Beer Forum

I picked some prickly pear and want to experiment a little. I peeled it, and put it in the freezer. I will add it to two blonde ale batches. One batch I will add some to the kettle at 15 minutes. In a second batch I will add it to the fermenter.

I will slice the fruit, but am wondering what to do about the seeds. I'm concerned that in the kettle, I might get some tannins from the seeds. So I am turning to the BN Collective Brain and see what I should do.

Any thoughts?

As any good pot head will tell you- ditch the seeds, bro!

snowcapt wrote:As any good pot head will tell you- ditch the seeds, bro!

I need to hang out with more pot heads.

Welcome! *coughcoughcough*

Not all seeds/pits leach tannins though. I would assume these would & my first instinct would be to remove them, but it's also in my nature to experiment. Personally I would split batch at least 3 ways trying with all, with none & with half. Not that it's my recommendation, just what I would end up trying. Also why I have a couple dozen gallon-size 'growlers' & several 3g carboys.

How big of a PITA will it be to remove the seeds for your kettle one? I think they will be fine in the fermenter addition, but if you don't think that removing them is gonna be doable, you could get the PP as small chunked as possible and try adding it to the mash... won't get much aroma from it, but it may contribute to flavor, and you'd be able to strain all those nasty seeds out before it makes it to the kettle.

spiderwrangler wrote:How big of a PITA will it be to remove the seeds for your kettle one? I think they will be fine in the fermenter addition, but if you don't think that removing them is gonna be doable, you could get the PP as small chunked as possible and try adding it to the mash... won't get much aroma from it, but it may contribute to flavor, and you'd be able to strain all those nasty seeds out before it makes it to the kettle.

A tiny PITA. I split one to see how the seeds were arranged. They are in a tight, dense cone. The flat black seed has some coarse flesh surrounding it, and it was a little difficult to scrape out with a spoon.

I think I'll slice the fruit, instead of halving it, and trim the flesh away from the seeds.

Dirk McLargeHuge wrote:

snowcapt wrote:As any good pot head will tell you- ditch the seeds, bro!

I need to hang out with more pot heads.

I'm pretty sure that 95% of the BN falls under that catagory, just look at some of the avitars, and you will see that these people have to be on drugs!

CRBrewHound wrote:I'm pretty sure that 95% of the BN falls under that catagory, just look at some of the avitars, and you will see that these people have to be on drugs!

hahahha! I'm a 5%er!