Take a breath and think about it before you start brewing with fruit. Fruit contributes to our final product’s whole range of sensory experiences; from flavour to smell to mouthfeel and alcoholic strength. As a result, rather than merely adding fruit to a beer, it’s best to develop your base recipe with fruit in mind.

Consider the fruit’s flavour and how it will interact with the rest of your ingredients.

Evaluate if you really need fruit to reach your flavour goals. After all, hops, malt, and yeast can produce a wide spectrum of flavours on their own. To give a few examples, you might get banana from a weissbier yeast, citrus from New World hops, or strawberry esters from some English yeasts. Use what you need but always keep the overall flavour in mind.

Consider the acidity of the fruit.

The majority of fruits contain acid. In tiny doses, this will brighten your beer, but it can also become overwhelming. If you’re worried about the acidity, see if there’s a way to avoid it by using lemon/lime zest instead of the juice/pulp. For a lime gose, for example, you can use a straight ale yeast and allow the citric acid in the lime juice do the tarting. Alternatively use the zest and pitch a yeast-plus-Lacto strain. Don’t just think about acid; fruits also have tannins, proteins, and other characteristics.

Think about the sweetness.

Fruit will provide some fermentable sugar. Although the amount of alcohol added is minimal, the more essential concern is; how will your fruit taste once the sugar has been removed? The sweetness of fruit and fruit flavours is virtually always present in our regular interactions with them. If the sugary burst of pineapple is your favourite part, you might be disappointed when it ferments. If you want to preserve both sweetness and fruit flavour, you can use lactose or a fruitier yeast strain because esters can add to the sweetness.

What form do you want your fruit to take? 

The greatest method to get fruit character when brewing a beer is to use entire fruit but processing your own fruit adds both time and money to the process.  Aseptic fruit purees are another option and a common one among commercial brewers these days. If you’d rather avoid the hassle a septic puree is tasty and easy to use. It can, however, be quite expensive.

Other practical options include frozen fruit and drinks, however quality and ingredients vary greatly. Preservatives or other substances like potassium sorbate, which can impart unpleasant odours or hinder yeast function, should be avoided.

A word about Extracts

Brewing with fruit, particularly fresh, entire fruit, is sometimes more difficult than brewers realise until they try it. Many people will use an extract as a shortcut but it will unlikely be the best beer they’ve ever made. Even when using a high-quality extract, the beer will often have a slight artificial taste.

Fresh Fruit Processing

If you’re starting with whole fruit, you’ll have to put in some effort. First, give your fruit a thorough wash with plenty of water, removing any stems, leaves, or other plant material. You could also remove the skins, though this would depend on the fruit. If you’re using pitted or stone fruits you should remove them as well. While they can add depth to the flavour, they also contain cyanide compounds.

Toss the fruit into a food processor once it’s been cleaned and prepped. This will increase surface area and, as a result, more flavour and scent will be released. If you’re pressing the puree for the juice alone and not the flesh, add some pectic enzyme to the pulp at this stage to boost the juice output. This depends on whether you think it’s worth the wait; relaxing for a few hours could boost your yield by a few points.

Finally, use heat or cold to check that your fruit is safe to eat—either heat-pasteurize it or freeze and thaw it a few times. Depending on when you’re planning to add your fruit, that last stop might not be essential.

Putting the Fruit in

It’s less about how to do it and more about when to do it. Working from the start of the brewing process, adding fruit to the mash is virtually never useful or necessary. Adding it early in the boil is also dangerous because the flavour effects of cooking fruit are difficult to predict. If you do add fruit to the boil do it it near the end of the boil.

After primary fermentation, you can add the fruit either in the same fermentor or in a secondary vessel. The primary fermentor would be the best option to avoid the possibility of contamination or oxidation. It also negates the need to clean another fermentor. If you add the fruit to the fermentor a dose of pectic enzyme will help enhance yield and eliminate pectin haze.

It’s all about what you want to get out of it when it comes to timing your fruit addition: If the fruit is a supporting flavour, add it early. If it’s the main attraction, add it later to retain the aromatics.

A Fruitful World

Almost any beer style can use fruit; it’s just a matter of applying balance. A big, complex beer like a stout needs a big, complex fruit to pair with it. By contrast, a helles is a good choice for fruit with a gentler flavour profile; especially one with less acid content.

Which fruits are the best for brewing?

Some brewers focus on melons and more acidic fruits like lime and grapefruit. This is due to their capacity to clearly convey their flavours in a variety of beer types.

Blending in additional fruit purees, or a small quantity of concentrate can give a more complex fruit character. A more jammy raspberry flavour can be obtained by combining a little boysenberry into a raspberry sour, for example. Certain fruits are harder to use. Blueberries are one such a fruit. Strawberry is another that is notorious for fading. Aseptic purees are difficult to come by, and they don’t tend to impart much strawberry flavour to beer. It’s one of the reasons why there aren’t many strawberry beers.

It’s one of the reasons why there aren’t many strawberry beers. I won’t go into detail about it; just know that you are not alone in your fight if you accept the challenge. One approach to give them a boost is to blend them with other fruit.
Brewing with fruit used to be the brunt of many jokes among beer aficionados. It has come a long though as brewers have learnt new tricks and broadened their horizons.
Just be prepared to pick up some new skills along the way and change your expectations accordingly.

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What if you run into an issue while brewing a beer? What if there’s an unfavourable aftertaste? Is it possible that there wasn’t enough fermentable sugar? Isn’t this the wrong mouthfeel for this style? How about the clearness? What if it’s simply not right? The use of the appropriate enzyme may be able to solve all of these issues. But which enzymes are available? As it turns out, there’s a lot more than even the most experienced brewers realise.

