Using grape juice in wort?

[MarcGuay]

Hi folks,

I have some homegrown Frontenac grape juice that I'm considering using in a beer and have some questions. The grapes were picked, heated (not boiled) in a pot, mashed, and strained into jars and frozen.

1) At what point would I add the juice to the wort?

2) Does the juice need to be boiled before being added to destroy any wild bacteria and yeast?

3) What proportion of juice to wort would be enough to taste it without dominating? I'm considering following a Belgian Dubbel recipe and using it in place of the sugar.

4) I measured the gravity and it seemed to go off the hydrometer's chart (1.080+). Thinking it might be too sweet to measure with the device, I diluted the liquid with water by 50% and tested again and got 1.040, not sure if this is proper testing to conclude that the original juice is ~80ppg.

Thanks for any help
Marc

 

[mredge73]

Why don't you make a wine out of it instead? I haven't heard of grape juice being used in a beer.
Fruit additions are usually done to light wheat beers; like a shandy.

1. Add the juice in the fermenter like any fruit addition; commonly added into the secondary if you plan to use one.
2. Do not boil the juice, the initial heating done earlier may have already done some damage. Between the early heating and the recent freeze you killed well over 95% of the baddies; beer yeast will out compete what is left.
3. I don't know what your recipe calls for; 1 lb of pure sugar will raise 1 gallon of water to 1.046. Your juice is 1.08 so assume there is 2 lbs of sugar in it per gallon.
4. Sounds like you have a fancy hydrometer made to take fine measurements in the beer range. Pick up a cheap universal hydrometer to add to your tool collection for $5 that goes up to at least 1.12. You will need it for that double.

 

[bruteforce]

Why don't you make a wine out of it instead? I haven't heard of grape juice being used in a beer.

Dogfish Head Midas Touch has grape juice.

 

[MarcGuay]

I don't have enough of the juice to bother making wine. Found this that might have some ideas http://www.eckraus.com/blog/adding-fruit-juice-to-beer

Found this recipe for the Midas Touch, seems that they add the juice after the initial vigorous fermentation is over. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=71861

 

[botigol]

I've used grape juice in a beer. It turned out great!
1. I added the juice after cooling the wort, but in retrospect was thinking that towards the end of primary fermentation might be a better time in order to preserve more aromatics from the grape juice.
2. In wine making we generally don't heat the grapes/juice, but use either potassium or sodium metabisulfite to retard wild yeast growth. This is usually added about a day ahead of pitching your selected yeast. The previous heating may or may not have taken care of the wild yeast, so metabisulfite would be good insurance.
3. This is a hard question given that we don't know the strength of flavor of your grapes, the water content of your grapes, the malts in your grist and differences in people's tastes. At 1.080, a half gallon would roughly replace the sugar. That said, given that Frontenac is a red grape, I would add between a pint and a quart of juice since you said that you don't want it to dominate.
4. Your test seems sound to me.

 

[MarcGuay]

Thanks! Any thoughts on adding the juice at flameout and letting sit for 5-10 minutes to pasteurize?

 

[botigol]

Since you shouldn't hit the gelling temperature, pectins aren't a concern. I've never heated grape juice, except in making jelly, so I am wondering how much the heating, even if only to pasteurization temperature, will affect the grape flavor. Again, no experience, just a thought to ponder.

 

[mredge73]

Thanks! Any thoughts on adding the juice at flameout and letting sit for 5-10 minutes to pasteurize?

Do you like clear beer? If so do not heat the juice.

 

[MarcGuay]

Just wanted to mention that my PPG calculation was incorrect. I just measure the SG of the juice without concern for it's weight and proportion to water (which is what PPG is all about). The right way to do it is to figure out how much a pound of the juice <strike>weighs</strike> is in volume, dissolve it in water (mathematically) to make 1 gallon, and measure the SG of that solution.

For my case where the juice is 1.080.

1lb of juice = Approx 1 US pint / 473ml = 1/8 US gal = 1.080
1lb dissolved in 1 gallon of water = 80/8 = 10ppg

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Just wanted to mention that my PPG calculation was incorrect. I just measure the SG of the juice without concern for it's weight and proportion to water (which is what PPG is all about). The right way to do it is to figure out how much a pound of the juice weighs, dissolve it in water (mathematically) to make 1 gallon, and measure the SG of that solution.

For my case where the juice is 1.080.

