Fresh Juice in an IPA

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by Jesse14, Sep 14, 2013.

Tags:
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Jesse14

    Jesse14 Initiate (0) Jul 21, 2011 Massachusetts

    I have an IPA fermenting right now. I was thinking of adding fresh fruit juice to 1 gallon of it during bottling. I used Citra, Chinook, and Centennial throughout. I like tropical and fruity IPA's with some backend bite. I am probably going to add ruby red grapefruit or blood orange.

    Anyone have any advice on portions or if I need to worry about bacteria from the fruit juice. I was going to cold crash for a couple of days to try and get as much of the yeast as I can out of the beer and reduce the risk of bottle bombs too.
     
  2. OddNotion

    OddNotion Pooh-Bah (1,915) Nov 1, 2009 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah

    Fresh juice probably wont work at bottling, it will create bottle bombs. Cold crashing wont kill the yeast and any in suspension will ferment the sugars in the juice.

    Edit: And if you do kill the yeast off in another fashion then you will just have a batch of flat bottles as the yeast will not ferment the priming sugar.
     
  3. Jesse14

    Jesse14 Initiate (0) Jul 21, 2011 Massachusetts

    I was afraid someone would say that. I don't want to add a lot. I just want to experiment a little and see if adding a small amount will do anything. Maybe I'll addsome during the dry hopping but then I have to gamble on the whole batch.
     
  4. koopa

    koopa Initiate (0) Apr 20, 2008 New Jersey

    Forget about the juice and make a citrus zest extract with neutral spirits. Then add as much or as little of the extract to as many or as few of the bottles in your batch as you want come bottling time.
     
  5. DrewBeechum

    DrewBeechum Pooh-Bah (1,954) Mar 15, 2003 California
    Pooh-Bah

    I don't know proportions, but Craftsman here in pasadena uses a whole orange slurry they make in their Orange Grove Pale Ale. It's pretty tasty, but I think it also goes in at the end of boil.

    I'll second the suggestion about using citrus zest in vodka. I've done this a few times with things like my Saison Guacamole and One Night In Tijuana. It works like a charm.
     
  6. KingforaDay

    KingforaDay Pooh-Bah (2,445) Aug 5, 2010 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Do you add the zest to the whole batch or just individual bottles? And if so how much?
     
  7. GatorBeer

    GatorBeer Initiate (0) Feb 2, 2010 South Carolina

    Be careful I've heard fruit juice ferments out nasty
     
  8. SFACRKnight

    SFACRKnight Grand Pooh-Bah (3,348) Jan 20, 2012 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Crooked stave adds whole citrus to their boil for st bretta. It tastes great. That being said I would wonder how much citrus is going to add to a hop bomb. I used the zest from 1 grapefruit, 2limes, 2lemons and 2oranges to a kolsch and got a hint of citrus through in the finished product. If this beer was halfway as hoppy as my usual ipa's there would be 0 citrus presence.
     
  9. koopa

    koopa Initiate (0) Apr 20, 2008 New Jersey

    I usually add it to the keg (or bottling bucket) when zesting the whole batch. If you didn't want to zest the entire batch, you could just add drops directly to as many bottles as you want. You should experiment with the first one to find the right amount and then repeat process.

    If I had to ball park it, I'd say put about 10 grams of citrus zest into about 1 - 1.25 fluid oz of neutral spirits for 5-15 days to make the extract. Then probably 1 ml per bottle (roughly 20 drops) would give you a strong citrus zest presence. Again this is just a guess. Try 10 drops in your first bottle (or 1 drop in say 1 fluid oz) and increase moving forward if it's not enough.
     
  10. GreenKrusty101

    GreenKrusty101 Initiate (0) Dec 4, 2008 Nevada

    Exactly what do you mean by that statement?

    Granted, fruit juice will thin the body of almost any base beer, but the type of fruit juice and the mash temp of the base beer will be significant variables. I will say, added juice to an IPA is almost never a good thing, IMHO.
     
  11. KingforaDay

    KingforaDay Pooh-Bah (2,445) Aug 5, 2010 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Can you be a little more specific Koopa? Just kidding!!!! Thanks so much for the response.
     
    koopa likes this.
  12. poopinmybutt

    poopinmybutt Zealot (643) May 25, 2005 Nebraska

    i brewed a saison where i 'dry hopped' with the flesh of 2 grapefruits for about 5 days before bottling. it was really bright and grapefruit-y at first but faded really quickly.
     
  13. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,350) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
    Trader

    I had a tangerine IPA from Petosi when I visited Wisconsin a few months ago... I thought it was great. I'm pretty sure they used tangerine juice to dilute the beer from 7.5% down to 7%
     
  14. FarmerTed

    FarmerTed Pundit (928) May 31, 2011 Colorado

    Just figure out how much sugar is in the juice, and use the appropriate amount to carbonate your beer (you want somewhere in the range of 2-2.5 g sugar per 12 oz bottle). If you're using a packaged juice, there will probably be nutritional info that lists the amount of sugar per serving, or at least the calories from sugar per serving (4 or 5 calories per g of sugar-look it up). I would just try it out on a few bottles to see how well it works. My guess is you'll add 10-15 ml of juice per bottle.
     
  15. Jesse14

    Jesse14 Initiate (0) Jul 21, 2011 Massachusetts

    I'm going to go the extract route. I just put the rind from 4 oranges and 2 limes in 14 oz of top shelf vodka. Let it sit for 2 weeks and try adding about 10-12 ml in the last 1 gallon in the bottling bucket. Then I think I'll progressively up the dosage on a couple of those bottles and see what happens.
     
  16. PapaGoose03

    PapaGoose03 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,057) May 30, 2005 Michigan
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    The 'flesh' (pulp?) squeezed dry? Interesting way to do that.
     
  17. anteater

    anteater Pooh-Bah (1,936) Sep 10, 2012 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Reviving this thread because I'm interested in making a grapefruit IPA.

    I did a lemon lime hefe with 4 limes worth of zest at 10 min in the boil, and then I added a bottle of simply lime about 24 hours into fermentation. I can't say whether the zest or juice contributed more, but the lime character really came through well and the beer was delicious.

    I'm thinking about trying the same thing with grapefruit zest/simply grapefruit in an IPA. Anyone have luck with other methods? How about other juices like passion fruit or guava nectar?
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.