit has water so my gravity changed slightly. So before I added fruit my abv was 4.9 after the 5 #'s of blueberries I thought it be higher abv but it actually ended at 4.7 so there must be enough water in the fruit to slightly thin it. Maybe I'm wrong as I dont know much on fruit beers as I've only done a few . One thing I've learned is I'm not to find of brewing fruit beers .

Exactly. That's kind of what I was getting at with my question about the aggressive fermentation in secondary. If all those sugars from the fruit were eaten up you're really left with the water from the fruit. Essentially a more diluted product

 

[Jag75]

I wonder if you used dried fruit if it would be the opposite. Being theres no water just sugar so you end up with higher abv beer .

 

[bleme]

Either way, the fruit sugars are going to ferment out completely and alcohol is even thinner than water.

Another variable is yeast choice. My last beer fermented down to 1.007 but if feels thicker because of other compounds produced by the yeast.