Adding Fruit to Wheat Beer Kit

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MMJfan

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I recently bought a Fruit Wheat Beer Kit from Adventures in Homebrewing. My plan was to add fresh strawberries that I have cleaned, cut and froze to the beer once it is done fermenting.

My question is, the kit came with a bottle of strawberry extract and I was wondering if I would need to add any of this at bottling and if I did would it just make the beer sweeter? I've also heard that just adding the strawberries sometimes gives the beer a sour taste so would the extract help take that sour/tart taste away? Or would I just be better off just sticking with the fresh strawberries and leaving the extract out? I have between 5 and 6 lbs of strawberries btw.
 
Many brewers have had disappointing results with strawberries. Randy Mosher remarks about that in Radical Brewing. That said, I haven't tried them myself (yet) so it's worth a shot. If you don't pasteurize your strawberries, you will introduce an infection to your beer that will make it sour if you're lucky, awful if you're not. Freezing does not sanitize the fruit. If pasteurizing causes the fruit's pectin to set and cause your beer to be hazy, you can use pectic enzyme (available at your HBS) to clear it up. The extract shouldn't have any sugar in it so won't make your beer sweeter. Taste your beer when you're ready to bottle and see if you need to add some or all of the extract to help the honest-to-God strawberries out.
 
Also: adding fruit to an already fermented beer will start a new fermentation since the fruit has sugars for the yeast to eat. You'll have to wait for this secondary fermentation to stop before bottling.
 
Thanks Captain. I was aware of fermentation starting again once I added the strawberries. I actually read it can be quite active and to add a blow off tube for the first 24 hours or so.

As for pasteurizing, I've read that I could heat the berries to 160 degrees and cook them for 15-20 minutes and then place them in the freezer to cool them to room temp before adding them to my secondary. Would this work?

As for pasteurizing allowing the fruit's pectin to set causing the beer to be hazy, I'm not overly concerned with that since it's a wheat beer so it will be hazy reagardless.

I was hoping not to have to use any extract so I will probably just taste a sample before bottling to see how much berry flavor came from the fruit. I have also read that heating the fruit breaks down the fruit allowing more flavors to come out so maybe this will keep me from having to add any extract.
 
Just bringing the strawberries up to 160 would work. No need to cook them.

You could also rinse them in Star San, Sani Clean or a 1:3 white vinegar to water wash.

Better question since you're doing a wheat; what yeast will you use? If you're going with the Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan, I suggest underpitching and fermenting warm (mid - upper 70s). This will give you esters (banana characteristic) that will complement any strawberry flavor that you'll get.

If you over-pitch 3068 or ferment cool, you'll get phenols (clove).
 
The kit came with Wyeast 1010 American Wheat. Fermenting around 72 degrees right now...
 
You could also rinse them in Star San, Sani Clean or a 1:3 white vinegar to water wash.
Sorry, I just don't feel I can get behind this as a method of effectively sanitizing your fruit. Organic deposits need to be cleaned off, not just rinsed. And the surface of fruit is just to complex IMO. When we clean our carboys (etc) we use the alkaline+oxygen+surfactant combination of OxyClean or PBW to clean, then kill whatever is left with StarSan or Iodophor (etc). Biggestmuff, do you have experience successfully rinsing your fruit that way?
 
Sorry, I just don't feel I can get behind this as a method of effectively sanitizing your fruit. Organic deposits need to be cleaned off, not just rinsed. And the surface of fruit is just to complex IMO. When we clean our carboys (etc) we use the alkaline+oxygen+surfactant combination of OxyClean or PBW to clean, then kill whatever is left with StarSan or Iodophor (etc). Biggestmuff, do you have experience successfully rinsing your fruit that way?


Cleaning debris from the fruit is a given. The discussion was about pasturization and sanitation.

Yes, I have sanitized fruit with the vinegar/water rinse. Makes them last longer when you buy a large quantity and you don't want to freeze them.
 
