Fruit Beer Strawberry Alarm Clock v3.0 (Strawberry Blonde)

Excellent thread. Thanks to everyone for the questions & comments. I can never get over how the smalls things can make such a big difference in brewing.

Thanks to weirdboy for the inspiration... I just ordered ingredients and will be posting pictures and results soon. Cheers!

We just kegged our ten gallon batch.

Split half and followed the recipe, added the strawberries, the other I let the wife do what she wanted so she threw in a pound of strawberries, some blackberries ans some cherries. Initial tasting is great, clarity and color are radically different as to be expected.

Will pour two pints when they are ready, we gonna let them age till we run out of current 10 gallons of beer. I should use the comparison of the two to talk myself into another perlic..... hmmmm

Could someone explain cold crashing a little more, is it necessary? Also, I have 1/2 ounce of german pearle and 1/2 ounce czech saaz sitting in the fridge, would that make it more bitter, or too bitter? Is worth trying it with that or spend the extra $1.50 for williamette? First fruit beer here.

Also, I think my other fermenter is going to be tied up, brewing possibly both either this weekend or one this weekend and one next weekend, is this a bad idea, can i throw the berries in primary and not move to secondary?

Cold crashing is never "necessary" per se. It is just an additional step that significantly improves the clarity of the finished beer.

1/2 oz each of Perle and Saaz might not be enough IBUs. When I run the numbers Beersmith gives me 11.3 IBUs when I substitute 1/2oz each for the willamette, and the target IBUs is more like 23-24.

So, I think no matter what you will want to go get some more hops to use for this recipe.

So far as the fermenters being tied up, you can delay transferring the blonde ale until you have racked off your other beer, cleaned & sanitized the fermenter again. It shouldn't be an issue. I have gone over a month in primary on this beer when I ran out of fermenters before.

Haha I figured someone might say you could let it sit in the primary, I am just inpatient and want to drink it early, like a lot of brewers out there, thanks for the help

Probably a stupid question, and something I should know-

With the DME conversion, do you still want to steep the caramel malt, and the flaked wheat as well or do you just use the two DME's, and the carapils

Just the extracts + carapils. In fact, if you are using DME in particular, you probably don't need the carapils, either, but it certainly doesn't hurt the beer, and will give it a bit more body and head retention.

Read the entire thread today and enjoyed thoroughly. I have most of the ingrdients already so that's a plus. The wife and I will be taking a trip to NC in July with some friends and I plan to brew this specifically for that trip.

I have seen references to people using the US-05 or thinking about it but no confirmations of actually using it. Has anyone done so? I like to learn from others' experiences where I can

Questions I have:
- I've got a nylon grain bag - will that work in place of the paint strainer bag?
- I have 4 lbs already frozen berries. I assume I can just use them as is....or do I need to "break" them up?
- My buddy makes lots of fruit beers but they always seem to have "something" in them for some reason lately. He used the frozen berries so I'm wondering if I should puree and pasteurize them instead of just tossing them in - thoughts on that? I see that people using the halved, fresh on here obviously do not...but do you trust the store frozen ones? This would be my first fruit beer so I'm hesitant.

Thanks!

US-05 is a fine yeast to use for this beer. It will have a slightly different impression of overall "fruitiness" due to the cleaner fermentation, and might finish a bit drier for you. I have done it with US-05 and it tastes good.


I have made the beer with puree and pastuerizing...it works but I ended up with lots of little bits of strawberry in the beer when I did that a couple times, and it also tastes a bit more like tomatoes to me than strawberries. I understand the concern, though, and I know several people who have gone with a puree who are happy with the results. I don't think I've ever used the store-bought frozen fruit for this, so I'm not sure but I imagine they must be relatively sanitary since people use them as dessert toppings and whatnot. At least around here, when it's strawberry season (which is when I make this beer) the strawberries are way cheaper fresh than in the frozen section, and the ability to carefully inspect and wash the fruit, and use it at its height of freshness is a big plus in my book.

TOMATOES?! egad, sir. That sounds a little...uh...icky to me. I don't think I'd mind the little floaties or a bit of sediment. Your comment certainly gives me pause though. I'll have to think about that one.

It is a subjective thing. I have friends that have tried it that really like it with the pureed pasteurized strawberries. To me, there is a bit of "cooked" flavor in there that leans towards almost a tomato flavor. If you think "strawberries" when you drink it, it tastes like strawberries. If you think "tomato" when you drink it, you can definitely taste tomato, IMO.

