Apple juice in a nut borwn ale

[Thad Eggen]

Hello,

Has anyone added preservative free/organic apple juice to a wort prior to pitching yeast? I was thinking of doing a Nut Brown Ale and adding about 1/2 to 1 gallon of apple juice to the fermentor or last five minutes of boil. Any thoughts, opinions or ideas?

Thanks,

Thad

[beerider]

How about making the beer like normal...and add apple juice in the bottling bucket...?

[gabetax]

On a similar vein, there's a thread with a couple recipes for "Apple Pie A La Mode" -- a mix of white ale and cider.

[majorvices]

How about making the beer like normal...and add apple juice in the bottling bucket...?

Because your bottles would explode!

I've blended beer and apple juice before - works nicely. I've even sparged with apple juice!

[nicneufeld]

I've meant to do this. If you want apple flavor you won't get very much using juice; look at your average hb cider, which is 100% AJ, and even there its a challenge to keep an apple character. However, if you use frozen apple juice concentrate, you can do a "gravity boost" that will deliver more apple flavor. I do this with ciders sometimes.

Which isn't to say that using juice is not without advantages...if you prefer a drier beer it should thin out your wort a bit, increasing the proportion of fermentable to unfermentable sugars. And if your grain bill is subtle enough I can see a pleasant fruitiness coming through...maybe not something that shouts "APPLE!", but I haven't done this specifically, so I could be wrong. I have done malted ciders which is sort of the reverse, but my primary experiment was a bit of a failure for other reasons.

And yes, bottling with a gallon of juice in the bottling bucket, prepare for bombardment dude! Yikes! Never had a bottle bomb but that sounds like a perfect recipe for one! Unless beerider was thinking measuring a quantity of juice to substitute for priming sugar, but then it'd be a lot less than a gallon and have just shy of no influence whatsoever on flavor (at least to my hardened, war torn taste buds).

EDIT: Also, forgot to add, I wouldn't add it during the boil, allegedly this will set the pectins and create haze issues. If its pasteurized (which I'd recommend) I would just add it to the primary fermentor after the wort has chilled, before pitching. EDIT #2: major, you said you've sparged with AJ...any noted effect on clarity to your recollection after the boil?

[Thad Eggen]

Thanks for the replies. In the spirit of experimentation, I was going to go back to my extract roots and use 4lbs of Amber extract, 1/2 lb of Biscuit, caramel 60 and caramel 120, 1 oz goldings, 1/2 oz fuggle and 2 1/2 gallons of apple juice (stuff I already have on hand). Thinking of adding AJ at 10 minutes left to pastuerize, pectins be damned. Even was toying with bottleing with 1 cup of maple syrup...

Any comments are welcome.

Thad

[majorvices]

I've meant to do this. If you want apple flavor you won't get very much using juice; look at your average hb cider, which is 100% AJ, and even there its a challenge to keep an apple character. However, if you use frozen apple juice concentrate, you can do a "gravity boost" that will deliver more apple flavor. I do this with ciders sometimes.

Which isn't to say that using juice is not without advantages...if you prefer a drier beer it should thin out your wort a bit, increasing the proportion of fermentable to unfermentable sugars. And if your grain bill is subtle enough I can see a pleasant fruitiness coming through...maybe not something that shouts "APPLE!", but I haven't done this specifically, so I could be wrong. I have done malted ciders which is sort of the reverse, but my primary experiment was a bit of a failure for other reasons.

And yes, bottling with a gallon of juice in the bottling bucket, prepare for bombardment dude! Yikes! Never had a bottle bomb but that sounds like a perfect recipe for one! Unless beerider was thinking measuring a quantity of juice to substitute for priming sugar, but then it'd be a lot less than a gallon and have just shy of no influence whatsoever on flavor (at least to my hardened, war torn taste buds).

EDIT: Also, forgot to add, I wouldn't add it during the boil, allegedly this will set the pectins and create haze issues. If its pasteurized (which I'd recommend) I would just add it to the primary fermentor after the wort has chilled, before pitching. EDIT #2: major, you said you've sparged with AJ...any noted effect on clarity to your recollection after the boil?

In my beer I figured I wouldn't get much apple character due to the smoke and the fact I was boiling the juice for an hour. However I was surprised how much came through. Also go a nice, pleasant tartness which is what I was going for. Thats aid if you want real apple flavor I think some apple cconcentrate in the secondary or end of the primary would work very well. Haven't tried it.

BTW, I was consigned to the fact that there could be a haze and had considered a pectic enzyme - however the beer came out clear with no problems boiling 1/2 of the wort being cider.

[nicneufeld]

BTW, I was consigned to the fact that there could be a haze and had considered a pectic enzyme - however the beer came out clear with no problems boiling 1/2 of the wort being cider.

I wonder if it has something to do with traditional hand-pressed cider having more particulate matter and bits of apple flesh in suspension, as compared to commercially filtered and processed apple juice? Even if that has nothing to do with it, it wouldn't surprise me to find another piece of homebrewing conventional wisdom challenged in practice.

I really, really need to do an apple beer like this. My inclination is cans of frozen concentrate right after the immersion chiller gets it down to 80 degrees, getting things nice and cool quickly. If you really wanted to amp up the apple flavor, you could add more apple juice concentrate after primary fermentation stops, which would restart it, but without the flavor-stripping vigor of the primary ferment. But by then I might as well just brew the plain old cider and be done with it!

[majorvices]

the cider I used was unfiltered from a small local orchard