So, you've decided to make a fruit beer, and you've chosen the right base beer style, as well as a combination of fruit. Now you need to buy fruit.
Fruit selection
Of course, fruits can be bought at the nearest store. However, the taste of beer will only be as good as the ingredients it is made from. So the key here is to find the best quality fruit.
Ideally, fruit is best grown in your garden. Only in this case will you know the degree of their ripeness and the conditions in which they were grown. However, even if you have your own garden with the right fruits, the harvest may not be soon, and you need to brew beer now.
Before going shopping, visit the local market. Here, fruits are a little more expensive, but their quality is likely to be higher. These costs are absolutely justified if you want to get a fruity taste in your beer.
For lack of other options, you can buy fruit in the store. Try to choose the ripest fruits: in mass production, fruits are harvested before they reach ripeness in order to extend their shelf life. In this case, the fruity aroma is lost.
The fruits are usually treated with chemicals during cultivation - wash them thoroughly before adding them to the must.
If it is not possible to purchase fresh fruit, then frozen fruit or fruit purees are also an option. It's also a great way to get quality fruit ingredients at a more affordable price, especially if your recipe calls for a lot of them. In addition, the preparation of such ingredients will take less time. Carefully read the composition of such blanks and do not buy a product containing preservatives.
Juices are also a great option that can be successfully used to make fruit beers. As with frozen fruit and purees, buy only natural products that do not contain preservatives.
Some brewers use extracts and essences of fruit, however, when using them, there is a high probability of obtaining artificial fruit flavors in beer that we do not want.
Number of fruits
Now you should determine the amount of fruit that you need to buy. In this case, there are no formulas or clear instructions: beer is created from many components and from different basic styles of beer. Strive for balanced strength and character in your fruity beers.
For example, one kilogram of raspberries may be enough to make 20 liters of strong stout, but too much for a light wheat beer. Also, pay attention to the acidity of fruits. The use of sour fruits requires the utmost care to balance the flavor of the fruit with the flavor of the base beer.
Be sure to write down the weight of the ingredients and the volume of the beer batch so that you can make more informed decisions based on the experience gained in the future. The table below can be used as a starting point in determining the amount of fruit in a recipe:
Preparing and adding fruits
Methods for preparing fruit depend largely on the type of fruit (fresh, puree, juice, etc.) and the time it will be added to the beer. At the same time, it is the time of adding fruit ingredients that strongly affects the fruit character of the beer. There are several options.
1) Puree or fruit juice is often added during the last minutes of the wort boil. In this way, the puree/juice is pasteurized, thereby minimizing the risk of contamination of the beer. If you add fruits in this way, they will be present in the beer during active fermentation. During fermentation, much of the fruit flavor is lost and the beer takes on a vinous character. However, in some beers, the vinous flavor can be interesting, for example when adding grapes.
Pay attention to the fact that fruits increase the sugar content in the wort, this sugar must be taken into account when compiling a recipe.
2) Purees and juices can be added to the wort kettle while boiling. Fresh fruits can also be added at this time, but before doing so, they can be ground to release more juice. If the fruit has a lot of seeds or pulp and you don't want it to go into the fermenter, you can boil it in a nylon bag, but this is not necessary.
3) To get a fresh fruit flavor in your beer, add fruit when fermentation is nearly complete. However, since the fruits in this case were not heat treated, special care must be taken to avoid contamination of the must. Often juices, pureed and frozen fruits have already been pasteurized, so the risk of beer contamination is very low. However, fresh fruit is another story...
Fresh fruits need to be crushed to increase the area of their interaction with beer. Then there are three options:
- low temperature pasteurization. You can carry it out in a double boiler or directly on the fire. Holding the fruit puree at 65-75°C for about 15 minutes should rid it of most unwanted bacteria.
- freezing fruit puree before adding it to the fermenter. Freezing and thawing fruit several times helps release more flavors by breaking down cell walls.
- tritium option - do nothing and hope for the best
Once fruit has been pasteurized, simply add it to the fermenter just as you would dry-hop hops. If pasteurization was carried out in a bag, then you can add them to the fermenter in the same bag. If fruit is added without a bag, the beer may be cloudier and additional steps will be required to remove sediment.