Great tasting recipe!! This was my first fruit beer and it was amazing. I had a small gathering of mostly BMC drinkers who absolutely loved this beer when they tried it, guys and gals alike. I had multiple people asking me if I could make it specifically for them. It looks like I'll have to double up and make a 10 gallon batch next time. Thanks for the recipe! One friend wants me to try it with blueberries next time. If we go that route, I'll report back with the outcome.

I quartered and froze store bought strawberries in a sanitized container and used a nylon strainer bag in the secondary for 2 weeks. Phenomenal!!
I used supermoss, gelatin AND cold crashed. The beer is crystal clear.

I have a batch of this going right now. Just tossed 4 lbs of store bought frozen strawberries into my primary. I put the berries in a fine mesh nylon bag and dunked the whole thing in some star san a couple times, let it drip for a few moments before putting the bag into my beer. Checked the gravity; OG 1.052, FG 1.016. The hydro sample tasted a little sour. I used S-04 for yeast. I'll check in a few weeks from now and let you guys know how it's going.

Zombie, that's an interesting idea - probably one used by lots of folks on here. I had wondered how you would sanitze something like fruit without pasteurizing. I may attempt your method as I intend to make this next weekend. By the time I need to put in the strawberries, perhaps you'll have let us know if anything else has happened.

BTW, did you let the strawberries thaw completely before using the star-san? I am assuming you did because putting ice cubes in your beer would probably not be good for the lil' yeasties.

No need to let it thaw. The yeast will be fine.

pwortiz said:

Zombie, that's an interesting idea - probably one used by lots of folks on here. I had wondered how you would sanitze something like fruit without pasteurizing. I may attempt your method as I intend to make this next weekend. By the time I need to put in the strawberries, perhaps you'll have let us know if anything else has happened.

BTW, did you let the strawberries thaw completely before using the star-san? I am assuming you did because putting ice cubes in your beer would probably not be good for the lil' yeasties.

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I did not thaw the strawberries prior to dunking them in star San. I'm not concerned with the cold hurting the yeasties. Besides, the star San will break down into a little yeast nutrient to give them a boost. I'll let you know how it all shakes out. It was rather unnerving putting the bag into my bucket since this is my first attempt at fruit beer.

Say WHAT? Star San breaks down into a yeast nutrient?.....I must learn more about this.

phoenixs4r said:

We just kegged our ten gallon batch.

Split half and followed the recipe, added the strawberries, the other I let the wife do what she wanted so she threw in a pound of strawberries, some blackberries ans some cherries. Initial tasting is great, clarity and color are radically different as to be expected.

Will pour two pints when they are ready, we gonna let them age till we run out of current 10 gallons of beer. I should use the comparison of the two to talk myself into another perlic..... hmmmm

Click to expand...

The mixes berry version if this I posted above turned out amazing. The strawberry only version was pretty good too.

pwortiz said:

Say WHAT? Star San breaks down into a yeast nutrient?.....I must learn more about this.

Click to expand...

I can' t site a source of this directly. But it is something I've read on HBT several times.

Phoenix, nice to hear the mixed fruit turned out well! Makes me look forward to experimenting with this in the future. My SWMBO is enjoying an apricot beer right now. She's a big fan of the fruit beers and I would love to help her enjoy my hobby. Do you know what ratio of fruit was added to the mixed berry batch? Maybe post the recipe on a new thread?

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I've got mine going in the primary now. On Monday next week, I'll be transferring to the secondary but I have a question: Is there any difference in the "reuseable nylong grain bag" that comes with some beer kits and a nylon paint strainer bag? Is there some reason that I wouldn't want to use my grain bag?

If anyone can answer that, please do!

The mesh size is a bit different, but for the purposes of this beer they are about the same. The 5 gallon paint strainer bag is much larger, of course. I am not sure what size bag you've got, but the smaller ones almost assuredly won't fit 4lbs of frozen strawberries, whereas the paint strainer bags will.

Thanks! The bag I have will hold up to 5 or 6 lbs of grain. I had to ask because I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to get one. At Lowes they only have the cone things. But I'll hit up my local hardware store this afternoon to check there too. I'll do a comparison as well. Heck, I'm wondering if I could use the paint strainer bags for steeping in the future now.

Thanks again!

Just put into primary, looks so good. The wort foamed so much while I was pouring it into the carboy, I lost a good quart onto the floor... must be all the wheat.

I use a collander to strain/aerate when I move from kettle to fermenter and this happened to me too...I thought maybe I just poured too fast because I had not experienced that problem in the past.

