Adding some dried fruit to Brewferm Christmas Ale?

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indewildemanfan

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I'm currently maturing some Brewferm Christmas beer in my garage and was toying with the idea of getting another batch and perhaps making it even richer by adding some dried fruit during the fermentation process. I was wondering at what stage I should do this? Would it be simply a case of lobbing in a bag of Asda's dried fruit when I pitch the yeast in? Should I wait until it has finished it's primary fermentation? How much fruit would be enough? Would I still need to prime prior to bottling? Any other ideas for what I can add would be most welcomed.
 
Fruit can be wonderful in beer, my elderberry stout is a winner. I would boil up some fruit in a little water and add this at the beginning of the kit so that the sugars ferment out. Personally I would use just raisins and/or sultanas. I use about 1lb of fresh fruit per gallon so because you are using dried probably half that.

:thumb:
 
graysalchemy said:
Fruit can be wonderful in beer, my elderberry stout is a winner. I would boil up some fruit in a little water and add this at the beginning of the kit so that the sugars ferment out. Personally I would use just raisins and/or sultanas. I use about 1lb of fresh fruit per gallon so because you are using dried probably half that.

:thumb:

Thanks for the advice. What would happen if I tossed in the dried fruit at the same time as lobbing the yeast in?
 
I would still boil it up to sterilise it. However I the reason why I suggested adding the liquor is that this will have quite a bit of sugar in it, but you would have to take into account this in the amount of water added to the kit hence adding when you make the kit up.
 
graysalchemy said:
I would still boil it up to sterilise it. However I the reason why I suggested adding the liquor is that this will have quite a bit of sugar in it, but you would have to take into account this in the amount of water added to the kit hence adding when you make the kit up.

Ah yes. Thanks!
 
I tried something similar with a Dark Ale kit last year.

When I boiled the first 5L, I added a grated ginger root, cinnamon, cardamon, black pepper and All Spice (iirc).

Boiled that up for about 20-30 minutes, then just poured in onto the wort through a sieve. Turned out really well taste-wise, although I kinda screwed up the carbonation part and it was a tad flat.

Be interesting to see how this turns out!
/SJ
 
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