Retaining sweetness in Fruit beer

[Roobiedoobiedoo]

So I'm planning to make an American blonde ale as a base for a strawberry fruit beer. I've calculated the sugar in the fruit and punched it into my brewing software as a late sugar addition, to keep the gravity in the appropriate range. I know that virtually all sugar in fruit additions will be fermented, thinning and drying the beer. My question is, how do I retain some residual sweetness to avoid an overly tart, wine-like flavour? I've got some crystal in the grain bill in the form of CaraFoam @ 6% of the grist. I'm planning to do a single infusion @ 156F. Will these two factors be enough to keep the beer slightly sweet or should I consider some lactose? FYI, I'm doing all grain, 1 gallon batches and I'm trying to avoid artificially flavours and any chemical additives.

 

[JimRausch]

You're right in that yeast looks at sugar from whatever source as sugar to be eaten. So retaining sweetness from simple sugars (fructose, dextrose, sucrose which are the primary sugars in fruit) is difficult. More complex sugars(dextrins from crystal malts or higher temp. mashes) are less fermentable and stick around better. Lactose is another nonfermentable sugar, but people say that it isn't sweet(no personal experience).
I run into the same problem of trying to retain sweetness in ciders I have done. Three things have helped: 1. addition of fruit late in fermentation. The yeast may be somewhat pooped out, but that's a crap shoot. 2. Using a lower attenuative yeast strain. 3. Pasteurization. This past Fall I did a Graf with about 3 lbs. of crystal malts to try and get some of those nonfermentable sugars. I also pasteurized the bottles after they had been carbonating for 1 week. It worked fairly well. It's not sweet like Woodchuck, but better than the straight cider I did two years ago. Now that one was DRY!

 

[johngaltsmotor]

I've never tried it myself, but my brother used to make wine and suggested stabilizer. It's used for the same purpose in wine, to kill the yeast so you maintain residual sugar. That's all I've got, I don't even remember what it was (sodium metabisulfate maybe?).

 

[JimRausch]

Yeah, I've read about it. Combination of metabbisulfite(Camden) and potassium sorbate.
Will stop the yeast, but then how will you carbonate? Plus of course, CHEMICALS.............
I've only done 1 fruit beer- a cream ale I added raspberries to in a secondary. It's long gone, but I seem to remember it was not too dry. I was not particularly fond of it, but the women folk thought it was great. It was a purty pink color.
Lots of people seem to be making fruit flavored beers, so hopefully some of those folks will chime in, rather than my aimless mutterings

 

[Roobiedoobiedoo]

I am bottle conditioning, so any pasteurization would have to be post carb. What method would be best if I decide to go that way? Boiling a pressurized vessel doesn't sound like the safest approach. And yes, I'm brewing this one for my fiancé. She appreciates the beer I make, for the fact that I made it, but she's not much of a fan of "regular" beer.

 

[Texconsinite]

I made an american wheat ale with 1lb mixed berries in it last yr, and it came out veeeery tart and wine-like dryness, as described.
I've had better luck adding real fruit extract to beer in secondary, used 2oz of raspberry extract in secondary of a raspberry wheat, though I wished I had added more.

Vanilla Beans, Coffee Grounds, and Cinnamon sticks are easier flavors to add since they aren't pure sugar like fruit, but unless you pasteurize (stovetop method is chemical-free) or stabilize and force carb, you are goign to have a tough time getting yeasty beasties to stop eating that tasty fruit

 

[freisste]

I have heard good luck with running your bottles through the dishwasher in the sanitize cycle. Bottle everything as normal except use one plastic bottle. When it is firm, pasteurize the rest.

I can't give you any specific details...sorry.

 

[Jayslay]

Residual sweetness. I've done a few fruit beers based generally on wheat base in the last year. Two were fruit that was added after primary fermentation, one was a cherry puree added after fermentation. From what I gather, if you add it after the yeast are done their work, say about week 2 or 3, you can preserve the fruit flavor and some ofthe sweetness.

To be honest, I would base your residual sweetness first on the mash temperature and yeast strain first. You can go from dry to sweet just with those variables, and to another degree your malt ingredients (ie Crystal %).
Add your fruit a couple weeks after your foamy ferment is done, give it a week or two.

