Strawberry Wit

My bud has a strawberry witbier that is very popular... so much so that he pretty much doesn't brew anything else. Anyways... SWMBO has requested that I give his recipe a shot. I've attempted to convert his recipe to an all-grain version, and made a couple adjustments.

Let me know if you see anything glaringly wrong with it!

5 lbs Belgian Pilsen
3 lbs flaked wheat
1 lb white wheat
1 lb flaked oats
1/2 oz. coriander
1 oz Liberty hops (60 min)
1 oz Liberty hops (15 min)
4 lbs strawberries (in secondary)

White Labs Belgian Wit Liquid Yeast #WLP400

Mash in 11qts @ 156d for 60 min. Batch sparge in 14 qts @ 170d.

(Edited to reflect changes in recipe.)

Interesting about the 5lbs frozen strawberries in the secondary, I'm looking at doing a Strawberry wheat and it mentioned to put pureed strawberries in the end of the boil for 20 mins or so.

Does it seem to make more sense to add to the secondary?

Desert Monkey said:

Interesting about the 5lbs frozen strawberries in the secondary, I'm looking at doing a Strawberry wheat and it mentioned to put pureed strawberries in the end of the boil for 20 mins or so.

Does it seem to make more sense to add to the secondary?

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That probably has to do with the assumption that the strawberries are fresh and need pasteurizing. If bought frozen, they are already pasteurized.

In point of fact, his original extract recipe called for adding a puree in at the end of the boil.

In reading through comparable recipes, I've found several people add fruit to the secondary after fermentation (which I like, since an alcohol content is already established, and errant bugs on the berries won't be such a headache).

Also, he complained to me about the puree fruit pulp clogging up both his autosiphon and his airlock/blowoff tube. I figured adding berries to the carboy would reactivate a minor fermentation process, but would certainly be easier on the blowoff tube than having the belgian yeast kicking their crud with it.

What I don't know is which process imparts a better taste.

That makes sense - I do have to add pectic enzyme to the batch I'm looking to brew.

I'm going to add the mix in, boil it into the wort for 20 mins, then remove it before the primary. Might not carry much of the taste over, that's my only concern....

might have to add lots

Desert Monkey said:

I'm going to add the mix in, boil it into the wort for 20 mins, then remove it before the primary. Might not carry much of the taste over, that's my only concern....

might have to add lots

Click to expand...

Go for it. Give it a taste after fermentation, and if the strawberry taste isn't pronounced enough you could add them in the secondary.

I love that idea, I'll have to remember to taste it on the way to the secondary -

jpsloan, sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread! I'm brewing this up Monday, so I'll make sure to put on here big a mess it created.

I'll even try to remember some pics -

Most often it is recommended to add fruit to the secondary. During the process of boiling and fermenting alot of the aroma and flavor of the fruit is lost. Depends on what you are going for though. But with strawberries I would go with the secondary because I have heard that strawberries do not impart a very strong flavor and what flavor it does tends to fade rather quickly. I have no personal experience though so take it as you will.

Desert Monkey said:

I'm brewing this up Monday, so I'll make sure to put on here big a mess it created.

I'll even try to remember some pics -

Click to expand...

Do keep us posted on this. I might try my recipe in a couple weeks.

I'll post more on it in a day or two, I have the particulars jotted down on a paper somewhere....

But I will say this - unless this beer ends up so good my wife drinks it (and that's a big IF), then I'm going to recommend staying away from pureed anything.

BIG mess when added, and boy oh boy I was not ready to strain them out - ended up leaving it all together and putting it in the primary last night. The airlock started up in a matter of hours, and OG was somewhere around 1.054.

I'll have the recipe up in a day or two - and some pics. My brother and I figured "what the heck, let's see where this takes us".

Any chance you could post the extract recipe as well?

Here's his original recipe.



one 4lb can of Alexander wheat extract (60% wheat / 40% malt)
2.08 lb of light dried malt (don't ask about the 0.08, I'm weirdly OCD about decimals when calculating) comes out to 2lb and 1.28 oz's
8 oz clover honey
half oz crushed Coriander
5 lbs fresh strawberries. (1 lb per gallon)
1tsp Irish Moss

Hops:
1.275 oz German Hallertau (boiling)
.425 oz German Hallertau PELLETS (finishing)

Yeast: White Labs Belgian Wit Liquid Ale Yeast, #WLP400

He pasteurized and pureed the strawberries and added them to the primary prior to fermentation. He tried straining them when he racked to his secondary, but had issues with the pulp clogging the strainer, and also had issues with the pulp clogging up his airlock.

He also made an "extra crispy" version for winter, where he mashed 1lb toasted wheat to go with it.