Strawberries are terrible. I made a strawberry wheat with real strawberries because i felt the extract was cheating. Kind of like pumpkin ale without pumpkin. Yeah well, I don't think that any longer. First note, blend or puree the berries. I used the heating method you describe, but they were still far to pulpy. Some of this pulp will sink, suspend, and float in your secondary and make it a royle pain to rack. I used nylon hop bags as filters on my racking cane and it still clogged. I had to flat out replace my bottling wand. The seeds get into everything.

I used a pound for a 3 gallon batch. It left the wheat beer dry with a very subtle strawberry hint at the very end. Secondary fermentation was very active and required a blow off tube.

I wish you luck. I will never use actually strawberries ever again. Too much of a hassle. Especially when the 4 oz you have in your left hand will give the beer a better flavor without the work.
 
Points noted. I'm still going to give it a try. Maybe I'll hate it, but I just want to try using fresh locally grown strawberries. I'm planning on using a muslin bag to rack the berries in to see if that will help lessen the mess.
 
MMJfan said:
Points noted. I'm still going to give it a try. Maybe I'll hate it, but I just want to try using fresh locally grown strawberries. I'm planning on using a muslin bag to rack the berries in to see if that will help lessen the mess.

I have only made on fruit beer--a strawberry wheat--and it turned out fantastic. Look for the thread "Strawberry Alarm clock" in the fruit beer recipe section. It has tons of great information about adding fruit to beer including numerous success stories different brewers have had along the way.

I used store bought frozen strawberries that I dunked into a bucket of StarSan a few times. No infection. It has been one of my most popular brews to date. Don't let others discourage you.
 
^ +1. I made a raspberry wheat which came out fantastic. I would recommend I would recommend freezing the fruit, then heating it to pasteurize. This will turn it into a pulp which will increase the surface area of your fruit. Basically, do what you can to make a juicy pulp mixture and you're golden. FWIW, my wheat beer was racked to raspberries in a secondary and left for 15 days. I would've left it in another week or two, but I wasn't patient enough. I doubt the extra time would have made much of a difference, if any.
 
Just racked 5lbs of strawberries to my wheat beer yesterday. Took my FG prior to racking and it came out spot on at 1.014! I heated the berries to 160 and then dumped them over my bucket into a paint strainer bag so hopefully that will reduce the mess. Planning on leaving the strawberries in for 14 days and then plan on dry hopping with an oz. of whole leaf cascade hops for the final 7 days before bottling. Also may add some extract depending on the taste when I rack to the bottling bucket.
 
Just racked 5lbs of strawberries to my wheat beer yesterday. Took my FG prior to racking and it came out spot on at 1.014! I heated the berries to 160 and then dumped them over my bucket into a paint strainer bag so hopefully that will reduce the mess. Planning on leaving the strawberries in for 14 days and then plan on dry hopping with an oz. of whole leaf cascade hops for the final 7 days before bottling. Also may add some extract depending on the taste when I rack to the bottling bucket.

Are you adding the extract to act as your priming sugar? I hope that you're not planning on adding extract in addition to priming sugar otherwise you'll end up with bottle bombs.

My FG was 1.017 before adding the frozen berries and ended at 1.010. When I brewed this I added 8oz of table sugar with 10 minutes remaining in the boil to dry it out some (went a little bit too far!) The taste was a bit dry and a little sour but overwhelmingly pleasant.
 
Personally, I've cheated. I spent $7 for a Blackberry and Raspberry extract at my LHBS. Each bottle is good for 10 gallons of beer so I add half a bottle to the secondary, wait 2 days for it to get to all of the beer then bottle / keg.

Big mistake I see guys here making is throwing fruit right in. Boil it first, throw it in and yeah, secondary fruit addition will take more time than the syrupy stuff due to sugars in the fruit being eaten by yeasties.
 
I thought about using just fruit extracts but I read too many reviews about fruit extract only beers being too artificial tasting so that scared me away. Plus, I wanted to take advantage of using fresh locally grown berries. :)

I know it's a little more work but I'm hoping it's worth it!
 
