So my 22-year-old daughter likes many of the fruit/sour type beers that breweries are putting out. I decided to give it a run and made a basic Kolsch with the plan of adding the puree straight to the brew post-fermentation. I was shooting for something along the lines of Joose from the answer. Basically, the problem was that the puree added so much of, let's call it pulp. Basically, it was just thick. I could not get the brew to come out of the keg. I use ball lock and am thinking maybe that is the problem. Finally had to give up, put it back into a bottling bucket, put in some growlers and drink it as fast as possible. Luckily it was Christmas so I had plenty of events to get help with that one. By the way, it was not bad and definitely in line with Joose. Anyway, she liked it but I have no idea how to solve the problem and am hoping someone has solved this issue. Thanks
Are you trying to retain the fruit sugars or you okay fermenting them out? If you're okay fermenting them out, then add the fruit to the primary. I like to do near the end of primary to try to retain as much of the fruit aromatics as I can. If you're looking to retain the sugars to create more of a sweet fruit beer, then i recommend a fine mesh bag to try to contain as much of the pulp as possible (I'll use either a paint strainer bag or I one of these types of devices: https://www.homebrewing.org/400-Micron-Hop-Filter-with-Lid-Chain_p_7113.html). It's not perfect, but should get the job done. I'm pretty anal about my CO2 flush process and so am confident enough to flip the kegs a few times when carbonating to get it all mixed in.
Or,,,, you can add the fruit to a secondary, let it work off some then bottle or keg. I purée all my fruit and have good luck with this method.
I was trying to retain the fruit sugars and even wanted the pulp. I was able to achieve what I shot for but had no luck getting it to come out of the keg. Would that pass easier if I had a Sankey keg or would it just clog up as well? I am definitely going to try both of the methods you all suggested as well.
I would hesitate to bottle these. Safe bottling would require force carb and kegging anyways. You would then have to keep these cold or kill the yeast with KMeta or something. If you go for bottle conditioning you are likely to end up with bottle bombs due to all the excess fruit sugar. If you want to make these beers regularly, I would recommend getting a specialty keg with tri-clamp fittings on top and bottom side of keg. This will allow you to force carb and put on draft or bottle. I say this because you can run even a 1/2” ID tube off of the bottom port of the specialty keg that will likely never clog. If you’re interested in specialty keg source message me.
Or what you could do: Carb the base beer up really high (3.5 volumes or so), transfer this carbed beer on top of fruit purée in bottling bucket, bottle, pasteurize bottles in kettle and mash tun with 180F water bath for 10-15 minutes. I say high carb because purée dilution and bottling process you will likely lose carb.
