Inevitably when we dream of great summer beers we start to think of FRUIT BEERS!

A good lawnmower beer is a great beer to have on a hot day after working in the yard or playing with the dog.  However, when the temperature climbs a little touch of fruit in a well made crisp beer can really slake the thirst… and keep you coming back for more.

Getting fruit into your beer can come in three general ways: Raw fruit purchased fresh, fruit flavored extracts, or prepackaged fruit products.  Each one has its pros and cons.

Raw Fruit:
If you are fortunate to live in an area with a unique source of fruit in ample supply there can be great pride taken in making your own beer with local produce.  Depending on location you can often get raw fruit at the peak of freshness for maximum impact on the beer.  The down side to natural raw fruit is that from a beer stand point it is dirty.  If you want to keep wild yeasts and bacteria out of your precious brew this can be a challenge with raw fruit.  Secondly, the fruit likely needs to be processed in some way, such as a food processor or other mechanical mashing, to release its goodness into the beer.

Fruit Extracts:
The largest advantage that extracts have is the extremely low likely hood of a microbial contamination. These things are often made as alcohol based extractions of fruit flavors and they are easily filtered free of microbes.  Second to that is the ease of use.  You can easily control the amount of flavor you get by adding a little at a time to a keg or bottling bucket.  Just add an ounce at a time, stir and taste.  When its just right you are done.  The disadvantage with extracts is that many people complain they tend to taste like….extracts.  Something is just missing from the flavor profile that you can only get with fresh fruit.

Prepackaged Fruit Products:
Namely I am referring here to fruit purees.  With these products you get the advantage of whole fruit fully processed to expose the fruity characters and you get cutting edge packaging and handling technology.  Many fruit purees are flash pasteurized so the microbial contamination issue is eliminated.  The only minor disadvantage is how much to add.  You’ll need to add a puree in a secondary fermentor like you would raw fruit and let it ferment out to prevent overly carbonated beers at bottling time.

Overall, I think that Fruit Purees are the way to go.  You get pre-processed fruit that is sterile and packaged at its peak of freshness.

A common variety is the Oregon Fruit Products brand.  I have seen these a many a homebrew shop.  So give them a try next time you are looking for a fruit addition.  I know the next Strawberry Wheat I make, I am going to try it out.

Brew On!

Just got this email from some guy named Samuel Adams:

Hello Homebrewers,

Your entries in the 2008 Samuel Adams American Homebrew Contest® - LongShot have been pouring into the drop locations. Unfortunately the entry window closes today (May 1st).

Please do not fret if your status on the website still reads as "pending". Our good friends at Beer, Beer, & More Beer in California, Two Brother's Brewing in Chicago, and the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston are hard at work opening the boxes, sorting the entries, and logging them into the system.

We're hoping to have all entries logged over the next few days but his process may take a week or so due to the volume of entries. Once your entry is processed into the system, you will receive an automatic email notifying you of your status.

Please know that your beers will be handled and stored with the same quality of care that you put into brewing them. First round judging events will take place throughout the month of May and into early June. You will receive your score sheets a few weeks after that.

We're looking forward to tasting your beer! Good luck and happy homebrewing!

My brews are in and the status has changed from “Pending” to “Received” for both.

Brew On!

This past weekend I bottled up my Kolsch and IPA. I had brewed the Kolsch in a “Better Bottle” carboy. You may have seen or heard of these carboys at your local brew shop, or in your favorite brewing magazine (like Brew Your Own).

I only have one of these, but I love it. Primarily because it’s much lighter and significantly less fragile than the traditional glass carboys that many of us have. I strongly endorse these carboys for primary fermentation, even as a seconday container. I would still use glass if I was brewing an imperial stout for aging or something with a bacteria addition or “wild” yeast addition. But for most applications I think the Better Bottle is the best substitute out there for doing ferments in.

I have been using my buckets to do most of my fermentation in mainly because of their ease of cleaning. However, my buckets are getting tired and I think I may start to replace them with a couple Better Bottles. There is however, on small issue with the Better Bottle that I was painfully reminded of this weekend when bottling.

