Homebrew: Working on Peach Apricot Ale

Me, I prefer a brown ale, a dry stout, or a really hoppy beer. But wifey isn't much of a beer drinker, so when we find one that she does like, well I have to try to mimic that. A while back we were at the wonderful Dunedin Brewery, and they had a Peach Apricot Ale that passed the taste test. So... last week I started a Blonde Ale. Today I "racked" it -- meaning I transferred the brew from the primary fermenter (fancy name for the big brew bucket where the yeast has been feasting for a week) into the secondary fermenter (as you may have guessed, this is just another big bucket, and is where the yeast will do its munching for the next two or more weeks).

Here's a pic right after opening the primary fermenter. This is definitely a LOT paler than the nut brown ale I did last time :)

I'd purchased two cans of Vinter's Harvest puree (one Peach, one Apricot) from Bell's Beer. This stuff gets good reviews and contains only non-GMO fruit, plus a little citric and ascorbic acid. I'd read suggestions to use roughly one pound of puree per gallon of beer. Since I'm brewing five gallons, and each of these cans is 3 pounds, I used approximately 2.5 pounds from each. Here's the Peach puree going into the bottom of the sanitized secondary fermenter (and I sanitized the can opener, my arms, the can tops, etc).

And next was approximately 2.5 pounds of Apricot puree.

Then it was time to siphon the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary (using, of course, sanitized arms, siphon, etc).

That was all set to rest a couple of hours ago -- for the yeast to feast in peace for a couple of weeks or more before bottling. I'll just watch the action via the airlock to have an idea of when fermentation is slowing. As this pic just now shows - via the bubbles in the airlock indicating the CO2 that the yeast throws off as it digests the sugars - things are going nicely.

That's somewhat of a closeup looking at the top of the fermenter bucket as it sits inside my Cool Brewing cooler. Can't wait to try this in a few weeks or a month or so!

Oh, and the Nut Brown Ale from the first batch turned out quite nice...