Strawberries Fell Into the Carboy

I'm making a chocolate strawberry milk stout; i added the strawberries (4 lbs.) in the last 7.5 minutes (I couldn't decide between 10 mins and 5 mins. so I split the baby) of the boil. I accidently spilled a few strawberries (approx. 3 or 4 strawberries) into the carboy with 5 gallons of wort. Rather than trying to get it out, I just left it in, thinking that it wouldn't have a significant, if any, affect in the beer's taste, as its only a small amount of strawberries and will be racking to the 2d in about 14 days or so.

Any thoughts?

So long as the strawberries are fresh and were cleaned well you should be OK, the only issue could be if they impart any kind of contamination that interferes with whatever yeast you are using. Basically assuming they were clean it should turn out fine.

Should be fine and, in any event, not much you can do now. Ride it out. If I were a betting man I'd put money on it not affecting the beer at all. And, yeah, a few strawberries in primary in a strawberry stout won't affect taste. Only issue is sanitation as I see it.

i don't think sanitation is an issue; i boiled the strawberries.

Oh, you mean that every strawberry was boiled and that some were transferred, along with the wort, into the carboy?

If those berries were not sanitized, I suspect you are running a VERY high chance of having wild yeast take over.

I would not be concerned for a bacteriqal infection nearly as much as the wild yeast mentioned above. If you have ever seen fruit on a tree that has not been sprayed with anything you will notice a coating of dust, while some of this is dust, some of it is wild yeast.

While there is nothing you can really do about it at this point, if you did get some wild yeast it may not be a lost cause. At this point only time will tell.

Oh, you mean that every strawberry was boiled and that some were transferred, along with the wort, into the carboy?

- yup

hiphops said:

- yup

Click to expand...

ahh NM then you will be fine.

Sounds fine to me too. I'm curious as to your recipe though. I've been fiddling with a plan for something chocolate strawberry, but was leaning towards more of a brown ale than a stout.

I'm curious to hear how this turns out. I've never added fruit till after fermentation was done. Always heard you get a wine kind of taste.

This is the recipe: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/allgrain/AG-ChocolateMilkStout.pdf

i used wyeast 1469 and had a FG of 1.059/1.060. as well, i used 4 lbs of fresh strawberries and 4 oz cocoa that i mixed into the strawberries, creating a chocolate strawberry syrup. i made it last year with cocoa nibs and just 1 lb of strawberries, which was too light on the strawberry side.

its a good brew. i highly recommend it

This beer sounds GREAT! I want to brew it next, but I'll have to wait a bit because I have too many big beers slowing down the effectiveness of my pipeline.

This is what I am looking to do this weekend in hopes to have it ready for Valentines Day. I was listening to Final Gravity Podcast and heard one guy say he did a wild yeast fermentation with peaches from a tree in his yard. He did this by boiling wort and then adding the fresh peaches (which naturally have the wild yeast on them) to the primary. He said the fermentation went well and no contamination was tasted but the yeast did impart a "wild yeast" taste but overall takes on it were positive...
So if you had gotten wild yeast in there from the strawberries I don't think it's worth worrying about, and since you boiled all the strawberries first the possiblility of that is very slim.

This thread made me think of the peach story and thought I would share...