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jazzyfool · 06-20-2012, 04:39 AM

Just racked onto strawberries about 5 days ago and I opened up the fermenter to look at its progress. White film, powdery substances coated the top of the beer. It smells fruity, a bit tart - I tasted it and its really light, smooth with no tartness/acidity to speak of.

Thoughts? Do I have an infection/wild brewing?

**pwortiz** · 06-20-2012, 12:19 PM

It looks like that might be some of what they call "bret"? I have 0 experience with it but would like to hear from some experts! When I racked off, I didn't have anything that looked like that but I also didn't check it during the 3 weeks.

uncleben113 · 06-22-2012, 05:46 PM

Been fermenting this for about 2 weeks now and I plan on adding fruit to it tomorrow. Instead of doing just strawberries, I'm splitting to batch into 3 smaller batches and adding strawberries to one, blueberries to another, and peaches to the last one.

I have three 3 gallon glass carboys that have pretty small neck holes so I had to dice up the strawberries and peaches and smash the blueberries. I was originally planning on freezing the blueberry concoction in a bowl but then I realized that I was going to have a large block of blueberry ice. This is what I came up with:

Tasty looking, I know. I'm just going to freeze these and chunk them into the carboy one by one. I have two trays of this stuff and I think the size of the ice cubes will be small enough to fit into the carboy neck holes.

I just bagged up my diced strawberries and peaches and threw them in the freezer.

I'm do have a question. Does it matters what temperature I condition these at? I have a kegerator that I can temp control and I can squeeze only two of them in so the third may just have to go into my fridge, which is about 40 degrees F. Is that too cold? My house gets pretty hot so I'd rather not just leave it in the closet.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

SkylerChaBro · 06-27-2012, 05:57 AM

My buddies and I are about to finally start this brew on Thursday the 28th. I think I'm going to follow the lead of a few others here and add some blue or blackberries to the recipe. If anyone has some input on how much of each berry to consider adding, let me know.

Nescent · 07-20-2012, 11:21 AM

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

knuckleheadbrewing · 07-20-2012, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nescent

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

I've brewed it before I didn't worry with all the clairifing agents and it comes out and looks like this...and is amazing!

Nescent · 07-23-2012, 02:05 PM

That looks great!!

Mine is much darker due to the extra wheat. I just racked over 2kg of mixed berries and it tasted great! My starting of was 1065 and went into the secondary at 1010. Not sure how much alcohol I might get out of the secondary, but at nearly 8% now, I am happy. Should I expect much activity from the secondary?

knuckleheadbrewing · 07-23-2012, 02:10 PM

I brewed a variation of this over the weekend...I left out the Flaked Wheat, and dropped the grain bill keeping myself within BJCP guidelines for a blonde, OG came in at 1.044.....

tydoug · 07-24-2012, 06:57 PM

Just cracked open my first bottle last night and it was delicious. I followed the original recipe and will definitely be brewing again. Thanks

**ZombieBrew83** · 08-13-2012, 01:19 PM

I made up a batch of this substituting the strawberries with a can of apricot puree I picked up at Midwest. This was the only change I made to the original recipe.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/apricot-vintner-s-harvest-fruit-puree.html

All I did was sanitize the top of the can and the opener before pouring the mix into my primary about 10 days after pitching. Surprisingly, this did not kick up another fermentation like the strawberries did. I'm not sure what the sugar difference between the two additions comes out to. I cracked a couple bottles over the weekend. I am pretty pleased with the results. The apricot is much more subtle than the strawberry but is still pleasant to drink. The beer has more or a general fruit quality as opposed to a flavor as easily identifiable as strawberry. It was easier to add and manage (just dumping the puree and not having to deal with the actual fruit) than the strawberry addition.

Given the popularity of the strawberry batch I made up a couple months ago, I plan on doing the original recipe again soon. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.