weirdboy

Recipes 

mgortel

Recipes 

I am really struggling with the concept of putting "unsanitized" anything into the secondary.....I realize you have made this and it turns out fine.....but can someone explain why this turns out ok with "unsanitized" ...."unpasteurized" strawberries??

midfielder5

Recipes 

The freezer takes care of the nasties, apparently.

weirdboy

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I don't really believe that the freezer takes care of anything, but I do believe the fact that the beer is already 5%+ alcohol when the fruit is added probably helps, and I do wash the fruit and store it in a sanitized container in the freezer.

yahahooey

Recipes 

Opened my first bottle today, it's amazing! The fiancee says that we must always have it on hand now! Thanks to everyone for their help and insight. I actually did all three clarifying steps. This is the best brew I've made so far!

weirdboy

Recipes 

Excellent! Glad to hear it turned out great!

oparea

Recipes 

Can't wait to try this beer

jathorp

Recipes 

I brewed this up a month or so ago. It's hit the two week mark in the bottles and I had my first real taste: holy tartness batman. I used 6 pounds of fresh, not-frozen, strawberries so maybe I had myself to blame. I didn't realize that real strawberries don't give off the candy sweetness that I'm used to in commercial versions. I thought it was too tart and needed to a few months to mellow, but my girlfriend said that she liked it as is. She said "I want to reduce it and pour it over ice cream."

I'm sure it'll mellow in a month or two.

I made a rookie mistake by pulling the beer off the yeast cake immediately after the krausen fell. (it's a long story.) I don't know exactly what diacetyl tastes like, but I've read the descriptions. I thought I had some diacetyl, so I pitched a starter at full krausen. That seemed to help some, but there was still a somewhat buttery taste at bottling. After opening a bottle, the carbonation seems to have cleaned all of the diacetyl, yay!

I would have done better to follow the OP's exact recipe -- I.E. 4lbs of berries.

EDIT: I did absolutely nothing to clear the beer -- there is even a seed or two in some of the bottles. As expected, it looks like a hefe.

__________________
If you like to clean, you'll love to brew.

mustafakidd

Recipes 

Just bottled this today and had my first taste - followed the original recipe (as far as ingredients) exactly except I didn't cold crash, didn't use gelatin, and only let it stay in the secondary for two weeks instead of three. Still, found it delicious and am looking forward to trying it carbonated in a few weeks. Seems like a winner.

-m

mustafakidd

Recipes 

Just to add - we tried a bottle today (early obviously, since we bottled only a week ago) - and it was already quite good. much less sweet than I expected: a bit dry, and good mouthfeel (not too much body). Amazing strawberry smells and a bit of a tart aftertaste.

This is my first fruit beer and I hear that they don't typically get better with age - is that true? Does the fruit flavor/smell subside over time?

Thanks
-m