strawberry blonde ale

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I have 4.4 lbs of pureed strawberrys that was given to me. I was planing on making a basic blonde ale base and maybe 3 days into fermentation adding some puree in to it to boost alcohol and add some flavor. Then when I transfer it to secondary to add some more and let sit to it reaches the desired flavor levels. Just wondering if this will work out and what you all think. I know most use strawberry peices instead of puree
 
bleme, are you referring to women or beer? ;)

OP, I'd agree with bleme. I'd put it in secondary. Let the beer go through most of its normal fermentation phase, then rack onto the puree. For how long? No idea. I haven't used fruit, yet. Hopefully someone else can provide that answer for us. But I have a guess it'll be at least 2-4 weeks or so.
 
I do it a little differently. Add the strawberries to the primary after the majority of the fermentation is complete. Wait a week or so until you have a stable FG and then carry on as you would with a normal beer.

This has a couple benefits.

First, since you are waiting until the primary fermentation is over, you will lose fewer volatile compounds (smell) since most of the CO2 production is over. Second, it's a lot easier to clean up a bucket with strawberries than a carboy with strawberries. I also believe you lose less beer this way when you perform a single racking off the strawberries and yeast.

Just my $0.02.
 
Having done a couple strawberry blondes, I would recommend putting the strawberry into the secondary, away from as much yeast as possible (possibly even using a fining agent in primary that you would then rack the beer off).
I also wouldn't leave the beer on the strawberry any longer than a week.
Anything more and the yeast kicks back in and eats all the sugar out of the strawberries, possibly making the beer drier than you would like, and driving off most of the flavor.
 
Any thoughts on using a juicer, recombining the juice and the pulp, bring to 150F to pasteurize, cool and secondary for a week? It seems like this would be the fastest way to extract the most flavor possible.
 
wolfman_48442 said:
Having done a couple strawberry blondes, I would recommend putting the strawberry into the secondary, away from as much yeast as possible (possibly even using a fining agent in primary that you would then rack the beer off).
I also wouldn't leave the beer on the strawberry any longer than a week.
Anything more and the yeast kicks back in and eats all the sugar out of the strawberries, possibly making the beer drier than you would like, and driving off most of the flavor.
Click to expand...
I disagree. There is enough yeast in the racked beer that goes into secondary to consume every bit of the sugar from the strawberries. Think priming sugar. Regardless of when you add the strawberries and/or fining agent(s) there will be no residual sweetness from the fruit.
 
I once made SWMBO slayer which is Belgian Blonde and then added 4 lbs of strawberries in keg. I kind of dry hopped with strawberries for 5 days suspended in a bag. It was pure strawberry heaven, incredible aroma and natural strawberry flavor. I was very particular about not letting yeast to ferment any of strawberry goodness that's why I added in keg. You first do primary as usual, secondary if you like (I don't), gelatine to remove as much yeast as possible, then crash cool in keg for week more. I kept keg below 40F for consumption, at this temperature yeast is not active and will not eat any sugars from strawberries. Worked great! I will do it again here soon, great summer beverage.
If you add berries to primary or at fermenting temperature it will re-ferment an leave tartness behind. I had none of it.
This method will not work if you bottle though
 
Another method that works really well (even if you are going to bottle) but that you don't see a lot of people use is:

Ferment the base beer to around 1.020, or a couple of points above where you want your residual sweetness to be, then add champagne yeast. That will halt fermentation completely by killing the ale yeast within a few hours. The champagne yeast is unable to utilize maltotriose, which is the predominant sugar left at the end of fermentation. Now you have locked in your final gravity.

Then you put your berries in a secondary carboy/bucket and rack the beer onto it. You will get a quick ferment, as the simple sugars in the berries are used by the champagne yeast, but the gravity will only return to where it was when you killed the ale yeast.

Bottle with priming sugar as usual. Awesome fruit aroma and no bottle bombs.
 
paraordnance said:
I once made SWMBO slayer which is Belgian Blonde and then added 4 lbs of strawberries in keg. I kind of dry hopped with strawberries for 5 days suspended in a bag. It was pure strawberry heaven, incredible aroma and natural strawberry flavor. I was very particular about not letting yeast to ferment any of strawberry goodness that's why I added in keg. You first do primary as usual, secondary if you like (I don't), gelatine to remove as much yeast as possible, then crash cool in keg for week more. I kept keg below 40F for consumption, at this temperature yeast is not active and will not eat any sugars from strawberries. Worked great! I will do it again here soon, great summer beverage.
If you add berries to primary or at fermenting temperature it will re-ferment an leave tartness behind. I had none of it.
This method will not work if you bottle though
Click to expand...

Neat idea. Keep things cold and berry fermentation does not occur.

I purposely avoided the option that one uses to make sweetened wine: sulfite the wine after fermention is complete, add potassium sorbate and then the fruit/juice.
 
OP, if you're looking to boost alcohol you'll want to fortify the puree with some sugars given there water content of an average puree.
 
Sardoman said:
Another method that works really well (even if you are going to bottle) but that you don't see a lot of people use is:

Ferment the base beer to around 1.020, or a couple of points above where you want your residual sweetness to be, then add champagne yeast. That will halt fermentation completely by killing the ale yeast within a few hours. The champagne yeast is unable to utilize maltotriose, which is the predominant sugar left at the end of fermentation. Now you have locked in your final gravity.

Then you put your berries in a secondary carboy/bucket and rack the beer onto it. You will get a quick ferment, as the simple sugars in the berries are used by the champagne yeast, but the gravity will only return to where it was when you killed the ale yeast.

Bottle with priming sugar as usual. Awesome fruit aroma and no bottle bombs.
Click to expand...

This isn't a method I have seen before, but if the champagne yeast kills off the ale yeast and doesn't hit the maltotriose, then it makes perfect sense. Keep the FG high, then hit it with the fruit. Wish I had seen this a few days ago. I'll have to give this a try. Thanks!
 

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