Fruit Beer - Extract Brew

Steviewell said:

Hi all

I was kindly given a Cooper's Mexican cerveza recently.
Its in the primary FV just now. I usually rack to a secondary FV just to help clear - especially with lager type beers which I think benefit particularly.

I have a couple of 5l glass demijohns and I'm tinkering with the idea of using one for some of the secondary fermentation and adding a bit of fruit (maybe even some lime, create the "carling zest" etc which seem to be in fashion).

Is it as simple as just chucking in some fruit in the secondary and hoping for the best? I am thinking that fruit has sugar, which must have an effect on the alcohol level etc???? Should I add finings first to "kill" the yeast and prevent more fermentation??

If it is as simple as this, how much fruit should I add?? (be that lime, strawberry, apple etc etc...).

Any input appreciated please!

cheers :drink:

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Steviewell said:

Hi again, thanks for the input.

After 2 weeks in the primary, gravity @ a stead 1.01 and transferred to a secondary.

I ended up putting 450g of frozen mango into a 5l demijohn and filling 80% up (left some head space intentionally).
I defrosted the mango first in a pan, heating up to about 70-80C ish and leaving for 10 mins as a crude attempt at pasteurisation.

Question is, how can I tell the final %ABV reading of the mango lager now? I assume the gravity changed when I added the mango (forgot to check, although it was pretty separated at initial stage anyway :? ) plus, presumably a different FG next week.

Any input much appreciated!!!

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Spapro said:

I am having the same deliberations about making a stout and adding recently picked blackberries. No expert but here is my thinking:

If you type in google 'how much sugar in mango' it reports back 14g per 100g of Mango. Assuming this is correct you have effectively added 60-65grams of sugar to your 4litre brew.

This would be broadly equivalent to adding 360g of sugar to a full length 23litre brew which would raise your gravity by about 3 points giving you roughly an extra 0.4% ABV.

So if your ABV was 4.5% it would now be 4.9% with the mango.

Assumes the sugars in the mango are fully converted by the yeast.

As mentioned this is only my thoughts, and is quite rough, not sure if others have a different opinion ?

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Spapro said:

This would be broadly equivalent to adding 360g of sugar to a full length 23litre brew which would raise your gravity by about 3 points giving you roughly an extra 0.4% ABV.

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Steviewell said:

Really appreciate the response thanks. There is clearly so much I still have to learn about brewing! How do you work out the above, is there a calculation etc somewhere? Ive done a few HB batches, but still a newbie for sure!

Slid - also appreciate your input, but sounds way advanced for me!

drink:

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