As a PS, remember when adding fruit you are not just adding sugar! You are also adding un-fermentable mass as well as water. You may have X amount of fructose in your berries, but with X amount of water in them you may not change your gravity at all! I learned that awhile ago, I don't bother adjusting gravity for whole fruit, probably just for syrups or sweetened purees. Also, remember if your fruit swells with your beer that is 1.050 and the sweetness/water added directly from the fruit works out to 1.040, you are actually reducing your gravity slightly once the fruit is removed. Basically, don't worry about fruit sugar addition calculations. Its all about the flavor!

 

[jcp]

I've done one fruit beer, which used 3lbs of frozen peaches in secondary. I wasn't too fond of that one, as a) it had a dry tartness to it, b) had very little peach flavor or aroma, and c) was pretty high ABV from the yeasties eating all of the sugar in the fruit.

The only way I could see being able to retain lots of fruit flavor and sweetness would be to move to secondary, stop the yeast with campden tablets, add the fruit and wait, then move to a keg and carbonate with CO2.

I'm guessing that only kegging with CO2 would work, and not bottling, as your bottling yeast would go after all those unfermented sugars from the fruit, resulting in some loud bangs and messy cleanup job.

Again, just floating some ideas, here, based on my very minimal experience.

 

[Jayslay]

I've done one fruit beer, which used 3lbs of frozen peaches in secondary. I wasn't too fond of that one, as a) it had a dry tartness to it, b) had very little peach flavor or aroma, and c) was pretty high ABV from the yeasties eating all of the sugar in the fruit.
............
I'm guessing that only kegging with CO2 would work, and not bottling, as your bottling yeast would go after all those unfermented sugars from the fruit, resulting in some loud bangs and messy cleanup job.

There is not that much fructose in 3 lbs of fruit that will increase your gravity, just your volume temporarily. Remember that fruit has water in its cells too that dilutes the sugar addition, and your fruits take beer with them when they are removed too. If your fruits total gravity/water addition is 1.040 and you beer is 1.040 there is no change in gravity.

Also, you don't have to worry about bottle bombs if you do fruit properly, I've done about 100 litres of fruit beer in bottles, no bombs. I always remove my fruit several days before bottling to make sure that everything is done fermenting.

 

[Roobiedoobiedoo]

With what I've gathered so far, my current plan is to rely on the crystal malts, high mash temp and less attenuative, higher flocculating yeast to leave some sugars behind. My schedule for an average gravity ale would be about 14 days with no transfer, unless I'm dry hopping or adding fruit (I would imagine). Any thoughts on what kind of schedule would be good for this?

 

[Jayslay]

Oh two or three weeks should be sufficient for most any ale to finish up. Do a pre and post gravity measurement with your hydrometer.

If you want to add fruit, add it after that.

 

[Kbrann]

I did a raspberry wheat recently for the girlfriend that she loved and took 1st in a competition I randomly decided to toss it into. Whole thing was an after thought but because of that I think I discovered a process to retain some sweetness.

Started by making a regular wheat ale. With all my beers I add gelatin to fermenter at end of fermentation and cold crash for a week at about 38 deg (I know weird that I did this with a wheat ale). Then added to kegs. Next day I decided to make a gallon of raspberry with it. I took some frozen raspberries out of the freezer that I had leftover from a previous failed attempt at a raspberry beer, mashed them up, put in a strainer and poured star san through them, then put into muzzlin bag and into a 1 gal carboy. I pulled out the 2nd wheat ale keg (make 10 gal batches) which I hadn't started carbonating yet, siphoned off a gallon of it into the carboy and let sit for a week at room temp in the closet. Siphoned into a keg and carbonated. When I left it for the week the carboy hardly seemed to ferment at all so I think by adding the raspberries post gelatin and post cold crash I had removed most of the yeast so most of the sweetness stayed in the beer. Of course this would require you to keg and force carbonate but works for me.

I have also considered adding a campden tablet with the raspberries in the 1 gal fermenter which would kill any yeast and in theory keep the beer sweet, but haven't tried that yet.