Let’s have a look at the science. Enzymes are sophisticated proteins that are used to break down other compounds (including other proteins). To become active proteolytic enzymes, some need the proper temperature and pH.

Proteinases and peptidases are two types of proteolytic enzymes. Proteinase breaks down proteins into smaller amino-acid chains, which impact head retention and haze. Peptidase is an enzyme that breaks down amino acid chains from the ends inwards, releasing nutrients for yeast. The superstars of brewing are the enzymes that break down carbs. They extract sugars from starches and other long-chain or complex compounds, which are then used by yeasts to produce alcohol.

Use enzymes with a light touch when brewing

When a seed germinates, enzymes become active for the first time. Enzymes begin to break down the rigid cell walls (formed of cellulose fibres) to gain access to starch stores, allowing growth to commence. The seed already has two types of carbohydrate hydrolases; those that break down the cell wall into glucose and those that transform the starch into smaller sugars once the walls have been broken down. Glucanase, cellulase, and xylanase are cell wall hydrolases that break down glucose, cellulose, arabinose, and xylose.

Malt producers have mastered the process of germination in controlled settings, generating and releasing enzymes to begin accessing the starch when brewing. But when the malt is kilned, the process comes to a halt. Excessive heat damages enzymes by causing the protein to unfurl, a process known as denaturing. The brewers are then in charge of turning the malt into beer after this.

Mash time

Brewers mill the grain to speed up the process of gaining access to the sugars. The purpose is to break open the grain so that the starches may be accessed. They should be careful not to overgrind it, because the size of the grist particle has a significant impact on the finished beer. The milled grain is combined with water, heated according to the formula, cell walls are shattered, and any enzymes that survived the kilning continue to break down starch during the brewing process. Mashing is used to solubilize roughly a quarter of the malt, gelatinize the starches and convert them to fermentable sugars according to style and gravity, and release extra proteins and nutrients for the yeast.

Enzyme types for brewing

ɑ-amylase and β-amylase

These have the same goal: to break down starch by adding water to create useable sugar molecules. Because larger molecules participate in haze formation, the ɑ-amylase has the advantage of breaking up larger chains of sugar molecules. As a result, it is also attributed to increasing clarity. To boost fermentation yield, ɑ-amylase breaks up shorter sugar chains.

β-glucanase

Glucans are glucose-based polysaccharides, and this enzyme is responsible for breaking down the bonds between these molecules when water is added. In contrast to proteases, which can clog the mash and interfere with filtering, this enzyme enhances wort viscosity and promotes adjunct fermentability by continuing to operate on cell wall components.

Xylanase

This is a sidekick to β-glucanase that works on longer chains of sugars. It can also aid with filtration later on.

Amyloglucosidase

Amyloglucosidase breaks down glucose from starch at the extremities of the starch chain, increasing fermentability. This is excellent for making beers with less calories and carbs, but supplying glucose before other fermentable sugars will cause fermentation to stall because the yeast will concentrate on it rather than the other fermentables. Glucose suppression/repression is the term for this.

Pullulanase and limit-dextrinase

Cleaning up the sugars left behind by amylases isn’t simple, but it’s a task that needs to be done. Limit-dextrinase is only active for a brief time in the mash before being inhibited, but it is responsible for breaking apart the highly branched core of the starch pieces after the other hydrolase enzymes have finished their work. This improves the fermentability of the product. The enzyme pullulanase can be employed in the same way.

Proteases

Proteins must be broken down not only for their sugar content, but also for the potential to increase free amino nitrogen, which is essential for yeast growth. These should be considered as well for lowering protein haze in the final brew. These positions have an impact on the sugar molecules’ connections, and not all enzymes can work on all of them. This is why, in order to properly break down starch, numerous enzymes are required. This notion can be used to explain a variety of digestive processes.

The role of temperature when brewing

Heat can help enzymes accomplish their job, but it also causes them to unfold when the heat is ramped up during the boil. To complete their work, enzymes are meticulously folded and kinked together, so if one -helix or -pleated sheet slips out of place, they will not function as intended. Enzymatic activity begins to decline at 140°F (60°C) when using β-glucanase. It may be preferable not to boil to temperature when brewing in certain circumstances so that the enzymes can work in the fermentor.

Sugar is sought by fermentable yeast.

Because nearly all of the enzymes were denatured during the boil, it may be required to introduce a few to help the yeast achieve a specific style or profile while they work during brewing.
ɑ-amylase: Introduced with the malt, this enzyme will continue to increase maltose and glucose content, so contributing to the abundant fermentable sugar in the same way it did in the mash. When it comes to light beers, this enzyme is especially useful.
β-glucanase: This enzyme clarifies the beer while also lowering the carbohydrate content in lighter brews. It reduces the beer’s maturing period and enhances filtration while it continues to hydrolyze carbohydrates.
ALDC (alpha-acetolactate decarboxylase): This enzyme is occasionally required to minimise fermentation time while also avoiding one of the most well-known off-flavors: diacetyl. The conversion of ɑ-acetolactate, a natural byproduct of yeast during primary fermentation, to acetoin is catalysed by this enzyme. This is performed by separating the carbon-carbon bonds to the carboxyl group, effectively removing it as a diacetyl precursor. Although yeast can clean up diacetyl on its own, it does so at a cost of time and temperature, both of which can be limited in a brewing schedule.

It’s worth noting that if it’s later in the fermentation process, less of this enzyme is required. The yeast should have already done a large amount of cleanup and may only want an extra boost to avoid the presence of diacetyl. Keep in mind that in some types, this off-flavor is acceptable or even anticipated.

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