Who and when brewed the first beer with the addition of fruit, now it is impossible to say for sure. However, the tradition of making beer by adding various fruits and berries to it goes back far into the past. And perhaps this tradition is most carefully treated in Belgium - it is no coincidence that Belgian lambics (as fruit beer is called) are the most famous and popular in the world. Today, this drink is experiencing a new wave of popularity - manufacturers offer very interesting drinks, both purely for women and designed for male consumers.
Production features
Fruit beers are made with whole fruits, pieces of fruit, fruit juices and purees. Due to the fact that fruits greatly affect the color and aroma of the drink, pale malt is most often taken for such beer. In the conditions of modern technologies, when the brewing and maturation of beer does not take as much time as before, recipes with juices and syrups from fruits and berries are more common.
The most popular fruit beer is cherry beer. For many centuries, beer has been brewed with the addition of strawberries, grapes, apples, peaches, raspberries, and currants. The modern beer industry has significantly expanded the palette of fruits used and offers interesting light and very light drinks based on lemon and grapefruit, spicy tropical fruits.
Gastronomic combinations
By the way, fruit beer significantly expands our understanding of possible snacks for this drink. Ladies claim that this beer goes well with chocolate, cakes and ice cream, but still this is not the best option. Try serving fruit beer with seafood, fatty fish such as sardines, salmon or mackerel, spicy cheeses (such as goat) and sweet cheeses (mascarpone). And of course, traditional shrimp, crayfish and squid rings will also make an excellent batch for this drink.
The site site completes the publication of the translation of an article by Matt Miller, in which the author describes in detail all the stages of production sour fruit beer. In it was told about the characteristics of fruits, the second is to choose and prepare fruits for your beer, and the third talks directly about the process of adding fruits to beer.
Photo: Beer & Brewing
So, you have purchased fruits, processed them and made all the necessary measurements. It's time to add fruit to beer (or vice versa)!
Oxygen Contact Prevention
Choice of base beer
When it comes to choosing a sour beer to create a fruit blend, there are only a few basic guidelines, and there are practically no established rules as such. Here's what to consider:
- As a rule, fruits are added to mature sour beer, that is, beer or blend, the quality of which the blender is satisfied with, and which can be drunk on its own. Let's say we're planning to add cherries to a Flemish red ale. This style of beer can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months (or so) to mature. It is necessary to add cherries to such beer during the last months of maturation, and not at its beginning. Adding fruit to a mature beer helps produce fresh, vibrant and full-bodied fruit flavors, many of which can be lost if fruit is added early in the fermentation and then left to mature for months or years.
- The addition of fruit should not be used as a way to correct the shortcomings of the drink. In my opinion, his goal should only be to improve the blend, and not to correct it.
- Fruity lambic-like beers are typically made with 1- to 2-year-old mixed culture blends or spontaneously fermented golden sours. It is important to add at least 900 g of whole fruit per 3.8 liters, and also take base beer recipes that involve the use of aged hops, long boils, and extraction of tannins from the grain. The taste of the base beer should be tart to moderately sour, but not caustic.
- Remember that under the influence of microorganisms with malolactic activity, the citric acid found in most fruits can turn into acetic acid and lactic acid or diacetyl. Therefore, blenders should be careful with base beers that have a distinct acetic acid or ethyl acetate character. It is unlikely that fruits will be able to mask or remove these characteristics.
- Many fruits increase the acidity of the finished blend, and it is therefore wiser to choose a less acidic base beer than the desired finished beer.
- Fruits with a more subtle flavor tend to perform best in a golden sour without a significant amount of caramelized or roasted malt. When choosing a red, semi-dark or dark beer as the base beer, fruits and berries with a stronger taste, such as raspberries, cherries and grapes, most fully reveal their potential. If the base beer has a strong character, more fruit can be added so that the unique flavors they impart do not get lost against the more aggressive background.
