Strawberry Ale Problem

[OliveGrove]

Hello, I am new to making beer. Have been making wine for two years, but decided to try a Strawberry Ale. My husband has been brewing beer for two years. The recipe we tried indicated to add the mashed, frozen strawberries to the wort after it boiled for one hour. So, the last 20 minutes before cooling, we added 4 quarts of strawberries. They were from a local farm, destemmed, frozen, and then mashed before adding. After we transferred beer to the secondary from primary, we ended up with 4 gallons vs. 5 due to all the strawberry mash at the bottom of the primary. We have it in the secondary (one 3 gallon, and one 1 gallon). It has been almost two weeks, and it is still cloudy. I have read the majority of these threads, and almost all of them didn't add the strawberries until secondary fermentation. We have tried a taste when moving to secondary (that's not why we lost a gallon), and there is not much of a strawberry flavor, and a bit like the "smell of plastic" (that's the best I can describe it, and we did use a food grade primary fermenter). I am looking for advice to determine if I can rack one more time (tertiary) OVER more strawberries to get that stronger strawberry flavor? That's my first idea because I would like more of a strawberry flavor. If that is not recommended, what is the best way to save this batch? Should we wait longer to bottle to see if it clears on it's own, or should we add something to assist in clearing? Thank you!!!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Okay, because I just tried to write a huge paragraph that might turn into a "tl;dr" deal, I'll do some bullet points:

- It will probably be eternally cloudy unless you used pectin enzyme. Fruit release pectin into the beer and create this haze. But hazy beer is nothing to be concerned about, and is actually acceptable or even necessary for certain styles.

- You are spot-on with most people adding it to the secondary. Unless it's the 6 basic flavors (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, acid, umami) every other "taste" is actually a combination of smells and aforementioned flavors. Boiling drives off volatile compounds that create these smells, as does the height of a fermentation (when CO2 is released it can take other stuff with it.) That's why a lot of people add volatile or delicate flavors to the secondary. Yes, some fermentation will occur from the sugars in the fruit but it'll be far more tame.

- Plastic/vinyl off-flavors often come from chlorophenol in the beer. If you use tap water that is highly chlorinated or use chlorine-based sanitizers (i.e. bleach) then either could be your problem. Dilute your brewing water with distilled water if you have chlorinated water, and if you use bleach... well, stop it. You have to either let it sit and air-dry until it doesn't smell like bleach before using it, or rinse it off which defeats the purpose of sanitizing. Get some no-rinse sanitizer like iodophor or star-san.

 

[JLem]

Strawberries are notorious for not providing a lot of flavor - you have to use a ton of them to taste it in the final beer. By adding them to the hot wort you drove off a lot of the delicate aromas and then the primary fermentation finished it off by scrubbing it out with the release of co2. If you want more strawberry flavor/aroma you definitely can rack onto more fruit. Just be prepared to need a lot of it.

The haze is probably from the fruit pectins, which can "set" when heated (pectin is what jells fruit jellies/jams). You can add some pectinase, available wherever wine making supplies are sold - perhaps you already have some if you've been making fruit wines?

 

[OliveGrove]

Thank you for your response. We did use pectin enzyme. We used 4 Tablespoons, which was indicated in the recipe that we followed.

The sanitizer that we used for the primary fermenter is One Step No Rinse Cleaner. There isn't any mention of bleach on the label, but would like your opinion if that is one that you suggest continue using.

We do have chlorine in the water, but we put it through a filter system attached to our sink where we took the water from. We have not had this taste in the past, and have used the same water, but will take your distilled water suggestion for the future.

If you could reply about the One Step No Rinse Cleaner, it would be much appreciated!

Okay, because I just tried to write a huge paragraph that might turn into a "tl;dr" deal, I'll do some bullet points:

- It will probably be eternally cloudy unless you used pectin enzyme. Fruit release pectin into the beer and create this haze. But hazy beer is nothing to be concerned about, and is actually acceptable or even necessary for certain styles.

- You are spot-on with most people adding it to the secondary. Unless it's the 6 basic flavors (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, acid, umami) every other "taste" is actually a combination of smells and aforementioned flavors. Boiling drives off volatile compounds that create these smells, as does the height of a fermentation (when CO2 is released it can take other stuff with it.) That's why a lot of people add volatile or delicate flavors to the secondary. Yes, some fermentation will occur from the sugars in the fruit but it'll be far more tame.

- Plastic/vinyl off-flavors often come from chlorophenol in the beer. If you use tap water that is highly chlorinated or use chlorine-based sanitizers (i.e. bleach) then either could be your problem. Dilute your brewing water with distilled water if you have chlorinated water, and if you use bleach... well, stop it. You have to either let it sit and air-dry until it doesn't smell like bleach before using it, or rinse it off which defeats the purpose of sanitizing. Get some no-rinse sanitizer like iodophor or star-san.

 

[OliveGrove]

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we were just following a recipe that had great reviews We would like more strawberry flavor, so do you have suggestions on how much? I was reading some threads on other forums and there was a suggestion of buying a 5 pound bag of berries, and putting them in the carboy, for secondary fermentation. We have already secondary fermented, so we could do this tertiary, but for how long? Two weeks?

We are not familiar with pectinase, but should we tertiary ferment first, and see what it looks like in a few weeks before adding the pectinase?

Thank you for your time and suggestions. We really appreciate it. We have too much time and money into this batch to not enjoy the flavor. Trying to get it right!

Strawberries are notorious for not providing a lot of flavor - you have to use a ton of them to taste it in the final beer. By adding them to the hot wort you drove off a lot of the delicate aromas and then the primary fermentation finished it off by scrubbing it out with the release of co2. If you want more strawberry flavor/aroma you definitely can rack onto more fruit. Just be prepared to need a lot of it.

The haze is probably from the fruit pectins, which can "set" when heated (pectin is what jells fruit jellies/jams). You can add some pectinase, available wherever wine making supplies are sold - perhaps you already have some if you've been making fruit wines?

 

[JLem]

You can definitely use a tertiary and add more fruit. How much and for how long is hard to say - as with most fruit, it's going to come down to taste. Go ahead with the 5 pounds and check it after a week and proceed as needed.

Pectinase is the same as pectic enzyme.

Also, as far as I understand it, One Step is not a sanitizer, so you should just use it to clean and then sanitize with something like Star San.