anyone ever add citrus fruits to beer?

I've used orange zest, lemon zest and grapefruit zest with good results. Blood oranges are my favourite. How much is subjective, but I generally use the zest of two or three of the smaller fruits and the zest of just one grapefruit in a five gallon batch. I find that adding the zest to the fermentor after vigorous fermentation has ceased gives the best results.

 

I just did a witbier with Tangelo peal, and lemon peal. I used about an ounce total in the boil and flameout. turned out well.

 

How do you sanitize the zest before adding it in?

 

Wash the fruit well and swab it with alcohol. Use something like Starsan for the zester and bowl that will hold the zest. I suppose you could soak the fruit in Starsan as well, but I've never tried that.

 

If you mean something like isopropyl alcohol, this would be a bad idea IMO. Open a bottle and smell it. I wouldn't want that in my beer, even at the miniscule amounts that would be residual on the fruit.

 

I put the fleshy part of 2 mango's into a gallon of citra IPA, It smelled amazing but the mango didn't overcome the refermentation. I should have used a riper fruit.

When adding fruit you want them at their most perfectly ripe when the fruit is as juicy and flavorful as possible.

Also process has alot to do with results, when I did this O2 was more of a problem in my proccess. Now that I keg I have CO2 on hand. O2 drives off delicate aromatics in my experiance.

I also made a ginger saison, I cleaned the ginger, peeled it and the grated it with a sanatized grater, I then put acked it into a small canning jar and soaked it in vodka for a week, the vodka was minimal, less than an oz per ounce of of ginger. Worked great, preserved the ginger aromatics. If you want to read more about it my blog links from my profile. The process and a review of it are there.

 

Could you use capmden on fruit? Give it a soak for an hour or so in a water solution? Of course this would only be for anything post boil. Anything going into the boil will get taken care of by the heat.

 

I finished a Gluten Free Beer with great results. I made my own Belgian candied syrup with corriander and spices. Basically I successfully made a Glutard Beer that tastes a lot like a Blue Moon. The fruits I used were Cuties, you know, the oranges. I used 3 whole peels for the zest and then used one whole cutie during the second fermentation to give a bit more citrus flavor.

 

I have been reading a lot of recipes that call for half an orange or etc. at 5 mins before flameout, unsanitized. Has anyone tried this method with successful results?

 

I did a hoppy american pale ale with grapefruit and it turned out great. I added four sliced up white grapefruits in secondary.

 

I recently used almost 2 pounds of blood orange in a bier de garde, fruit and zest, and added to primary at pitching time, with minimal results. Added some light honey-type notes, and a hint of citrus, but not as much as i wanted. I'm wary of adding anything during the boil due to the tiny amounts of residual pith that I may miss... Anyone have success adding after Krausen, or in secondary???

 

I only use primary for fermentation... doing small batches (2-2.5 gallons) so I generally go 3-4 weeks in primary before bottling... I'm planning on making a Blackberry ale this spring... the wild berries around here are almost ready...

My plan is to drop them into the primary with about a week to go... in a small nylon bag...

Anyone go this route? Or anything I should be weary of?

 

I would worry about acetic acid bacteria on the surface of fruit. Plus, I think you would get better results from mashed or puréed blackberries.

In cooking, it is common knowledge that the majority of citrus flavor comes from oils in the zest, not the juice or fruit itself.

 

What about freezing fruit to sterilize it? Thats what they do to sushi after all?? Just thought of that now.

 

Whole kumquats at knockout. Didn't add much.

 

I did that a few weeks ago with some citrus fruits I zested and added to a witbier in secondary. 1oz of zest per 5 gallons gave it an amazing nose. No signs of infection at this time, but the keg probably won't last long enough for that to happen anyway.

 

I used 3 whole grapefruits in a DIPA that I made. First, I peeled the grapefruits and used only the peels at 10 minutes before flame out. Then I took the 3 grapefruits and put them in the freezer, while the beer was in Primary ferment. The day before secondary, I thawed out the grapefruits, so that I wasn't adding extremely cold the to secondary to shock the remaining yeast. I sanitized with SO2 my blender and added the 3 grapefruits to puree them. I took a mesh bag and poured the full blender through this. All the juice went into the secondary and then I tied off the mesh bag and added to the secondary. I left this bag in secondary along with my dry hops for 5 days. The result was a DIPA that was both bitter and sour and had wonderful grapefruit aromas and flavors. My only regret was that I made it in November and that beer needed a hot summer day. I will be making a second batch of it soon and it will be ready just in time for those hot summer days!

 

Regarding fruit and zest sanitizing, I always cover the fruit with just enough vodka to cover...average vodka is okay for this. Keep it refrigerated and covered while the beer is in primary fermentation. Add the fruit and the vodka when racking to secondary. Depending on the beer style, you could use bourbon/whiskey/tequila...whatever. Freezing fruit before you soak it, that helps it break down and give up its flavors.