Guava in secondary

[Ben Dean]

Hi good people of realbeer

I have half a kilo of strawberry guavas sat in the freezer that I picked a couple of months ago. I'm planning to brew either a wheat or gose next and add the guavas to secondary. Has anyone here brewed with guavas before? I'm wondering if half a kilo is enough? Also, how long would I need to leave it in secondary for the guavas to make their contribution?

Any advice is welcome.

Cheers, Ben.

[Tilt]

I had a go at a guava beer a while back - I was really happy with the light tart fruit and brilliant clarity/colour in the finished beer - picked up a bronze in the NHC as a bonus too.  I used half a batch of a mainly wheat grist beer fermented on kolsch yeast as the base and sat it on 1.5 kg of fruit for a few days until the tannin from the skins started to take hold.  Then let it settle for a few weeks to smooth it out.  I think I wrote it up on here - found it, check out this thread

[Ben Dean]

Thanks for the reply. Going off your experience it looks like my 0.5kg is not going to be enough for even half a batch let alone a full one. I have a friend with the same tree in his garden so hopefully he still has some left in the freezer.

How did you prepare the guavas? I was thinking of making a small must and leaving overnight with half a crushed campden tablet.

[Tilt]

Yeah - I'd bump the amount of fruit up if you can. Alternative is to only make 10l of it... But that would just be crushing if it turns out to be a stunner. To prep the fruit I froze for a few weeks and then 'blanched' the still frozen berries with a bit of boiling water in the secondary fermenter. IIRC I wasn't bothered if I got a bit of wild yeast in the beer as I'd previously made a small batch of apple cider using fresh guava off the tree as the yeast source and it had turned out well. If you're concerned go the campden to clean them up

[Ben Dean]

Sweet, think I'll go the campden to ease my worries. How much did you chop up the guavas, did you go big chunks or mushed into a paste? Cheers.

[Tilt]

Gently crushed just so the skins were split and innards exposed.

[Ben Dean]

Sweet, thanks.

[Ben Dean]

So I got a further 1.5kg of guavas from my mate making 2kg total, removed the skins from half and left the skins on the other half. Made a must with half a campden tablet and left over night before racking my beer into secondary. I had a taste tonight after 2 1/2 days on the fruit and it's tasting great (hopefully it doesn't dry out too much more), it's bright pink in colour which I wasn't expecting. I pulled the fruit out and will now leave for a couple of weeks in secondary before bottling (stable gravity readings permitting). Will report back once I've sunk a cold fizzy one. Thanks for the input everyone.

[Tilt]

Nice - post a pic of your beer - imo a stunning looking beer when they're done.

[Ben Dean]

Will do.

[Ben Dean]

Very opaque and very pink. Tastes a lot more refreshing than it looks. Tink I'll use maybe 25% less guavas next time and replace the flame out hops with dry hops. The sourness would probably have a bit more character if I'd kettle soured instead of just using acidulated malt too, but all in all it's very drinkable, especially after mowing the lawn.