Strawberry addition contact time

[Billagio]

Hi All,

Added 12.5lbs of frozen (thawed and heated before adding) strawberries to secondary in my recent 5gal batch of American Wheat Ale. Wondering how long I should leave them in for? People drinking this like a fruit forward flavor so not worried about the flavor being too overwhelming. Mostly worried that if I leave things in there too long the fruit might go bad and affect the beer?

Side note: was hoping to get more of a red color out of this but it looks like its still the normal brown/orange wheat ale color. Any suggestions for how to get that red color?

 

[davidabcd]

Making your beer as light-colored as possible would do it and bring out the red but that's advice for next time. Once it's already on the darker side, I don't know.
The fruit won't go bad in your beer as long as you took measures like pasteurizing. If improperly prepared, the fruit won't go bad but would negatively effect the beer.
A week or so is a good time (in my opinion). The beer will likely become dryer though and need back sweeting with a non-fermenting sweetener.

 

[voltron]

I just opened a strawberry ale I made and I left the strawberry's in secondary for only 1 week. Turn out great. As for color my went from a blonde to darker color not red. At this point it may be impossible to get the red color, since it is dark. Ages ago, I did a similar beer using a light beer kit and that one turned red, but it was a hazy red. which is expected since fruit has pectin.

 

[RCope]

Leave them in as long as it takes to fully ferment all of the sugars. Usually just a few days. Longer is ok. If you want to get a nice red color add hibiscus tea. 4 oz of hibiscus flowers (from Amazon) with 5 cups RO water boiled for a few minutes. Steep for an hour or two and strain into the fermentor. I usually add 3 oz to the boil and 3 oz to the fermentor, but one slightly larger addition at this point will work. Very little flavor addition...

 

[Billagio]

Thanks! Was thinking about hibiscus as well! So 4oz steeped in 5cups of water, then all 5 cups (strained) into the fermentor? How long do you let that sit for?

 

[RCope]

@Billagio I let it steep for an hour. It gets a very deep red, and absorbs quite a bit of the water. I use the back of my brew spoon to squish more of the fluid out through the strainer.

 

[Billagio]

@RCope Thanks! Will try this