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suggestions on adding fruit to secondary

BILLY BREW

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Morning all,
I have a porter that I made and decided that I wanted to add blueberries that I picked in Michigan and froze.
Never done a fruit beer, what is the best process to make sure I don't get creepies in my beer but get good flavor?
Attached is the porter recipe. Made it before and my "judges"/ drunken buddies, barely let me have any.
 

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  • COAL PORTER.bsmx
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What I've done in the past is to just make a puree of the fruit and heat that up to 180ºF and hold it there for 10 minutes or so. You don't want to boil the fruit because of the pectin, just heat it up to pasteurize it. Add the puree to a carboy and rack the beer on top of it. Let sit for a week and away you go.
 
I would be afraid of heat changing the flavor of the berries. In wine making they treat the fruit with sulphites using Campden tablets, which are available at most anyplace that sells homebrewing supplies.
 
Today I added blueberries, cloudberries and mountain cranberries into the fermenter of my Fjelløl (mountain beer). All ingredients from the area around our mountain hut. I did it exactly the way pcollins is describing. I've done this before with other types of fruit without problems and avoiding pectin haze.
 
Slurk said:
Today I added blueberries, cloudberries and mountain cranberries into the fermenter of my Fjelløl (mountain beer). All ingredients from the area around our mountain hut. I did it exactly the way pcollins is describing. I've done this before with other types of fruit without problems and avoiding pectin haze.

Slurk, I am very interested in this Fjelløl!  Between the juniper and fruit, I bet it will be delicious.  Do you have a recipe you could share?
 
Willards said:
Slurk, I am very interested in this Fjelløl!  Between the juniper and fruit, I bet it will be delicious.  Do you have a recipe you could share?

Willards, thank you very much for your reaction.
This Fjelløl is a huge experiment for me. I brewed the beer last weekend and had to wait with responding to your request until this evening after racking from primary to secondary. While I am writing this post I am sipping of a small glass of one week old Fjelløl (Mountain Beer).
The basic idea is to brew a medium dark "lager" dry type of beer that I brewed before but this time with a taste and flavour profile that is inspired on the landscape around our mountain hut. The beer is based on water from the mountain hut (excellent quality and superior to the Oslo water quality) and local ingredients. In addition the colour should be representing autumn (orange/brown).
I can divide the ingredients that I used in three groups:
- Juniper twigs and Juniper berries: the twigs for taste, flavour and bitterness and the berries for flavour
- Cloudberries, Mountain Cranberries and Blueberries for taste and  flavour
- Reindeer Lichen mainly for flavour

In the old days some Norwegian farms brewed their own  beers and used Juniper twigs (with berries) to filter the mash. Using them as a filter as well would mean, in my equipment set up, that I had to use the twigs during the whole mash and sparge (over 2 hours). I decided to add and boil them during the last 20 min of the main boil and see how much flavour, taste and extra bitterness it would give.
The fruitberries I pasteurized and added them in the primary after the Krausen (day 3).
I boiled the Reindeer Lichen separately in a pressure cooker about 60min with 1.5L and at the end of this boil 0.75L was left which I added to the main boil (I reduced this amount of water already during the sparge). The kitchen was dominated by a pleasant smell of wet Lichen as I remember from rainy days in the mountains. My research on the internet showed that boiled Lichen has a low PH cooking moisture (I measured 4.4). I decided not to compensate for that.

Attached you will find the Fjelløl recipe that I used on Saturday. Based on my first sips from the beer just right now I am satisfied that it has a "clear" not grassy taste, a beautiful brown/orange colour, just a bit of sourness (liked it). There are some hints of Cloudberry and Juniper while you recognize the Reindeer Lichen in flavour and taste. Blueberry and Mountain Cranberry I don't recognize in the taste or flavour. I recognize the smooth bitterness of the Juniper twigs. I am considering to add an extra 15gr of Juniper berries (crunched and 20 min boiled) in the secondary.
A first conclusion is that I am excited about the Reindeer Lichen taste and flavour. This ingredient surprises me positively and  could offer a lot of "hop like" possibilities in taste and flavour (not bitterness). The other conclusion is that in general I could have used more berries to get more fruit taste and flavour.

R, Slurk
 

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  • 2013 Fjelløl.bsmx
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