Fruit Beer Wild Strawberry Blonde

I cant imagine it would matter much! Enjoy.

I brewed this a few weeks ago. It came out VERY VERY pale. Hardily a tint of yellow but was cloudy. I racked it onto the strawberries regardless. I just racked it Into a 3rd and its still very pale. Slightly darker but still really pale. Any pictures of what u finish with? It's cold crashing right now, and I'm bottling in a few days. I think the picture worked, but that's what I had before I racked onto strawberries

Well that is interesting. Never seen a beer that color before. Scroll up a few posts and you'll see a pic of my last batch. I'm not sure what to tell you about that color. How does it taste? Did you reach an acceptable FG. What was the OG? If it fermented out, I would rack onto berries.

Og-1.050, fg-1.014. It fermented 3 weeks in primary. That was the day I racked it onto strawberries, so it got a little more pale. Tasted ok, a little bitter. I even showed this to my local brew shop that I ask all my questions and get all my ingredients. They said to rack it and wait and see how it comes out of the cold crash.

Hey everyone, my cousin is getting married soon and wanted to brew a version of this for his upcoming wedding. Here is our slightly altered version of this (he wanted to add a lemon/citrus element to this, so we changed from Saaz to Sorachi Ace). As you can see, I'm not changing much, just wanted to know if any of these changes would have a negative effect on the outcome.

Grain:
7 lbs - Pilsner malt
1.25 lbs - Wheat malt
1 lb Flaked Corn
1 lb Carapils
4 oz Crystal 40
Rice Hulls

Hops:
1 oz Cascade - 60 mins
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace - 10 mins
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace - 5 mins
0.5 oz Sorachi Ace - Flameout

Yeast:
US - 05

Wanting to mash at 154 F.
Rack onto strawberries @ secondary.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I would be curious to see how the Sorachi Ace meshes with the strawberries. Keep us posted!

Thanks for posting this recipe! I wanted to give this a shot for my mother in law's birthday...and I happen to be a strawberry blonde myself. I made a few modifications based on what I had available:

8 lb 2-row pale malt
1 lb white wheat malt
1 lb 10L caramel malt
1 lb flaked corn

1 oz Cascade (60 min)
1 oz Spalter Select (20 min)
1 oz Spalter Select (15 min)

I replaced the carapils with the 10L for a little added color. I increased the Spalter Select from 0.5 oz each addition since they were from 2012. This may have been a mistake b/c the wort was more bitter than I anticipated. Hopefully, the sweetness of the beer will counter balance.

Another mistake was that I mashed lower than I wanted (~148) and didn't stir enough. OG came in at 1.032 so I ended up boiling longer, end result was an OG of 1.044. I'm guessing the strawberries will add about 4 additional points.

For the expected OG of 1.051, are you accounting for fermentation after adding the strawberries or just the original wort?

Also, has anyone tried a campden tablet bath for sanitizing fresh strawberries?

My expected OG is after boil, before berries. Ive never calculated what the berries would add.

Well, I guess my attempt will be a little more session-able than expected. That may not be a bad thing for the mother in law. I used this BYO article to calculate the gravity points from the berries:

https://byo.com/bock/item/319-brewing-with-fruit-techniques

I'll post a pic when it's ready!

Alright going to give this one a go on Sunday, sounds delicious. Thanks for the recipe!

Fermenting away, running a little hotter than normal for S-05 at 74 though! Guess I have to turn up the A/C.

I am going to try this recipe out with two different versions as it looks awesome.

The first attempt will be:
7lb German Pilsen Malt
1.25lb German Wheat Malt
1lb Carapils
1lb Flaked Corn
Harvested US-05 Yeast
8lb Strawberries

The second:
7lb 2-Row
1.25lb White Wheat Malt
1lb Carapils
1lb Flaked Corn
US-05 Yeast
8lb Strawberries

I am going to use the same fermentation and 154 mash temp using BIAB. The main reason for the two different recipes is I have more of the second recipe on hand and it's usually easier to buy. I will report back when I keg! Thanks for posting!

I just racked over strawberries two days ago; the blonde ale finished off at 1.005. I filled up the bucket to just about the lip and thought i could get away with just an airlock.

Big mistake! Fermentation kicked off again and spewed pink goop all over the closet. I only noticed after my dog got in the closest and started licking it all up.

After cleaning up and sanitizing, I added a blow off tube. On the plus side, the closet smells delicious!

Ha that sucks, but has happened to the best of us!

wixziu said:

I just racked over strawberries two days ago; the blonde ale finished off at 1.005. I filled up the bucket to just about the lip and thought i could get away with just an airlock.

Big mistake! Fermentation kicked off again and spewed pink goop all over the closet. I only noticed after my dog got in the closest and started licking it all up.

