Modifying Your Beer After Fermentation

[mcgster]

I have been playing with some interesting techniques lately to adjust my beer after it has fully fermented and been kegged.

One of the more mainstream ways has been making tinctures out of fruits instead of adding the whole fruit to the secondary. I recently used the zests of two grapefruits to flavor 200mls of vodka and let it sit for a week. Last night i played around with dosing varying amounts in 100ml of my berliner weisse to see if this was feasible. I was shocked at the impact a small amount of the tincture made on the beer. I used a syringe to add 0.1 ml at a time to 100mls of beer and recorded my results.

My taste threshold for picking up grapefruit in the beer was 0.4 mls / 100ml of solution, or approximately 74 ml of the solution in the 5 gallon batch. I went all the way up to 1ml/100mls and found that after 0.75ml/100ml the increase did little to alter the beer. So i pulled the trigger and dosed the batch with 140 ml of grapefruit zest tincture.

I'm working on doing mini mashes with 1lb of specialty grain and simmering the solution down to 1000ml's of water to try a similar process with some specialty malts. I have amber and special W done so far, i'm going to try melanoiden, carapils, and munich next.

Has anyone else experimented with modifications like this? I'll keep posting my results for anyone interested but i'm flying back to NL for my last three weeks so it will be a bit before i get to try any new malts.

[mcgster]

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Initially i would compare 2 versions of the beer with 1 additive to determine what ballpark area i should be in, then i would compare one with both the lactic and grapefruit to see if one impacted the other before i settled on the final dosing. I had to use the small syringe initially for the 0.1 ml intervals but in the end the 3ml syringe worked fine and was much easier.

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In total i ended up adjusting the 19 litre batch with 55 ml of lactic acid and 140 ml of grapefruit tincture (pictured) the vodka would sterilize the tincture and i'd have to assume that 88% lactic acid is pretty sterile as well. I just sterilized the beakers and dumped it into the carbed beer. I was expecting a violent reaction but it didn't foam enough to reach the top of the headspace in the corny.

[MitchK]

Where are you guys buying lactic and/or phosphoric acid? That's one thing I haven't gotten into yet is acidifying my brewing water.

[mcgster]

I had to get the lactic acid from OBK after I couldn't find it locally. I tried some tests with citric acid since it seemed to be logical given I wanted a citric kick to the beer but it had a different flavour to it like sour candy.


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[Celiacbrew]

Mitch I have a litre of phosphoric. You are welcome to 200ml of it if you have a plastic jug to put it in.

Mark I've made a hop/water tea to add bitterness to a keg. Your process of getting the ratio right first would have been a big help. It worked as advertised though. I just boiled hops in water for a while and added the water to the keg a little at a time.

I would be very interested in hearing your impressions of adding the acid to the beer.

[Hobbitfu]

I love your experimentation! Definitely food for thought with some projects I hope to find time for this summer. Thanks for posting!

[Jimmy]

Where are you guys buying lactic and/or phosphoric acid? That's one thing I haven't gotten into yet is acidifying my brewing water.

Bebbington Industries in Burnside carries it.

[mcgster]

I love your experimentation! Definitely food for thought with some projects I hope to find time for this summer. Thanks for posting!

I'll be doing a ton of experimentation this summer so keep me in the loop on your plans. I'm really curious how the malt extraction will work after the fact.

[Hobbitfu]

Yah really want to use that in a batch soon! Will definitely let you know.

[bandarker]

Speaking of which - what's the best type/concentration phosphoric to get from Babbington? what works well for you guys?

[mcgster]

I use 88% lactic personally, i find it works very well.

[Hobbitfu]

That's what I have as well. Cheap from OBK if putting in an order.

[Celiacbrew]

The 75% phosphoric from Bebbington is super convenient and supposed to not contribute any additional flavours. but you have to be careful handling it. I use on average 2-4mls for a batch. So my one litre will last until I am 100. I think the only downsides are spilling it or splashing it on you (acid goes into water not water into acid). In reality though we have soft water here so you will likely never use enough lactic acid that you will be able to taste it. And it is much safer to handle.