Photo: Tiina Re-adding fruit
Some brewers have begun experimenting with the repeated addition of fruit to sour beers. This means that the fruit left over from the previous fruity blend is added to another sour or rustic beer, which allows not only to use the full potential of this expensive ingredient, but also to get great results, namely, a completely different set of fruity flavors compared to the first one. adding fruit.
You can use this method in a variety of ways, but this one works great:
- Prepare an initial blend that emphasizes fruitiness by blending an aged sour beer with a relatively high amount of fruit, resulting in a bright fruity flavor and moderate to high acidity.
- Make a second blend using the fruit left over from the first batch, adding it to a sour beer of more moderate or fine acidity, or with country ale or tart saison characteristics. Typically, the second blend gets more subtle fruit flavors and often fruit characteristics that weren't so prominent in the original blend due to the intensity of the flavor. The beer resulting from the repeated addition of fruit, due to its potentially low acidity, may develop unusual flavors or become more spicy over time.
Most professional brewers use this method when creating beers infused with fresh whole fruit, but I have had excellent examples of homemade beers brewed with repeated additions of fruit purée.
Removing fruit from beer
In many cases, removing the used fruit from the finished sour beer can be one of the most difficult steps in the entire process. Luckily, with the right equipment and patience, you can do this fairly easily.
Personally, I used to wait until the homemade sour beers I kept in bottles had settled all the extraneous particles (usually this happened about three months after adding the fruit). In most cases, the fruits formed two layers: the upper floating layer and the sediment at the bottom. To get to the beer between these two layers, I used an overflow siphon with an integrated stainless steel filter. Particles entering the tube were retained by means of a filter. This method worked well, but towards the end of the transfusion process, I had to stop several times to clean the filter.
I now use a stainless steel strainer that fits completely over the siphon tube to pour sour beer from bottles, and this has greatly improved and simplified the whole process, while allowing less contact with oxygen.
There are many ways for professional brewers to pump sour fruit-infused beers from stainless steel barrels and containers. Equipment for pumping beer from barrels can be equipped with stainless steel filters, and steel tanks for aging or blending can be equipped with a double bottom or special connectors designed to prevent contact with the fruit mass at the top or bottom of the tank. An interesting solution is offered by Levi Funk from Funk Factory Gueuzeria - a false bottom that will fit a standard wine barrel and help separate the fruit.
Once most of the fruit mass has been separated from the beer, some brewers, including those who brew or blend lambics, choose to pass the beer through a pre-filter. This allows you to remove the smallest particles of fruit and pieces of film from the beer. If the filter is relatively coarse, there will be minimal impact on the microbial population and subtle flavors.
If you want to do this filtration at home with minimal impact, you can pass the beer at low pressure through a hop rocket filled with sanitized rice hulls from one keg to another. If you want to give your beer a dry hopped character, you can add a layer of hops (this is also a great option for hobby brewers who need to filter dry hopped beers). You can also use small wine filters like the Buon Vino Super Jet with a coarse filter, although even these filters tend to produce crystal clear beer and can adversely affect subtle aromas and flavors.
Photo: Breakside Brewing Conclusion - summarizing all of the above
Really good planning and preparation of a fruity sour beer is not easy. This requires foresight, patience, experimentation and attention to detail, because the beer goes through not one complex fermentation, but two. However, long-term blending programs allow brewers to produce excellent fruity beers without much difficulty. When organizing a blending program, sour beer makers plan to ensure that the base sour beer is ready by the time fresh fruit arrives. Through these programs, blenders also have a rich selection of different beers to pair with fruit, rather than trying to “fit” a certain beer into a fruit blend that it might not work with.
Once the blending program has been developed, all that remains is to wait until the right fruits and inspiration appear. Many blenders, especially those with wine experience, develop a great tasting ability and create excellent blends. And for those who don't have that experience, the simple measurements and guidelines outlined in this article will help you avoid excess acidity, vinegary taste, and one-dimensionality (those are the top three drawbacks of commercial fruit sours, in my opinion).
