Strawberry Hefeweizen for the Girlfriend
 

Ive already posted once about this brew, but I am fairly excited about it. Mostly because Its the first time I actually got to customize my beer and go off the recipe list a little.

However, I have a question or two, I've been searching the forums for a bit but the only searches that have came up have been in the Wine and Mead forums and I don't want to take any information that isn't meant for beer.

I racked my 5 gallon batch of a German Hefe onto 5 lbs of pasteurized strawberries that smelled fantastic after I pasteurized them and let them cool for a couple hours in the fridge.

Now, its been 4 days since I racked, the fermentation was vigorous for the first couple days, I had to clean my blow off tube since some of the strawberry residue had gotten all the way into the pitcher of water I had my blow off tube in(how often should I change this water??)

The strawberries have been floating at the top since a little after racking, I don't think much of any of them have dropped off yet and its still creating carbon dioxide and bubbles every so often. I know it hasn't been long, I just need some information to please my worries. hah

QUESTIONS: How long will the fruit float on the top of the beer and should I mix it or try to push them down??

and how will the added fruit affect my ABV?

The fruit will always float, so pushing it down won’t do anything, because it will just come right back up. As for the ABV, it will increase the amount of alcohol but I would not think that much.

Sounds Delicious
:rockin:

It looks delicious! I hope it lives up to its looks. NOMZ :tank:

I'm gearing up to make some Strawberry Champagne, and have a Raspberry Cream Ale Fermenting now. Also some Raspberry wheat in bottles that my wife loves.

The flavor will come out of the strawberries just fine with them floating. The fruit will only add about one or two gravity points, so the change in alcohol is negligible.

One recommendation: When racking to the bottling bucket put a hop sock or some kind of filter on your racking cane or auto-siphon. And also put a filter on when bottling if you are using a bottling wand. Most of the trub that makes it into the bottles will settle to the bottle, and having it in the beer isn't going to taste bad or cause any problems down the road, but it doesn't look appetizing.

Here are the recipes for my Raspberry beers if you are interested:
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/search?q=raspberry

Thanks Woodland! The raspberry cream sounds fantastic! I may need to clone your recipe to try once. And thanks for the tip about the hop sock, I was trying to decide on how I was going to auto siphon without getting all the grub. I was thinking about using a sanitized mesh bag but i wasn't sure if that was a good idea. Any and all suggestions are appreciated. You're awesome!!:mug:

So, the majority of the strawberries have officially dropped to the bottom of my secondary. I thought it would always float? I took a gravity reading tonight and it was just about 1.010. It looks good, tasted good, I want to leave it in with the strawberries for another week or so to gain some more flavor. But I'm nervous that the fruit dropping down to the bottom is a bad sign? Am I okay to let it sit for another week or so?

Don't worry about the fruit sinking. I've seen the fruit sink in some beers and float in others. By the end of fermentation it's pretty normal for quite a bit of it to sink.

Hey woodland, all the fruit is now floating again.. Haha

I'm very interested to hear how this turned out. I just recently bought a Raspberry Wheat recipe for the wife and she loves Strawberries.