After cleaning up and sanitizing, I added a blow off tube. On the plus side, the closet smells delicious!

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Racking to strawberries now. I will be using a blowoff tube after that comment!

Double post

Found a couple bottles of this left over from last years Longshot Comp. Looking forward to seeing how they held up. I never bottle beer anymore so this could be interesting. I think i carbed with the carb drops.

Well that didnt go well. Tasted like white wine. Not good. Dumped it.

Here is the sample I took after racking to tertiary. Great strawberry aroma and flavor! I still think it is a little more bitter than I wanted due to trying to compensate for older hops, but not enough to detract from the beer too much.

Here is the finished product! This is definitely a keeper. Thanks for the recipe!

Glad you like it!

I'm going to try my hand at this one Saturday! Sounds amazing!

No one has strawberries any more!! Need to replace it with something

I picked up red raspberries, black raspberries, and blackberries now I'm wondering how blueberries would be!!

Ive done both raspberries and blackberries. Both were good. Colors were interesting!

I think I'm gonna use the 1/2 flat (6 quarts) of regular (red) raspberries. Then I can do other cool things with the others. I'm thinking about an black berry IPA gonna call it a BlackeyePA

If I use a conical fermentor, wouldn't I just open the sump valve and dump the trub after 12 days of primary fermentation and then dump the trub again after an additional 7 days with the strawberries? I assume I can do this instead of transferring the beer.

Also, do I need to do a yeast starter with the US-05 for this recipe? Beersmith indicates I would have 180 billion yeast cells and I need 186 billion. Usually I use liquid yeast (not dry yeast) and a Stirstarter and I end up with way more yeast cells than Beersmith says I need. I'm not used to cutting it this close.

dschiller said:

If I use a conical fermentor, wouldn't I just open the sump valve and dump the trub after 12 days of primary fermentation and then dump the trub again after an additional 7 days with the strawberries? I assume I can do this instead of transferring the beer.

Also, do I need to do a yeast starter with the US-05 for this recipe? Beersmith indicates I would have 180 billion yeast cells and I need 186 billion. Usually I use liquid yeast (not dry yeast) and a Stirstarter and I end up with way more yeast cells than Beersmith says I need. I'm not used to cutting it this close.

Click to expand...

Rehydrate the yeast as per the instructions, use regular water, not wort.

dschiller said:

If I use a conical fermentor, wouldn't I just open the sump valve and dump the trub after 12 days of primary fermentation and then dump the trub again after an additional 7 days with the strawberries? I assume I can do this instead of transferring the beer.

Also, do I need to do a yeast starter with the US-05 for this recipe? Beersmith indicates I would have 180 billion yeast cells and I need 186 billion. Usually I use liquid yeast (not dry yeast) and a Stirstarter and I end up with way more yeast cells than Beersmith says I need. I'm not used to cutting it this close.

Click to expand...

I've never used a conical fermenter, so I'm not 100% sure how to answer your question. Personally, I would rack it to secondary, as part of the reason for the transfer is to help clear it up. But if you can get rid of enough trub to clear it, then I say go for it. However, you will definitely want to transfer to tertiary. Don't leave the beer on the berries for cold crashing.

No starter needed with S-05. I will also add that I never rehydrate. I just open and pour and shake like hell!

Conical fermenters look pretty fancy... Are they really worth the extra $$?

Dumping the trub should clear it enough. Good point about transferring before cold crashing. I'll definitely do that.

Strong_Brews, I love my Blichmann conical fermenter because it's super easy to do secondary fermentation, clean, and rack. But they are expensive so I wouldn't go as far as to say they are definitely worth the $$. I just decided to treat myself

WildGingerBrewing, you might want to aerate your wort with an O2 canister from Home Depot and a diffusion stone. It's super easy and you'll get happier yeast.

so when adding the frozen fruit, add to secondary when still frozen or let thaw then add?
thanks

jaw005 said:

so when adding the frozen fruit, add to secondary when still frozen or let thaw then add?
thanks

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I bought some at the farmers market an froze them. When I was ready to use them I put them all in a big bowl and overestimate them in vodka to clean them. Freezing them should kill any bacteria in them... I added vodka just for good measure. Then I put them in the secondary still frozen. They will thaw on their own. No need to let them thaw and expose them to the air.

I put them into secondary frozen.

Transferred off the raspberries last night. Took a small sample. This is fantastic!! I see why you use the cheese cloth to hold the berries! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470760303.345903.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470760319.377146.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1470760347.108075.jpg

Just tried the first pint... It's glorious! I highly recommend trying it with raspberries! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1471488777.770699.jpg

Nice!

I am going to brew this soon. I have a bunch of cherries and was thinking of using them instead. Any thought on this?

Cheers

Cherries sound good.