Remember, don't underestimate the impact that the same fruit from different sources can have on beer. The taste of the fruit may differ depending on the harvest or producer (not to mention different varieties). Not all fruits are the same. Consider the following example: an American brewer creates a base blend that tastes exactly like a Belgian lambic (which is very difficult in itself). If this brewer mixes this base with American sour cherries, he won't end up with a beer that tastes identical to Kriek. The fact is that the taste of Montmorency, Balaton and other American varieties of cherries differs from European Morello cherries. As brewers, we place a lot of emphasis on classic beer ingredients, but when it comes to blending sour beers, it's best to start thinking like a winemaker. When you hear characterizations of sour beers like "juicy", "fruity", "dessert", remember that the fruit has more to do with that impression than the beer it was added to. You can spend a year tasting and blending a base beer, but tasting the fruit you're about to add to it can take more than one minute.
Once all of these initial decisions have been made and fruit has been added to the beer, I usually don't sample the blend until about two weeks after signs of re-fermentation begin to subside. In my opinion, this is the minimum period for the blend to get rid of foreign flavors and stabilize. The first tasting should be done to understand if the beer has off-flavours, desirable fruity notes, acidity level and acid balance, tannin content and fermentation characteristics. Depending on this, you will need to make a decision about how long to age the beer with or without fruit before you start pouring and drinking it.
I hope that this article will be of interest to both home brewers and craft brewers and will provide you with useful guidance on the basic processes and important aspects of sour beer blending. Fruity lambics, like their American counterparts, have long been my favorite style of beer, both in terms of drinking and creating. In this article, I have summarized what I have learned over the years, both from my own and from the experience of others. I hope you also find ideas and inspiration for your next fruity sour beer as you read it. Good luck in your endeavors!
What is a lambic?
What is cider?
- This is an old apple alcoholic drink with a strength of 6-7 degrees. Such a drink is created only from special varieties of apples, each of which has its own individual taste. The most popular varieties for classic cider are Kingston Black, Tremlett's Bitter, Dabinett, Yarlington Mill and Fox Whelp. Real cider is obtained by naturally fermenting apples without adding any yeast. Based on the variety of apples, cider can be sweet, semi-sweet, dry, semi-dry and traditional. Buy cider Today it won't be too hard. The most attractive and reputable are the manufacturers from Brittany or Normandy.
In addition to apples of a special variety, pears are often used to create a drink. Pear cider is often referred to as . The preparation process is practically no different from the classic cider, but pear juice is used instead of apple juice. In terms of taste characteristics, cider is significantly different from lambic. Classic cider can be described as a fresh, sour drink with a high degree of carbonation and a bright taste of apples or pears. While lambics are more sophisticated drinks, where there is a rather extensive ensemble of flavors.
And if the best lambics are produced in Belgium, the ciders of Brittany and Normandy are considered the most expensive and upscale. In these regions of France, ideal conditions have been created for the growth of special varieties of apples. Drinks from these regions, as well as some regions of England, can rightfully be called the best, so if you want buy cider in Moscow of the highest quality, then you should give preference to manufacturers from Brittany, Normandy or the UK. Good cider does not fog the head and does not weigh down the body, it is drunk well chilled and in a glass of thin glass.
Cider and lambic - so different, but still similar
Cider is a drink that perfectly quenches thirst. While lambic is a delicious aperitif and digestif for many gourmet dishes and gourmet desserts. Cider can be drunk in large enough quantities, so if you want to escape the summer heat, then you simply cannot find a better drink than cool cider. Lambic is a noble beer that is drunk in small quantities, savoring every shade of the drink.
A good cider will be an excellent aperitif, and also goes well with pork, chicken, summer salads, fruits and desserts. In turn, lambic will be a wonderful addition to various sweet desserts, chocolate, fruit salads and some meat dishes.
Cider and fruit beers have much in common, but are drastically different in taste, characteristics and method of preparation. If you want to surprise your date in a restaurant, order her a good fruit beer. You can be sure that most of the representatives of the weaker half of humanity will not be able to resist the light notes of berries, fruits and herbs, harmoniously combined with malt motives. If you want to refresh yourself on a hot summer day with an excellent, tasty alcoholic drink, then cider will perfectly help you with this. Each of these drinks has its own benefits and will be a delightful addition to any party or celebration.
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