EDITORS NOTE: This is the first in what we hope will be a series of member-written articles. Thank you to Mason for stepping up and being the first! If you are interested in writing for the site – on a topic of your choosing – let us know! Now, on to the Big Show!

by Mason McNair

Walk into any bottle shop and you’ll find a plethora of weird and unusual beers to try. Fruit beers, spiced beers, smoked beers, sour beers, the list goes on and on. What makes these brews stand out from the crowd are their specialty ingredients, also known as adjuncts.

The key to brewing with any adjunct is balance between the ingredients. Fruits and vegetables are the first adjunct ingredients we’ll cover in this series as both are fairly common in many different beers. Both can be used in many different forms such as fresh, dried, processed, juices, and more. When utilizing fruits or veggies in your brewing process, it is important to consider the effect they will have on your beer’s flavor and appearance based on when they are added. It is important to consider the point at which you add fruits and/or vegetables to your beer during the brewing process. Based on when you add them, it can alter the flavor and appearance of your beer.

Adding fruits and/or vegetables during the mash is a great way to introduce the flavors without having to sterilize your adjunct first. However, you will have to use more of your chosen fruit or vegetable in order to bring about the desired flavor. It is also important to keep in mind that much of the aromatic compounds from the fruit or vegetable are often lost during the fermentation process. This is important because for milder fruits and vegetables such as passionfruit, dragonfruit, banana, lychee, rambutan, strawberries, and many others, the aromatic compounds are what give the fruit its defining flavor. With these aromatics lost, the fruit/vegetable may not give your beer the flavor you desire.

A fruit or vegetables addition towards the end of your boil can provide some flavor and change the appearance of your beer. Boiling also allows your fruit and/or vegetables to be sterilized, which is an added bonus. There are a few downsides to this method. The first is that adding fruit or vegetables at this stage can lead to pectin buildup in your beer, which causes pectin haze. However, pectin haze can be easily overcome by adding pectic enzyme to your wort after pitching the yeast. The second downside is that nearly all the sugars naturally found in the fruit/vegetables will ferment out during primary fermentation. However, depending on what you are brewing this could potentially be a good thing. But with fruits such as pineapple, this can be extremely important because pineapple without any sugar is nearly as tart and sour as a freshly cut lemon! Also, as mentioned before, the aromatic compounds are often lost through the fermentation process.

Adding the fruit/vegetables after high krausen may allow for more of the aromatic compounds to come through in the final product, but it could also kick fermentation back up. This leads to a second krausen and a higher alcohol content than originally intended. However, if your intent is for the fruit/vegetables to be a source of fermentable sugars, this is an ideal time to add it because adding fermentable sugars after high krausen makes the production of fusel alcohols less likely. This will lower the chance of your beer tasting hot, harsh, solventy, or burning from the alcohol content. There is still a chance of pectin haze with this method, so adding some pectic enzyme is advisable.

The final method of adding fruits and vegetables is after primary fermentation is complete. Typically you will rack the beer from the primary fermentation vessel on top of the fruit and/or vegetables in a new sterile vessel for secondary fermentation. This is my preferred method as it allows the most aromatic compounds to make it into your final product. It also allows for less sugar to ferment out adding slight sweetness to your beer, which helps balance the fruit/vegetables with the other ingredients for many styles. This method also decreases the impact they will have on the appearance of your beer. There is still a chance that a true secondary fermentation may start because of the presence of new fermentable sugars within the fruit/vegetables, but it is unlikely to create fusel alcohols.

No matter what method you decide to use, sterilizing your fruits and vegetables is extremely important; when homebrewing this can be done a few different ways. The method of sterilization used varies depending on when you are adding the fruits and/or vegetables and what form you are using. As mentioned before, adding the fruits and/or vegetables at the end of the boil will take care of sterilizing them. For all the other methods of adding fruits and/or vegetables, there are three methods that I have utilized in my homebrewing ventures.

When it comes to fresh fruit and vegetables, I prefer to slice or puree them in a food processor. I then put them all into a sterile vessel and add the appropriate number of campden tablets. I keep a few 2.5 gallon buckets on hand just for this very reason. After 48 hours I put the now sterilized fruit/vegetable into a sterilized ziploc bag and put it into the freezer until I am ready to add it my beer (usually secondary). This method also works with rehydrated, frozen, canned, and processed fruits and vegetables.

For dried fruits and vegetables, you can utilize the simple method of soaking them in some sort of spirit such as vodka, rum, or bourbon for a few days and then adding them to your beer at the desired time.

The final method is boiling the fruit or vegetable in water until it is sterile. The downside to this method is that it can potentially lessen the flavor the fruit/vegetable provide to your beer because the water dilutes it and the boiling process can cause some of the aromatic compounds to be lost.

For those of you that think all that sounds like a lot of work, there is an easier way. However, it is very easy to completely ruin your beer in just a few seconds with this method. I am of course referring to fruit and vegetable extracts. Often used in baking and cooking, these little vials of concentrated aroma and deliciousness are a great way to get those aromatic compounds back in your beer that may have been lost during fermentation. The strength of the extract can strongly vary. To determine how much to use, I suggest picking up a six pack of a very basic, commercially available version of whatever style beer you are trying to make and add measured amounts of extract to the bottle, stir, then taste. Once you have the desired flavor, scale it up to whatever your batch size is and add that amount of extract to your beer when bottling or kegging. Speaking from experience you’ll want to pick up a 1mL dropper to make measuring and scaling up easier. Using extracts may seem like cheating to some but many of the great fruity beers now on the market are utilizing extracts to boost the aromatics in their beer.

Many of the best breweries in the country have some sort of fruit beer in their yearly rotation nowadays. From Southern Tier’s Pumking to Anderson Valley’s Blood Orange Gose, to our local breweries like RBC’s First Squeeze (blood orange hefeweizen), Gizmo Brew Works’ Deep Blue Saison (blueberry saison), and Sub Noir’s Violet Beauregard (blueberry and bourbon barrel aged Flanders’ sour), everyone seems to be making a fruit beer. Heck even Budweiser is capitalizing on this whole fruit beer thing with monstrosities like Bud Light Lime-a-rita *shudders*. With the wonderfully summery taste fruit can add to your brew, why not give it a try, especially now that you have the knowledge to go about it the right way? And we all know that knowing is half the battle. Join me next time as we discuss herbs and spices.