Because these things are plastic, they are mildly malleable. I tend to put my carboys (glass or otherwise) in a milk crate to help carry them around. This is a great way to support the carboy and pick it up when it’s full as they are difficult to grab onto. As I lifted the carboy out of the milk crate to put it on the kitchen counter, the bottom of the carboy flexed down a little bit with the weight of the beer inside it. This change in shape creates just enough of a plunger effect that a vacuum was created and it sucked a bit of air from the airlock into the beer as I lifted it!

As I put it on the counter, I said “DAMN” to myself. Brewing up a Kolsch is a bit more work than a tradition ale and I may have contaminated it right at that moment with the airlock water. The lesson learned here is that Better Bottles are great, but just don’t take them out of the milk crate when they are filled with beer because of that flexible plastic issue. The saddest part of the story is that this has happened to me before, but I just don’t use my Better Bottle often enough to have remembered that.

So I’ll just be sure to drink up the Kolsch fast enough that if there is a mild contaminant in there it won’t have a chance to spoil the beer too quickly.

Lesson learned,
Brew ON!

Check out our earlier post on Better Bottles!

Just another site update!

I added two new categories to our list: Hops and Malts

When I started the hops and malts profiles, I stuck them all in the Ingredients category…now they have their own categories!

Now the hops/malts profiles are in the same place. Take a look.

Tough choices always abound when the seasons are changing. My IPA and Kolsch are going to get bottled up this weekend and its time to brew again. I have so many recipes that I want to brew, and styles that I want to drink. Several factors are making the choices hard:

1. Its getting warmer out. I was amazed at the American Cream Ale I brewed up not long ago and we toasted the whole keg at one party. I’d love to brew that up again for a regular drinker.

2. I still have a couple late winter recipes that I told myself to try out: Sweet Stout, American Brown Ale and Southern English Brown. Is it too late to brew these guys this far into spring? The stout maybe, but the browns would definitely still fit in with some wet spring weather.

3. I have a half sack of Pilsner malt and half sack of English Pale malt. I could brew up an Allagash White Clone that I put of from last year, or I could brew up a Best Bitter. I still need to re-try the Tripel I made late last year that didn’t quite turn out right. But these two beers have yeasts that I don’t have on hand right now.

4. I have a good amount of Cascade pellets on hand right now that are probably getting a little old. I should really brew up an all Cascade Pale Ale to use up those Cascades before they turn.

5. The IPA that is ready to be bottled has a nice yeast cake of Fermentis US-05 waiting to be repitched. Maybe that means the Cascade Pale or American Brown should be next. Then again that American Cream Ale starts rising to the top (Get it? Cream rises to the top!)

Anyhow here are the potential contenders in no specific order:
American Cream Ale
American Brown Ale
Southern English Brown
English Best Bitter
Allagash White Ale Clone
Belgian Tripel
Sweet (Milk) Stout
Cascade Pale Ale (American Pale Ale)

So what is sitting in your brew line up/agenda???

Last night, I got my stuff together for the Sam Adams LongShot submission. I followed the instructions that they emailed me including printing out the labels and attaching them to each bottle using a rubber band. I took a few pictures of the bottles and the traveling case I am using for transport:

So if you see a guy on the subways of Boston with a case like this, he may not have a laptop in it…

I am submitting the APA that I just brewed along with the Maple Porter I made late last year.  I am going to be dropping them off at the brewery today.

Now I don’t have any delusions that I am going to win or even do well in this competition…just interested in the whole process.
I have learned that life is about experiences and trying things like this blog…so let’s see what happens.

Hey there,

We had a reader write in with a problem about low to no carbonation after priming and bottling his lager.   From what he typed about in his email, it seems it might have been an issue with time and/or temperature.

The temperature part of the issue has me concerned…and I am using this post to reach out the community for comments and discussion.

Here’s a little back-fill:  I plan to brew a lager this year.

The few things that seem to be the brick wall in front of me are:

• Controlling temperature - will I be able to maintain the right range of temps without a fridge?
• Will I be able to master the diacetyl rest if need be?
• Are my yeasties going to settle out before I bottle?  If so, will I need to add more yeast at bottling?

Although I have a few worries (silly, I know), the one I would like to focus on and get a discussion going is the last point.

Has anyone run into problems bottling a lager, in particular low to no carbonation in the bottle?

Comment away!