Fruit pasteurization

[ray m]

Sometime ago, I started a thread about using real fruit (dark sweet cherries). Beerconn (& Fuji, I believe) assisted me tremendously in answering some questions of mine, and referred me to a BYO article, which I was fortunately able to find. But alas, compadres, new questions have arose. I have read in some more recent posts that using fruit in primary "scrubs" away a lot of fruit flavor, and that in order to maintain more fruit character, racking beer onto fruit into 2ndary may be better.

I think I may prefer to go this way instead of primary. I was told by Brewmonkey that, in this regard, pasteurization of the fruit is an issue. What I am thinking of doing is splitting up the beer/fruit in 2 secondary glass fermenters---3 lbs. of cherries + 2 1/2 gallons of beer in each. I was planning on mashing up the fruit, removing the pits/stems/leaves, and then just dumping them in the fermenter prior to racking. How do I pasteurize/sanitize the fruit? Do any of you fellows have some guidance for me in this realm?? Should I follow through on my scheme??

[fuji6100]

Referring back to what I said before, I had a bad experience with dumping fruit into the primary. I lost a lot of brew to blowoff, and the fruitiness was largely lost due to the vigorous fermentation, leaving only the tart fruit acids behind.

What I'm doing for the peach wheat I've got going now is I brewed the primary (american wheat) now, and then I'll rack onto the fruit for my secondary, and then into a 3rd container to clarify.

As far as pasteurization goes, I get some water above 180F (but not boiling as this will set more pectin and give you a haze) and than blanch the split peaches (minus pits, skin, leaves) in the water for about 10 minutes before adding to the secondary.

Also, when racking to the secondary onto the fruit I'll add pectic enzyme, which will help break up the pectin set by heating the fruit. I have high hopes that this will work better!

Hopefully my experience will help you as well, good luck and let me know how it turns out!

[Beerconnoisseur]

MoreBeer offers two potential alternatives for you... one is fruit flavorings, added at bottling time. The other is fruit purees (which are added post fermentation for meads, and pre-fermentation for beer [at least, I assume so]). If you wait until mid-to-late secondary fermentation, you will have some alcohol built up, which could eliminate the need to pasteurize the fruit entirely.

However, I haven't tried this, one way or the other. The times I've used the fruit flavorings at bottling have been more than sufficient for my purposes.

[toneyc]

For sanitizing, you might be able to use camden tablets, sodium bisulphate, I think. Mix it in with the fruit and let it sit for 24 hours then you're ready to go.

:)
Toney.

[michaewa]

I think the Oregon Fruit Purees may be an option - don't they come already sanitized and ready to go?

That is if you aren't set on using your own fruit.

[BenP78]

My girlfriend brewed a batch of wheat beer that we added some fruit extract to during bottling. It came out good, but not totally integrated. Has anyone tried adding this extract when racking to secondary? Would that give it more of a round, 'real' flavor?

[ray m]

Thanks for all replies, fellows. I have, many times, used the fruit extracts at bottling time. They turn out very well, and give the beer a good fruit flavor that is about perfect for what I had in mind as far as degree of flavor is concerned. My ONLY complaint is that those extracts give me indigestion, more often that not.

I have also used the Oregon puree once for a blueberry brown ale I concocted, but I added it to the primary and was not impressed with the barely preceptible flavor that resulted. I ended up having to use extract flavoring for that, too. It was a disappointing effort (maybe because of the White Labs European Ale yeast I used...just didn't like the flavors, etc.) & I was glad to see my last bottle being consumed.

I think I may try either ToneyC's or Fuji's idea. I have read either method works. I just wanted to try real fruit for my next batch just for the sake of "playing"---have not tried it yet & want to try sumptin' different.

Probably won't brew it 'til November. This month will be busy & we're gettin' the basement remodeled next month. I'll be ready to brew by Nov. for sure!!