Help with recipe - strawberry cream ale for SWMBO

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jamsomito

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I've got a gift card to Northern Brewer, and the wife wants a strawberry ale featuring fresh Michigan strawberries. I've made a banana beer before and while half my bottles exploded, it was a lot of fun. Figured I could do one fruit ale per year, that's ok with me.

Anyway, I'm thinking about getting this cream ale kit: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/...t-kits/extract-ale-kits/cream-ale-extract-kit

And adding 0.5lb caramel 40, and 4-8oz lactose to add back some sweetness and mouthfeel after the strawberries dry it up.

Thinking 8lbs of strawberries, mashed with starsan/vodka, dumped in secondary.

Thoughts?
 
I'm going to say that strawberries don't really dry up a beer but that is based only on my experience with a strawberry beer. 8 pounds is a lot and perhaps that could dry out the beer after all. For me, what I used didn't dry out the beer at all as far as I could tell. I generally dislike real dry beers.
If your wife doesn't like beer then 8 pounds will definitely mask a lot of that beer flavor I think. I used just under 3 pounds of frozen strawberries. I think you could actually clean your strawberries real well, freeze them and then skip soaking them in vodka.
 
I had a strawberry cream ale at little egypt brewing in ava IL. Ken over there decided against putting the juice in secondary and just kept the juice in the fridge and added a shot at serving time. Way better than any other I've ever had.
 
I have a Strawberry Centennial Blonde on tap right now. My wife, as well as everyone else that has tried it enjoys it. We are 2/3 through the batch in about 3 weeks. It is biermuncher's recipe racked on berries the original thread is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=42841

I washed and quartered 3 lbs of fresh strawberries. I then froze them in a ziploc bag. After 2 weeks in primary I dropped my frozen berries into a 5g carboy and racked the primary onto them. Left it for 4-5 days in my fermentation chamber still at 65-68° till the berries turned white. Then I kegged. grain to berries to glass in 3.5 weeks.

I brew all grain but here is an extract version from that thread:

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.3 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (45 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale
 
Look for the Hella Vanilla Cream Ale recipe here on the form. You'll see reading through it that someone made it into a strawberries and cream ale which sounds absolutely delicious. I've made the regular Hella Vanilla and I can't wait to brew the strawberry version.
 
jekeane said:
I have a Strawberry Centennial Blonde on tap right now. My wife, as well as everyone else that has tried it enjoys it. We are 2/3 through the batch in about 3 weeks. It is biermuncher's recipe racked on berries the original thread is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=42841

I washed and quartered 3 lbs of fresh strawberries. I then froze them in a ziploc bag. After 2 weeks in primary I dropped my frozen berries into a 5g carboy and racked the primary onto them. Left it for 4-5 days in my fermentation chamber still at 65-68° till the berries turned white. Then I kegged. grain to berries to glass in 3.5 weeks.

I brew all grain but here is an extract version from that thread:

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.3 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (45 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale
Click to expand...

How is the strawberry flavor using 3#?
 
Whelp, went ahead with the Hella Vanilla Cream Ale recipe, plus an extra half pound of caramel 40 and 6oz of lactose. Finished fermenting at 1.014, so still a bit sweet. I think that's perfect though, because I added 6 pounds of strawberries that will likely thin it out a bit. Going for a sweet, strawberries and cream ale here. Came out amazing. Color is unreal.

Vanilla bean / vodka mixture. Sat for 2 weeks. Smelled amazing.
UKX84Jll.jpg


6lbs of chopped and frozen strawberries. Picked off the bush fresh a couple months ago. (added vanilla vodka mixture)
iJ7IYyMl.jpg


Pureed with submersion blender, heated to 170 for 10 mins, cooled in the fridge (lidded) for 1 hour.
vlTsSy2l.jpg


Poured into secondary. Stains on my shirt look like blood, so that's cool.
tLZ0d66l.jpg


Racked.
VPiE3eIl.jpg


And there she sits for another couple weeks until bottling. Can't wait.
Gk4tIBxl.jpg
 

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