This is the Recipe I used -

Dry Heat Wheat (original recipe courtesy of my local HBS)

6 lbs Wheat DME
1 oz. German Hallertau Pellet hops
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Wheat yeast
*6 lbs Strawberries
*Pectin drops

*I added these to their basic Wheat brew.

O.G. ~ 1.050
F.G. ~ 1.010

Dissolve the DME in 2-3 gallons of water. Bring water to a boil. At start of boil, add 1/2 oz. hops into brew, and boil on a roll for 45 mins.

After 45 mins, add the other 1/2 oz. of hops. Boil another 15 mins. This is the point where we end the regular directions, as they just have you cool it down to 80 or lower and pitch the yeast. Sits for 10-12 days, you are pretty much done.

We went a whole different route at this stage - during the boil, we took 6 lbs of strawberries, washed them in sanitized water, and blended them. At the end of 1 hour's boil, we dumped the mixture right into the pot, and continued to heat for another 10 mins. Once complete, the idea was to strain them out with the hops and put in the primary.

This is where things went askew...straining them out of the mix was not going to happen, as I was ill prepared and did not have a proper strainer to handle this mess - and it was messy. My brother and I decided to go for not and just dumped the whole mess into the bucket, added 50 pectin drops, set up the airlock and put it in a tub in the basement, where any explosion would not be heard by SWMBO.

I'll post more once I get to the secondary.

Pulling it off the primary in the next 24 hours. It's at 1.010 and that's about where I expected it to be.

Taste has strawberry in it, not sure what I think, taste was a little off - could be the mouth full of IPA had before trying it

REALLY interested to see how it turns out. I bought everything I need for an extract batch except the strawberries. I'm kinda stalling to figure out how I want to add/remove the berries.

Ok, I pulled it to the secondary, and boy oh boy is it cloudy!

I will be keeping it in there for four days, then putting it into the fridge for a cold snap. Going to try to clear it up as much as possible before kegging. Look back in a few days for an update - and I'll try to get a pic on here when I rack to the keg -

Just kegged the strawberry tonight. My brother and I both had a taste, and the first thing we noticed was a tart strawberry taste, with banana as well. We're happy it's got taste in it, and we're already thinking of changes for next time -

We were throwing a lot of ideas around on putting sugar in the keg, but in the end we decided to go full bore on the original plan and just keg it.

More to come in 5 days - I'm force carbonating it @ 12 PSI and 40 degrees.

EDIT: The chef thinks the better approach might be making an extract by boiling down the pureed strawberries and pouring it into the brew that way - might avoid the tart and get a better return on the taste.

Ok, so here's the final verdict - I'm not sure I'd do this beer again like this.

The beer is tart, like you would expect from a juicy strawberry, and has a little of the banana in there too.

It's very heavy, as it's cloudy with all kinds of bits that just never dropped out. I'm pulling a few pints tonight to see about getting rid of all the sediment on the bottom of the keg.

Just not the fantastic taste I was hoping for. Not sure, but I think this would have been a better beer if we had not added all that juice at the end of the boil, and instead strained out an extract for the secondary, or even the keg.

Well that sucks to hear... I had high hopes. You still think the extract is the way to go then? Maybe we should have jpsloan check with his bud again to see if we're missing something?

I'd wonder if that impact from heating them 10 mins at the end of the boil made a difference or not. Also, I added a little more than 6 lbs into the mix...

Extract should give you not only more control on the end game, but I bet you get a better standard "strawberry" taste - sweet, not the natural "tart" taste I ended up with.

Going to let this sit for a while, maybe age will help.

3068 is a hefe yeast with pretty strong flavors - thats the banana you mentioned. not sure how well it would mix with the strawberry. it would also account for your cloudiness. you might go with an american wheat strain next time round if you want the focus in on the strawberry flavoring.

I did almost the same beer you did a year ago.
6# wheat DME
1 oz Hallertau at 60 minutes
WLP300 yeast

fermented for 14 days then racked onto 6# of berries and sat for 14 more days then kegged and forced carbed.
As with you, it was very tart and strange at first. I also found it to be thick and a little creamy. I was not a big fan of it but my friends and wife were.
They keep telling me to make it again. I can tell you one thing the berries bumped the ABV. after 2 pints I felt it.

Let her sit aother month and it will get better. Mine lasted about two months and was IMHO just starting to get good.

For what it's worth -

My brother took a growler home with him the other night of this stuff, and he had a few friends over to try it out. He told them to be honest, and if it was not great to tell him so, as it was an experiment and we wanted to know what's-what.

They all loved it.

