Strawberries!

I'm making an American wheat beer and want to add vanilla and some fruit. I thought strawberries would be great but have heard the flavor is tough to get unles you use an extract. You kind of get the tartness but not alot of strawberry flavor??

I'd like to use a puree or even frozen sliced ones in the secondary.

Any advice on fruits would be great, I'm thinking of raspberries too and even blackberries.

That is a tough one. If you add them as a puree the sugar in them would ferment out and probably not leave much strawberry flavor. Thats why I don't like doing fruit beers. Once the fruit ferments it leaves a wine like flavor that usually doesn't taste much like the fruit did before it fermented.

The thing to keep in mind is that strawberries are sweet, and the sweetness will not be there from the strawberries because all those sugars will ferment out. So, if you want that sweetness you'll have to add lactose or something.

As to how much to use...I use 4 lbs of strawberries in my strawberry blonde (5 gallon batch IIRC), which has won a couple gold medals in competition and people seem to like it. However, some people like even more strawberry character than what is there, while some people say it has the most strawberry character of any strawberry beer they've tried. I think it is one of those things that varies by individual. IMO it has a quite strong strawberry aroma, but the flavor is a bit more subdued. If I were doing this in a wheat beer I might add a bit more than 4 lbs because the fruit will compete a bit with the wheat character.

How much lactose would you suggest if I did 5lbs of strawberries?

Uh...no idea. I'd maybe try a pound and see how it tastes. You can always add more later on if you like.