Fruit Dilution Calculator

Bret Kollmann Baker's Guide to Thinking About Fruit Beer Recipes

Key Principle: Fruit added to beer will dilute your beer. Most fruit is less sweet than wort. It is not additive.

Using the Calculator:

Use the same units for all gravities (e.g., all in SG format like 1.050)
Use the same units for all volumes (e.g., all in liters or all in gallons)
If not fermenting your fruit, use a simple volume ratio × ABV for alcohol calculations

When to Add Your Fruit:

During Fermentation

• Shelf stable, decreased fruit impact
• Esterification and thiolization create new aroma development
• Fruit sugars will ferment out, creating a drier beer

Post-Fermentation

• More impact for less fruit
• Gives a more intense "fresh fruit" experience
• Will need stabilization if going to distribution:
- - Sodium Benzoate, Sulfites, Sorbates
- - Sterile Filtration, Velcorin
- - Heat Pasteurization or PEF
- - Chemical or filtration alone generally not reliable enough
• People love sugar! This type of production is quite popular

Never Add Fruit During the Boil

Adding fruit during the boiling process will cook out most of the delicate fruit flavors and aromas, leaving you with a cooked/jam-like character instead of fresh fruit notes.

Common Fruit Gravity Values:

Fruit Type	Typical OG
Raspberry	1.010-1.012
Strawberry	1.008-1.010
Blackberry	1.010-1.014
Blueberry	1.014-1.018
Cherry (tart)	1.014-1.016

Fruit Type	Typical OG
Cherry (sweet)	1.020-1.024
Peach	1.012-1.016
Apricot	1.014-1.018
Mango	1.016-1.020
Pineapple	1.014-1.018

Enter values to calculate the Target OG (Original Gravity)

Wort Properties

Fruit Properties

Formula