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Author Topic: Juice vs whole fruit  (Read 2428 times)

Offline thebottlefarm

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Juice vs whole fruit
« on: August 25, 2012, 06:35:24 pm »
I'm planning on brewing a blackberry berliner weiss, and I was wondering people's opinions of using juice vs whole fruit. My options are... whole fruit, post freeze, or juicing the berries with a quality juicer, with a good extraction rate. My plan is to brew a sour mash berliner weiss, and add the blackberries or juice in primary.
My thought is that anything I can do to aid in reducing trub / pulp in the beer is a good thing.
thanks,
Aaron

Offline nateo

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Re: Juice vs whole fruit
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2012, 07:30:31 pm »
Blackberries are pretty darn tart (malic acid?). How much blackberry are you planning on adding, and how sour are you planning to make your BW?
In der Kürze liegt die Würze.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Juice vs whole fruit
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2012, 12:56:22 am »
I would freeze, thaw, then add the berries.  No problem at all.  I would taste it after a week or two and keep on top of it, the tannins of the berries/seeds could have a negative effect on the final beer.  You could make a syrup, but then I would just add it in the glass like traditional schuss.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline thebottlefarm

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Re: Juice vs whole fruit
« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2012, 08:11:23 pm »
I plan on making it fairly tart, but you are right, I have to figure out just how much juice I want to add. I've only got so much fruit, so that's my obvious upper limit. I might make some juice, and add it to a straight berliner weiss and see what it takes to taste it, and go from there. It sounds like I'd be saving myself a step of having to remove seeds if I just juiced the berries. So, I'm going to go that route.
thanks guys.

Offline kylekohlmorgen

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Re: Juice vs whole fruit
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2012, 01:32:15 pm »
Yeah - blackberry seeds are a PITA to keep out of a puree - and they dont really drop out if they get in the beer.

Fine mesh seive, a little patience, and some elbow grease will get you there. I usually get a low yield using whole blackberries. They're plentiful while in season, so its ok.
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Offline jmcamerlengo

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Re: Juice vs whole fruit
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2012, 02:21:40 pm »
Ive had great success with the Puree from brew sites(Oregon, Vitners Harvest). 1 can is good for 5 gallons. No dealing with seeds, worrying about sterilization, freezing or whole fruit taking up carboy space.

Its also not much more expensive(if at all) than buying 4 lbs of blackberries unless you get a nice deal at a farmers market or something like that.

If you have the fruit on hand, Im with the above. Freeze and drop em in.
Jason
-Head Brewer, Brewtus Brewers in the Shenango Valley. Hopefully opening a brewpub/nano brewery in the next couple years.