Fruit Beer Wild Strawberry Blonde

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Will be brewing this Saturday...already have a strong belgian tripel, and a pumpkin beer, so need something lighter/fruitier to fill out my 3 kegs.
 
Ha, thought I was further off the og, but my batch ended up around 5.5 gallons with the same grains and I got about a 1.56 reading, so going good about this one
 
Never did update y'all last month. Turned out fantastic. It was a hit at the reunion !

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This single pic is early on.
This double pic is after a couple weeks rest. Cleared up nice and stayed crisp for quite a while.
 
Well mine is at 1.010 after 6 days, getting the reading aggravated it a bit so it's bubbling again, gonna check tomorrow then probably throw the strawberries in unless you have a reason i should wait 12 like you. I think the berries I got should work great, all bright red through out, I thawed one and it was just oozing juice into the bowl...No way I'd consider these great strawberries to eat as the are kinda mushy thawed and i like crisp berries, but taste wise it was good. Found a local store, Fred Meyers for those in Oregon that sell 4 lb bags which made it easy.
 
1.010 sounds awesome! I leave mine two weeks mostly because i brew, rack and bottle on the weekends. So when i brew it's two weeks before i can rack. If it's done, go for it. The berries sound like they will be great!
 
Oh another thing, you didn't seem to put the berries in a bag, is there a reason? The other strawberry beers all seem to, they say that without it you get a lot of seeds that float and can be hard to filter out.
 
No real reason. Just never have. A buddy of mine does and his last batch came out clearer than mine. I always felt like since you are racking again you can avoid some of the seeds and stuff. It certainly wouldn't hurt to put them in a bag but make it a big bag.
 
Dying for this Saturday, ill probably just be cold crashing and carbing at the same time in the keg in my keezer, then just pulling the sediment out on the first few pints The liquid that came out into the bucket with strawberries was so damn clear, you could hardly even tell there was liquid flowing through the siphon. Then i put the strawberries in and my bucket instantly turned pink lol...god i hope it doesnt stain the inside ;)

Im wondering if i should bother with gelatin or not, i did use whirlflock in the boil...guess ill take a look at a bit when i move it to the keg to see if it needs it.
 
So tasted this today and its interesting, both me and the gf almost got more of a grapefruit smell and flavor from it, I'm wondering if it's just the tartness. I plan on moving it into my keg tomorrow with some gelatin to clear it up. Has anyone ever back sweetened this? Since I'm going to be kegging this I may throw some sugar of some sort into it, since at 40f the yeast shouldn't be active. Gonna try it cold and carbonated before I make a decision though.
 
It tastes good, just not like strawberry's like i said...atleast thats not the first thing that would come to mind. If i gave this to someone and told them it was a grapefruit beer they would never second guess :) We'll see how it comes out im probably not going to backsweeten. Its in the keezer kegged with some gelatin, since i didnt go into a tertiary for 7 days to clear it...just hoping to cold crash it all out with some gelatin. Maybe some of the flavor profile i was getting was from all the suspended yeast in the keg....we shall see!
 
So not sure what i did wrong, but mine is cloudy as hell...not sure if its chill haze or what. I didnt go into a tertiary, i went straight into a keg with gelatin figuring that it would clear out and everything would settle and i'd pull the yeast/trub off in the first few pints. Its been over a week @ 40F and probably 6 pints and still cloudy like a hefe....

Interesting note though, i accidentally left a half glass on my desk for a few days and it settled out clear with sediment at the bottom.

The beer is becoming a lot more tasty now though, it was a bit tart the first few days.
 
Not racking to tertiary could be the problem. But i will say due to the amount of berries i have not had this beer get extremely clear. I have had friends that have but i have not. Tertiary and good cold crash make mine come very close though.
 
Brewing this up today for the wifey, she keeps bugging me that there is nothing on tap or stored away for her to drink so I gave her the link to the recipe database here and said go pick one.
 
7 lbs American Pilsner Malt
1.25 German Wheat Malt
1 lb Cara-Pils
1 lb Flaked Corn

1 oz Cascade 5.0% AA @ 60 min
.5 oz Saaz 6.8% AA @ 20 min
.5 oz Saaz 6.8% AA@ 15 min

1 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min

Mash 6 gal @ 154F for 60 min
Sparge with 2.5 gal @170F for 10 min
Sparge with 2.5 gal @170 for 10 min
You will want 8 gal into the kettle
Boil for 60 min adding hops as noted

Ferment @ 68F for 12 days and rack ONTO 8 lbs of frozen strawberries. Do not thaw them, do not puree them, dump them into a bucket and rack the beer on top of them.

Secondary on the berries for 7 days and rack into terrtiary for another 7 days. Cold crash for 7 more days, then bottle.

You want to get as much into the primary fermenter as possible. The berries will soak up some beer and you will lose some while racking. If you boil off more than 1 gal/hr, you will want to boil more. A 6.5 gal batch nets me 53 bottles.

This beer is my all grain version of the Succulent Strawberry extract recipe listed on here. It is phenomenal! Great summer beer.


