maconmatt

Recipes 

Im about to try my hand at a strawberry wheat beer, and wanted yalls opinion on my method. I'm using a basic wheat recipe that I've used before and is quite delicious.

For my strawberry flavoring, I have just picked 8lbs. of fresh strawberrys from a farm here in middle Georgia. My plan was to make a homemade extract using this method. I am then planning on adding the extract to the crash-cooled beer after a few weeks of initial fermenting. This allows me to ensure a minimal chance of contamination and I believe would also avoid having an overly dry beer by not letting the yeast attack the added fruit(bc it has been cooled).

Does this sound viable? Am I missing anything or is there a better method out there?

Thanks
Matt

MizooBrew

Recipes 

I don't think the making of an extract is really necessary. One problem I see with this is that you will be heating the fruit, which will set the pectin in the fruit and lead to a hazy beer. Making a wheat, however, you might not be concerned with this as you may be drinking the beer with the yeast.

What I would recommend is simply throwing the fruit, diced, into the fermenter. I've had difficultly separating my pureed fruit out of beers when doing this, but it is easier with whole pieces. I would recommend simply making it like this, but with the strawberries diced: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f75/requiem-raspberry-56285/ You'll probably get a beautiful color in your finished product!

You might also think about freezing and thawing the fruit before. This breaks down the cell walls, potentially allowing for a better extraction of flavor. Make sure you let this age for a bit before bottling, as fruit will keep fermenting longer than the rest of the wort generally will.

rcsoccer

Recipes 

I made a strawberry wheat a few years ago with an entire flat of fresh strawberries from the farmer's market. I just washed them really well, cut all the tops off, diced them up and froze them. I brewed the wheat beer recipe and racked it to a carboy on top of all the thawed strawberries. It gave a great pinkish/red color! I transferred it again to another carboy, let it settle and bottled it. No contamination issues. It tasted great!

Good luck!

__________________
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
- Dave Barry

maconmatt

Recipes 

Awesome! Thanks for both replies!

bcgpete

Recipes 

I racked a blonde onto 6 lbs of fresh strawberries friday night. They were fresh, and I just sliced them up and washed them in hot water. By saturday morning the fermentation had kicked back up, and it smells amazing.

Last time I made this beer I used the frozen strawberries from walmart, and got a good flavor from them.