Freeze-Dried Strawberries - fruit beer?

Help the new girl out with a fruit beer? I keep going around in circles.

My husband has an unholy fear of fruit beers, but I like them, my girlfriends (and honorary girlfriends who are guys) like them, and we have 8 kegs - so I can have one right? RIGHT?

I found some 100% freeze-dried strawberries at Trader Joes that got me thinking of some sort of wheat/ wit beer for the holidays. But maybe I'm clueless. What would you do with them? Add to secondary? primary?

And whats your favorite AG fruit beer recipe? I'm not married to the Strawberry idea. I'd just like a well-rounded beer or ale that has a nice fruit flavor/aroma without overpowering it.

A good non-strawberry recipe:

5 lbs pilsner malt, 4 lbs wheat malt (mash @ 153* for 60 mins).... .5 oz Mt. Hood at 60 mins... 1 lb. wildflower honey at flameout.... WLP320 - American Hefe yeast.... 6 cups of fresh watermelon juice to 2ndary.

Not sure about using dehydrated fruit for your recipe... The ladies love the watermelon wheat recipe above!

I did a beer with cherries and raspberries. See the fruit beer section - CherrBerr Lager. It has a nice fruity aroma. Nice maltiness, without being overpowered by the fruit. I'mnot sure how well freeze dried strawberries would work. You probably would have to soak them, to get them to plump up, again. Just be aware of the 180* point with fruit. Any higher, and the fruit pectin starts to set, causing hazy beer.

Good Luck

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm at a point where I'm looking at everything as fermentables or potential beer flavors. I think I need to stop that

Seawolfe said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm at a point where I'm looking at everything as fermentables or potential beer flavors. I think I need to stop that

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Heh, I'm still in that phase.... Keep it going! That's why we brew.... Total control.

I brewed a strawberry witbier a couple months ago, and just served the majority of it for my son's first birthday party. Here's the original recipe thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=66742

In this case, I sliced up the frozen strawberries, put them in the secondary, and racked from the primary on top of the strawberries. Four pounds imparted a delicate hint of strawberry... not the overpowering smack in the chops of fruit flavor I've had in other fruit beers before.

The beer was well-received, but I'm not terribly happy with it. But then... I'm not a huge fan of fruit beer!

Seawolfe said:

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm at a point where I'm looking at everything as fermentables or potential beer flavors. I think I need to stop that

Click to expand...

That's just part of the sickness that is homebrewing. I'm awful about it this time of year because all the fruit is coming to, er, fruition and I get a little fermentation crazy.

I have a raspberry recipe that's pretty tasty in my recipe dropdown.