I am new to brewing, can you tell me what is cold crashing and how to do it

thanks
Jim
 
kodyind said:
I am new to brewing, can you tell me what is cold crashing and how to do it

thanks
Jim

Sure. Cold crashing is a method of "dropping" the unwanted yeast and trub to the bottom so you can rack as cleanly as possible. Once fermentation is complete, put the beer in a temp controlled environment and drop the temp as low as you can. After a few days you will see a nice big layer of "stuff" compacted on the bottom. Then when you rack to bottling bucket or keg, it's easy to rack clean beer. Good luck!
 
WildGingerBrewing said:
7 lbs American Pilsner Malt
1.25 German Wheat Malt
1 lb Cara-Pils
1 lb Flaked Corn

1 oz Cascade 5.0% AA @ 60 min
.5 oz Saaz 6.8% AA @ 20 min
.5 oz Saaz 6.8% AA@ 15 min

1 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min

Mash 6 gal @ 154F for 60 min
Sparge with 2.5 gal @170F for 10 min
Sparge with 2.5 gal @170 for 10 min
You will want 8 gal into the kettle
Boil for 60 min adding hops as noted

Ferment @ 68F for 12 days and rack ONTO 8 lbs of frozen strawberries. Do not thaw them, do not puree them, dump them into a bucket and rack the beer on top of them.

Secondary on the berries for 7 days and rack into terrtiary for another 7 days. Cold crash for 7 more days, then bottle.

You want to get as much into the primary fermenter as possible. The berries will soak up some beer and you will lose some while racking. If you boil off more than 1 gal/hr, you will want to boil more. A 6.5 gal batch nets me 53 bottles.

This beer is my all grain version of the Succulent Strawberry extract recipe listed on here. It is phenomenal! Great summer beer.

What kind of yeast did you use for thus recipe?
 
transferred off the fruit tonight, very pink color and lots of strawberry smell. taste is not too bad, the wife was not too sure about it though. she better like it, she has lots of it to drink after having me make all of this.
 
Anybody used canned berries for this? I made this recipe last summer with fresh strawberries. Turned out to be the first infection I've ever had. Asked around quite a bit and came to the conclusion that the flavors I got were most likely from a wild yeast. I've actually still got it in the carboy, hoping it may clear up. Planning on making this again this spring but the whole infection thing really leaves me skeptical about using anything but canned fruit. The canned fruit will be pasteurized and leaves me less apprehensive. Problem is, I don't know how much to use. The LHBS has good quality canned fruit. I'm just looking for the proper amount to use. My thought is that 8 lbs of canned fruit may impart more fruit flavor than 8 lbs of frozen.
 
This is by far my favorite fruit beer to date. But I do have one question/comment- Why not puree the strawberries? This time around I crushed up my frozen berries a bit before racking onto them because I was using a pound less. And when I racked off of them today, its definitely not as pink as its been, and the sample tasted a bit more tart.
 
What does it mean to "cold crash"? I asked my LHBS owner what she thought about the succulent version if this she was afraid the strawberries might not be sanitary. I was thinking the "cold crash" might kill off anything in the beer, but I'm not sure what it is. Sorry I'm a newb, if it isn't for killing bacteria what could kill it or is there not any because of the strawberries frozen
 
Other folks know better than me, but I've assumed that "cold crash" is to reduce the fermentation (or post-fermentation) temperature for the purpose of getting all the yeast and sediment to go to the bottom. It does not sanitize anything.

Lots of folks use alcohol such as vodka or bourbon to sanitize stuff to put in the fermenters.
 
I am really glad so many people are likin this beer! I cant give a good reason not to puree the berries, i just dont. As far as sanitizing them, it is my understanding that freezing the kills bacteria, hence the reason i use frozen instead of fresh.

Cold crashing is a method of collecting all sediment to the bottom o the fermenter. When you drop the temp down, everything falls to the bottom and "packs" together. Once done, you should be able to rack clean beer and leave the trub behind. I usually cold crash for about a week as cold as i can get it. Usually around 36-38F.
 
Excellent call. I have just started to drink my second keg of this brew. I do have a few comments on this the second time around, the only difference being I used 6lbs of strawberries (smashed frozen) instead of the 8. This gave me a beer with the same amount of strawberry flavor, less pink color, and more floaters and sediment in the beer. Cold crashing didn't help, and I doubt gelatin would have either, so its a bit of a tradeoff. But, I'm scheduling when i can brew this again, because it definitely won't last more than a week or two in the keg. Amazing recipe.
 
I'm dang happy that everyone likes this beer so much. My brew buddy brews it 3-4 times a year and I only brew it once. I guess it's time for me to step it up!

JimmyN, my brew buddy uses the 8 lbs per the recipe but puts them in a muslin bag. It greatly reduces the amount of berry "stuff" that he gets in the beer. The last batch was completely clear and looked like a blonde ale. Just a thought.
 
Hey,

My wife is after me to brew her a girly beer. This sounds good to me. But some folks mentioned "tartness". Is the tartnes normal?
 
It will have some tartness to it but I think it depends on the tartness of the actual berry. It is 8 lbs of berries afterall. I've never had one too tart.
 
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