What is the best way to sanitize some fruit for a brew? Normally I’d make a tincture with vodka, but I’m looking to add way too much fruit (5+ lbs) for a vodka bath.
Everything I’ve read suggests to mash up the fruit, add some water to make a slurry, and then add a campden tablet… Then cover with Saran wrap for a few days. After a few days it should good to add to my secondary. Is this the best way?
Pasteurization Temp chart at the end of the article
Nice thing about adding fruit to secondary is the bedded a Brett inoculation not that much can go wrong.
So if I mash up the fruit (strawberries), add some water, and bring to a boil, it would take 0.01 seconds to sanitize?
Then put into a sanitized Tupperware and bring the temp back down to around 65 degrees F?
If you did that way you would have pasteurized it way before reaching the boiling point.
You can pasteurize at was lower temps than boiling
Ive heat pasteurized and added pectic enzyme to try to limit the haze. I’ve also used Camden tablets which may give you a clearer product. I guess it depends on what you want in the beer your designing
I’m redoing my strawberry honey weizen, using a bucket fermenter instead of the conical (just want to get this particular recipe made quickly).
But I don’t want to use a store bought puree, I’d like it to be actual berries.
I understand itd be pasteurized way before boiling, but I figure better safe than sorry, and it’s a definite way to make sure it was pasteurized. Some parts might not get heated to appropriate temps uniformly, so if it gets boiling I have visual evidence that it reached a good temperature by seeing it boil
If you boil you will probably get some haze not a problem in a weizen so go for it. Of course now we will get people who say you will flash off aromatics bringing to a boil. I get wonderful aroma in my fruit wine just going to 180°
I freeze my fruit in gallon ziploc bags and never have a problem. It helps break down the cell walls and makes the juice more available without crushing.
I’ve never added more than 1 pound or two to 5G beers(and those I do exactly as grantmesteven mentions above), but I have made several fruit wines which involved 5-6 lbs of fruit in a 1 gallon batch. These I chop up or puree the fruit, freeze it, thaw and refreeze. Then when I’m ready to use it I thaw it out, add 1 Camden tab , then pectic enzyme about 12 hours later, then pitch my yeast 24 hours after the Camden.
I thought about freezing the fruit as well, I just wasn’t sure if the bacteria would return upon thawing. I know it would die in the freezer but I just wasn’t sure what might happen once it was brought back to room temp
I want to add ~5 pounds for a 5 gallon batch. I’ve heard strawberry is a very light flavor, so I would need a 1:1 ratio
I rack directly onto the frozen fruit so it doesnt have time to thaw. The alcohol in the beer should be enough to kill any nasties left behind.
The alcohol in beer will never approach a level that will kill bacteria. You need >40% to do that. But if your wort is mostly fermented and you have a strong batch of yeast remaining the yeast will out compete the bacteria. That is not the case with Brett and residual unfermentables however
So don’t just freeze… Definitely heat pasteurize?
Just freeze. @squeegeethree is right about the alcohol content. I also meant that a healthy supply of yeast should out compete other types of other bacteria except for Brett and unfermentables.
I’ve heated tart cherries to 160 F for about 20 minutes. No pectin haze and no bugs.
Dont do use fruit here… But now… I’m confused?? Sneezles61
So update. I heat pasteurized 5# of strawberry and then froze for a week or so. Thawed and poured into my carboy. Racked beer into the carboy, making sure the hose was right on top of the berries.
I had the autosiphon go “dry” at times and had to restart it, but overall it was fine.
Took a taste sample today and it’s not the best beer I’ve ever made, but not the worst either. It has a taste that I can’t quite describe. At first it feels like there’s not much flavor at all, and then I sort of taste the alcohol (it fermented to a higher abv than expected)… Then you get a little bit of a honey taste, but obviously not sweet. There’s a slight tartness to it, probably from the berries. It mixes to more than bland but definitely not what I hoped for. I really was hoping for a strawberry mixed with a Magic Hat “circus boy”. I think I’m going to add a small bit of strawberry extract to get that flavor into it. Not planning on lactose unless it is a giant mess.
Any chance bottle aging will change the flavor in a medium to large amount?
Edit: I did draw off the top where lots of berries were floating. I may have gotten some of that “fermented fruit” taste that wouldn’t represent my actual beer. Not sure