I bottled my batch last night. The aroma was out of this world. It smelled like the freshest strawberry jam ever and has a very soft strawberry finish. I am so pumped to see how this does after a few weeks of bottle conditioning. I made a couple slight variations to the original recipe:

8oz crystal 60L
8oz cara-pils
8oz table sugar and extract @ 25 min
3.3lbs Gold LME
3.3lbs Wheat LME
1 pack S-04
everything else as the recipe calls

OG 1.056
FG 1.010

Forgot the most important part:
I added 4lbs whole, frozen strawberries in a large, fine mesh nylon bag after kausen fell (~10 days into fermentation) and left it for another 30 days.

Just kegged last night, the beer was great warm and flat. I can't wait to taste once carbed. Kudos on this recipe, I was worried using fresh fruit, first time using but I Star San'd before freezing and everything worked out great.

Hey Rogue, on that "foaming" issue you had - wanted to let you know that I have successfully avoided that twice now with my last two brews...but it's an annoying method. My pot pours like crap so that's why I always tried to pour fast just to get it overwith. I ended up siphoning the brew into collander on top of the fermenter and got much less foam. It was still present, but I didn't have an explosion of it all over the ground. I pour in the last gallon or so without issue. May or may not be worthwhile to give it a try.

pwortiz, def agree its how fast I am pouring, damn pot gets heavy with 5 gal of beer. I will use syphon seems alot easier to control foaming and my back. Great idea thanks

Just racked onto strawberries about 5 days ago and I opened up the fermenter to look at its progress. White film, powdery substances coated the top of the beer. It smells fruity, a bit tart - I tasted it and its really light, smooth with no tartness/acidity to speak of.

Thoughts? Do I have an infection/wild brewing?

It looks like that might be some of what they call "bret"? I have 0 experience with it but would like to hear from some experts! When I racked off, I didn't have anything that looked like that but I also didn't check it during the 3 weeks.

Been fermenting this for about 2 weeks now and I plan on adding fruit to it tomorrow. Instead of doing just strawberries, I'm splitting to batch into 3 smaller batches and adding strawberries to one, blueberries to another, and peaches to the last one.

I have three 3 gallon glass carboys that have pretty small neck holes so I had to dice up the strawberries and peaches and smash the blueberries. I was originally planning on freezing the blueberry concoction in a bowl but then I realized that I was going to have a large block of blueberry ice. This is what I came up with:



Tasty looking, I know. I'm just going to freeze these and chunk them into the carboy one by one. I have two trays of this stuff and I think the size of the ice cubes will be small enough to fit into the carboy neck holes.

I just bagged up my diced strawberries and peaches and threw them in the freezer.



I'm do have a question. Does it matters what temperature I condition these at? I have a kegerator that I can temp control and I can squeeze only two of them in so the third may just have to go into my fridge, which is about 40 degrees F. Is that too cold? My house gets pretty hot so I'd rather not just leave it in the closet.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

My buddies and I are about to finally start this brew on Thursday the 28th. I think I'm going to follow the lead of a few others here and add some blue or blackberries to the recipe. If anyone has some input on how much of each berry to consider adding, let me know.

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

Nescent said:

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

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I've brewed it before I didn't worry with all the clairifing agents and it comes out and looks like this...and is amazing!

That looks great!!

Mine is much darker due to the extra wheat. I just racked over 2kg of mixed berries and it tasted great! My starting of was 1065 and went into the secondary at 1010. Not sure how much alcohol I might get out of the secondary, but at nearly 8% now, I am happy. Should I expect much activity from the secondary?

I brewed a variation of this over the weekend...I left out the Flaked Wheat, and dropped the grain bill keeping myself within BJCP guidelines for a blonde, OG came in at 1.044.....

Just cracked open my first bottle last night and it was delicious. I followed the original recipe and will definitely be brewing again. Thanks

I made up a batch of this substituting the strawberries with a can of apricot puree I picked up at Midwest. This was the only change I made to the original recipe.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/apricot-vintner-s-harvest-fruit-puree.html

All I did was sanitize the top of the can and the opener before pouring the mix into my primary about 10 days after pitching. Surprisingly, this did not kick up another fermentation like the strawberries did. I'm not sure what the sugar difference between the two additions comes out to. I cracked a couple bottles over the weekend. I am pretty pleased with the results. The apricot is much more subtle than the strawberry but is still pleasant to drink. The beer has more or a general fruit quality as opposed to a flavor as easily identifiable as strawberry. It was easier to add and manage (just dumping the puree and not having to deal with the actual fruit) than the strawberry addition.

Given the popularity of the strawberry batch I made up a couple months ago, I plan on doing the original recipe again soon. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.