Hm.....guess I should have had a few more people try it out before posting my thoughts on it - I'll keep that in mind down the road. I'm not a fan of sour beer, but the crowd that loved it had a few home brewers who said they loved the sour wheat beer explosion they got on their first taste.

Just goes to show how diverse beer can be I guess. As for me, I found it's a great beer with a pinch of sugar in the mouth.

Well, I brewed my recipe on Saturday. I ended up abandoning my original recipe as posted, in favor of a tried-and-true witbier recipe (AHS's Kit, to be exact). Only thing I boned was that I forgot to add the honey. Beersmith had my projected OG at 1.056. I got 1.048. I figure I'll add the honey along with the strawberries, and get a true secondary fermentation.

So what would be the easiest way to add some additional sweetness? Newbie here!

Damonic said:

So what would be the easiest way to add some additional sweetness? Newbie here!

Click to expand...

Crystal malt will add a varying flavor profile depending on which degree of kilning you purchase. But I do believe that the most direct way to preserve sweetness in the final beer would be to choose a low-attenuating yeast.

Jpsloan is right any crystal or cara malt can add some sweetness. Honey, Corn sugar, treacle, or exotic sugar will ferment mostly out and boost alcohol.

I brewed a blackberry wheat and found that my brew was cloudy as well but it only lasted for the first weeks of trying to sneak a drink here and there out of the keg. However after a while (2 months) the blackberry settled out completely and I was able to pump most of it out of the keg. In the third month in a keg it was spectacular. All the bitterness went away and it became one of my best elixrs to date.

- WW

I racked the wit onto the strawberries on Sunday. I ended up using four pounds of frozen strawberries, quartered for easier carboy neck navigation.

Come Monday afternoon, I got a call from SWMBO saying that the airlock was filling with foam. When I got home, I was relieved to discover that the secondary fermentation hadn't blown off as much as I thought it had.

I neglected to account for the volume of the strawberries, and the top of the beer was kinda close to the bung. Alas...

It's settling down now. Still bubbling as of last night, and now my basement smells of cotton candy!

jpsloan said:

I racked the wit onto the strawberries on Sunday. I ended up using four pounds of frozen strawberries, quartered for easier carboy neck navigation.

Come Monday afternoon, I got a call from SWMBO saying that the airlock was filling with foam. When I got home, I was relieved to discover that the secondary fermentation hadn't blown off as much as I thought it had.

I neglected to account for the volume of the strawberries, and the top of the beer was kinda close to the bung. Alas...

It's settling down now. Still bubbling as of last night, and now my basement smells of cotton candy!

Click to expand...

You got lucky, last year I had stawberies all over the brew room.

when pitching the strawberries into the secondary, I assume you are bringing them to room temp then dumping them in?

auto said:

when pitching the strawberries into the secondary, I assume you are bringing them to room temp then dumping them in?

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Yes, bring them to the same temp as the beer then rack the beer onto them. Then put on a blow-off tube.

That recipe sounds awesome. I just bought indgredients for a wit. I think i might have to add some fruit.

I popped one of the bottles into the fridge to do a "carb check"

Thus far, there is still that pronounced belgian yeast profile, but it's mellowing. The strawberry is stepping up while the wheat is stepping back... it's blending pretty well. The coriander is totally gone, though. I think I put that in too early, and boiled off all the emolients.

Still... in two more weeks, ought to be quite serviceable.

Brewed up a batch of the extract recipe you posted. I honestly didn't know when to add the honey. I put it in with the DME at beginning of boil and now I realize it should have gone in at flame out. Oh well... live and learn. When I rack into the secondary I'm thinking about putting half onto strawberry and half onto strawberry and rhubarb. Haven't figured out how much rhubarb to add yet and need to do some research.

Any suggestions on what I could brew next using the yeast cake?

Hi. Can you post his original extract recipe? Thanks!

jpsloan said:

My bud has a strawberry witbier that is very popular... so much so that he pretty much doesn't brew anything else. Anyways... SWMBO has requested that I give his recipe a shot. I've attempted to convert his recipe to an all-grain version, and made a couple adjustments.

Let me know if you see anything glaringly wrong with it!

5 lbs Belgian Pilsen
3 lbs flaked wheat
1 lb white wheat
1 lb flaked oats
1/2 oz. coriander
1 oz Liberty hops (60 min)
1 oz Liberty hops (15 min)
4 lbs strawberries (in secondary)

White Labs Belgian Wit Liquid Yeast #WLP400

Mash in 11qts @ 156d for 60 min. Batch sparge in 14 qts @ 170d.

(Edited to reflect changes in recipe.)

Click to expand...

subscribed.
Thanks
Brew on.
Cheers.
Max