Ask The Brewmasters

  • 1.  Smoothie Style Beers

    Posted 04-26-2023 20:43

    Hello Forum,

    I've been tasked with researching what it would require to produce a "smoothie style sour" and package the beer in cans. I couldn't find much on this forum related to the topic, so I thought I'd ask those producing these styles.

    1) Mixing the fruit and beer: Are people mixing with just a centrifugal pump with a VFD or is there a need for something like Ampco's shear blender pump that I've seen used on dry hopping units? We would likely just be using fruit purees so I would think a shear pump would probably not be necessary for this.

    2) Package stability: What steps are people taking to make sure these products are shelf stable? Do you completely ferment out any fruit sugar and rely on lactose for sweetness? Are you pasteurizing and if so, what sort of pasteurization unit do you have? Are you finding success with chemical preservatives (SO2, Benzoate, etc)?

    Thanks!

    Corey



    ------------------------------
    Corey Zschoche
    Head Brewer
    Callsign Brewing
    North Kansas City, MO
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Smoothie Style Beers

    Posted 04-27-2023 12:21
    Corey,

    IMO, these are one of the more technically challenging beer styles to produce well, and also one of the riskiest. This presentation has a lot to offer regarding how to build your base beer and package it. We do not use lactose, and don't feel the need to use it, we get tons of body and delicious sweetness from all of the unfermented fruit.


    The one place that I disagree with them on is a "safe" level of pasteurization. There is no ASBC guideline about a safe PU number for this style of beer, or really any beer being packaged with the load of fermentables involved combined with live yeast.

    Our QA/QC department did a lot of research in this area to try to extrapolate what would be safe, and we landed in the 75-100 PU range for our batch pasteurizer. We then did post-pasteurized micro analysis to look for any live cells, which is not easy given the amount of fruit slurry in the beer.

    We do not use any chemical stabilization, since we had the option to use heat we have relied on that so that we can tell our customers that it is preservative-free. Based on our process, we have had stable cans for over a year in warm storage. YMMV.

    As you know, these are expensive and time consuming beers to produce. I recommend an abundance of caution as you proceed. We also do small runs, again to minimize our risk, make pasteurization manageable, and we sell the in-house only.

    Good luck!

    --
    Joel Mahaffey
    Brewer/Owner, Foundation Brewing Company
    (two-oh-seven) 631-8009 [m]





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