Fruit Beers

Brewing processes and methods. How to brew using extract, partial or all-grain. Tips and tricks.

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newguynz
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Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:54 am

Fruit Beers

Post by newguynz »

Hi All

Sorry if this seems like silly question but am very new to the brewing game.

I am intersted in trying a to make a number of different flavoured fruit beers...cherry and raspberry to begin with.

I was wondering if i can just brew a standard ale or lager style beer as normal. Then post-ad the fruit portion to give the flavour...i have been reading that the addition of fruit provides a second fermentation stage.? And how long should this brew be down before consumption?

Can anyone help?

Cheers

newguyNZ
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brewmeisterintng
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Fruiting Beer

Post by brewmeisterintng »

It
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slothrob
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fruit beer base

Post by slothrob »

I'm not a fruit beer guy, but I can answer one of your questions.
A simple, reletively low bitterness wheat beer is probably the most common base for a fruit beer, but Belgian Ales, Stouts, and even Pale Ales have made successful fruit beers.

The rules of thumb are to keep the bitterness down near 20 IBU, or even a little lower, use a reletively clean bittering hop, like Northern Brewer or a German Style hop, as opposed to a more strident hop like Chinook, and just use bittering hops, not flavor or aroma hops that might compete or clash with the fruit.

Also, it can help to design the beer with a little residual sweetness.

The easiest base would probably be an American Wheat with enough Wheat extract to hit about 1.047 OG (about 7# of DME in 5 gal), 1 ounce of Mt Hood (or Tett, Hallertau, Spalt or 0.75 oz Northern Brewer) at 60', and Wyeast 1010 or 3333 or even US-05 dry yeast (which would be an easy, cheap, and good choice). You could steep a half pound of a light Crystal Malt for a little body and sweetness, if you want.

I can't help with the fruit or extract addition, though.
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