1lb of juice = Approx 1 US pint / 473ml = 1/8 US gal = 1.080
1lb dissolved in 1 gallon of water = 80/8 = 10ppg

wouldn't a pound of juice weigh, .... a pound?

 

[Rush]

I made an extract + grain version of Norther Brewers "Saison Du Vin" which called for 46oz of Sauvignon Blanc grape juice. The end result was one of the top 3 beers I've ever made.

Recipe I used had

1LB of Belgian Caramel Pils steeped 40 minutes

6lbs pilsen LME
46oz Sauvignon Blanc grape juice added at flame out

1/2oz Nelson Sauvin 60m
1.5oz Nelson Sauvin 20m

Used Wyeast 3711, fermented at room temperature which was mid 70f's and then moved to a dormer in a bedroom which had a temperature closer to 80f.

The grape fruit addition was amazing and the 3711 yeast brought the 1.065 down to 1.001 to get me around 8.5%Abv.

The taste was light and dry with tons of fruit and light spice flavors. The alcohol wasn't present in the least. The aroma was heavily Sauvignon Blanc, to the point where if you sniffed it without knowing what it was, you'd possibly think it was an actual glass of wine.

 

[Rush]

Pic before the keg started to clear.

 

[ten80]

wouldn't a pound of juice weigh, .... a pound?

Hilarious! What weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of malt extract?.

OK, humor aside, there is no need to introduce more units (pounds) and complicate things by trying to determine the density or specific gravity (SG) of anything. Stick with volumes and OG and you can solve for the needed variable using:

C1xV1 + C2xV2 = C3xV3

C1 = concentration (OG) of your beer wort
V1 = volume of your beer wort
C2 = concentration (OG) of your grape juice (1.080 in this case)
V2 = volume of your grape juice
C3 = final concentration (OG) of beer + juice
V3 = final volume.

You can then solve for the concentration or volume of the initial wort, grape juice, or final mixed beer + juice using your givens.

Also, boiling the juice may lose some of the aromatics and lessen the flavor of the final product, in addition to setting pectic enzymes. I recommend adding once campden tablet per gallon of juice, letting the juice sit for 24-hrs with a loose lid (to vent SO2 produced), then adding to the beer once fermentation has started.

 

[MarcGuay]

wouldn't a pound of juice weigh, .... a pound?

Derp. I meant find the volume of a pound.

 

[kingwood-kid]

I made an Oud Bruin-ish beer with Shiraz juice that turned out great, so a dubbel with grape juice would be somewhat similar. Grape juice is very acidic and the skins are very tannic, which may not be to your liking. I'd adjust your recipe to increase the sweetness and body a bit, and be prepared to increase the pH to taste.

 

[MarcGuay]

If I'm fermenting in a single container (no racking to secondary) and add the grape juice after primary is finished, should I stir it into the wort or rock the fermenter? If I do, is there any problem with getting the gunk left by the krausen on the side mixed back in?

 

[ten80]

Try adding the grape juice when the fermentation is just starting to slow down, near when it is 1/2 to 2/3 complete or so (based on your OG). This will make certain that the grape juice will be fermented, but the fermentation will not go so fast as to blow off some of the grape flavors.

There's no problem adding the grape juice to the primary fermenter, just make sure that you leave a little headspace for blow-off if the fermentation kicks back up, or have a blow-off tube ready to install.

Yep, just rock and swirl the fermenter to rouse the yeast. The krausen will settle back down fairly quickly.

 

[elburrogrande]

Trillium Dialed in is an IPA that uses Sauvignon Blanc Juice. I have attempted a clone before and it worked well with 1 quart of grape juice

 

[Rush]

If I'm fermenting in a single container (no racking to secondary) and add the grape juice after primary is finished, should I stir it into the wort or rock the fermenter? If I do, is there any problem with getting the gunk left by the krausen on the side mixed back in?

I added my grape juice for the saison at flame out which helped pasteurize the juice so any leftover bugs were dealt with, and eliminated any boil related haze issues from the fruit juice. I had no issues with a lack of aroma from the juice.

 

[MarcGuay]

Following up to say that my grape juice added a strong sour note to the beer. It was originally very sweet and very tart, and I guess since the sweetness turned to good ol' alkyhol, that's what was left. I added 550ml to a 10.5L batch after cooling the wort. Pasteurized it with metabisulfite.