I had a great experience with my strawberry wheat. After fermentation slowed, I added 5 pounds of frozen already halved strawberries (from Sam's Club) to a bucket and racked my beer on top. No cleaning or sanitation of the berries at all. I ended up with a good aroma and a strawberry flavor that's distinctive without being overpowering.

That said, this was a 4 gallon batch. It takes a bunch of strawberries to do this right.
 
So I have another question regarding this beer. I am a big fan of hoppy beers and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried dry hopping a fruit beer. I was thinking about adding an oz. of whole leaf cascade hops but I am a bit apprehensive to not ruin my brew. If anyone had any more helpful advice on this matter it would be much appreciated. Cheers...
 
KISS Brew said:
I had a great experience with my strawberry wheat. After fermentation slowed, I added 5 pounds of frozen already halved strawberries (from Sam's Club) to a bucket and racked my beer on top. No cleaning or sanitation of the berries at all. I ended up with a good aroma and a strawberry flavor that's distinctive without being overpowering.

That said, this was a 4 gallon batch. It takes a bunch of strawberries to do this right.

I made a Strawberry Cream Ale this way. Awesome aroma and nice berry taste. Just a hint of sour in first few bottles but that's completely mellowed now. Fermented in secondary for a month. Very happy with this beer - great refreshing lawn mower beer.

Any thought to bottling half the batch and then adding a small amount of the extract flavor to the other half and comparing? Pure guess here, but I'd speculate that a small amount of the extract might cover up any sour.
 
I made a Strawberry Cream Ale this way. Awesome aroma and nice berry taste. Just a hint of sour in first few bottles but that's completely mellowed now. Fermented in secondary for a month. Very happy with this beer - great refreshing lawn mower beer.

Any thought to bottling half the batch and then adding a small amount of the extract flavor to the other half and comparing? Pure guess here, but I'd speculate that a small amount of the extract might cover up any sour.

I agree about the hint of sour being an issue for the first couple of bottles, but I was pretty impatient.

Regarding extract, I don't ever intend to use it for anything. Your idea sounds passable, but if time will heal the flavor, I will leave it to time.
 
I agree about the hint of sour being an issue for the first couple of bottles, but I was pretty impatient.

Regarding extract, I don't ever intend to use it for anything. Your idea sounds passable, but if time will heal the flavor, I will leave it to time.

My science background is not strong. My only thought -- again, pure speculation -- is that by using actual fruit, it's gotta eventually go bad, right? I mean, won't the "sour" come back eventually?
At least, that's what I keep telling myself when I decide to drink another one! :mug:
 
MMJfan said:
So I have another question regarding this beer. I am a big fan of hoppy beers and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried dry hopping a fruit beer. I was thinking about adding an oz. of whole leaf cascade hops but I am a bit apprehensive to not ruin my brew. If anyone had any more helpful advice on this matter it would be much appreciated. Cheers...

I just made a batch of strawberry honey bee ale, i was thinking about the same thing. Getting 2oz of cascade whole leaf for scondary
 
Well, I decided against dry hopping because I felt it would be too much contrasting flavors going on. Took a sample today and it tastes great! Didn't get any tart or sour tastes going on at all. Just the subtle strawberry flavor I was looking for. Not too much but also just enough to give it that sweet strawberry flavor. I'm bottling this tomorrow and I've decided to bottle as is and not add any extract. I dont want it too sweet and I also figure there should be some more flavors that come thru during conditioning. So far, I'm very pleased with this recipe and I think it will be an annual brew when the local strawberries come in!
 
Just as a side note to those who would like to avoid the hassle of seeds and pulp, but still don't want to use store bought extract as a "cheat," you can make your own extracts of fruit with some cheap vodka. Just pour the vodka over some strawberries in a mason jar and let it sit for about two weeks, shaking every now and then. Then, simply strain out the berries and you have a home made extract. The ratio of berries to vodka can vary with the sugar content and/or the proof of your vodka. My current recipe is 1lb berries to 750ml of vodka, split over several mason jars. YRMV.
 
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