I made a 10 gallon batch of a witbier and I plan on adding peaches to 5 gallons. Should I freeze the peaches prior to adding them to the wit? Or just slice, de-pit, and add them to the secondary? Any help would be greatly appreciated
I have added peaches to a Belgian Blonde Ale before. Although the risk of contamination from the fruit is fairly low if you wash, I don't like taking chances myself.... I have added fresh peaches that were home pasteurized first in a little bit of water, and I've also added frozen peaches. I've done this 5-10 times and never had any issues with contamination (granted I was racking a 7% beer onto them). The more surface area the better for flavor extraction from the peaches. Slicing or crushing is a good idea. Note, using fresh peaches you tend to get a lot of pulp in the beer, racking to package can be a bitch.
More surface area the better, but if you don't, you might try to figure out a way to press them after fermentation of them is done. I did peach nectar once, worked well. Plan on long secondary for the pectin to fall out or you could try some pectin enzyme. I had massive pulp/pectin in the bottles. Check out some fruit wine making techniques for ideas/help.
The "fuzzy" skin of peaches & apricots is an AWESOME spot for wild yeast to collect. I rely on it heavily for my sours! That does mean that if I was making a non-sour peach beer I'd probably PEEL the fruit and freeze for at least 48 hours before pitching.
Is it thought that freezing fruit destroys microbes? That had not occurred to me. I know that it is not a reliable way to remove pathogens from food, but I suppose it might kill wild yeast . . . is that the idea?
******s, does not reliably kill yeast. Yeast are tough buggers. Will take care of some other bacteria though. Also freezing fruit breaks down cell walls and speeds the infusion.
my method for fruit additions....100 proof vodka in a spray bottle, liberally spray cut fruit with vodka, and then add to conditioning vessel, i often do this post freezing.
After ~2mo on quartered fresh apricots, I had a nice ~8" thick "cap" of fruit at the top of the carboy. Was pretty easy to get my racking cane in the "sweet spot" between the trub and the fruit and pull off pretty clear beer. Certainly no murk in the bottles. Apricots were a pulpy mess once the beer wasn't supporting them.
I used that stuff and wasn't very happy with the results. The peaches in the can tasted like baby food. Got a lot more peach flavor in my beer out of, well, fresh peaches.
After reading a post from Mad Fermentationist, @OldSock, about puree versus fresh fruit I wont use puree anymore and the change is super noticeable
A couple hundred pounds of fresh peaches and nectarines just showed up at Modern Times for our sour beers. A bit more money and effort than puree, but hopefully it'll be worth it on the big scale!
Frozen peaches are a great option. Cheaper than fresh, good quality, always available, pre-peeled & sliced.
But no worries about infected beer. Edit... begin rant... This goes back to a risk to reward ratio situation. Is it worth chancing the infection just to get that peach flavor? The only beer I brew that gets fruit are wild ales. So I don't really give a poo if some bugs get in. However if I wanted a clean wit (which reminds me I should brett a wit) I certainly wouldn't waste my time with fresh peaches. But, then again, I wouldn't waste my time with peaches at all and just dump halved and juiced citrus in at flameout.
In my opinion, you'll get better fruit flavor adding at end of primary than you will in the boil, similar concept as dry hopping. Made several batches with both fresh and frozen peaches. The fresh I pasteurized first. I frozen I dumped in. The fresh were the best. No infections, I don't believe much of a chance of one either (probably less so with the pasteurized than with the frozen). And, I don't worry about spending a bit more time to get it right. When I feel like saving time on beer I like to drink, I go to the store and buy some.
