Hi all,
My friend and I both brewed some beer this weekend - Mine an oatmeal stout, and his, a strawberry beer. Mine is bubbling away just fine, but his is not. Here are the details:
His recipe called for 10# of frozen strawberries to be added to the primary. We are both using buckets, so that's not a big deal. It's a 5 gallon all grain batch that, after his boil, turned out to be more like 4 gallons. He cooled it down to about 80 degrees and tossed the strawberries in. This, of course, dropped the temp down to probably 60 or so. His OG was around 1.060, I don't have his notes to give you the specific, but all looked normal.
He pitched dry American Ale yeast (we both incidentally pitched the same kind of yeast, purchased that day from our LHBS, and mine is fine so I don't THINK the yeast was the problem.) We then stirred in the yeast and yeast nutrient with sanitized paddles and put the buckets in their dark, 60 degree corner of my house where they've been since Saturday night. I check on them occasionally when I'm walking by, and mine is going great. His has not yet had one bubble. This is his first attempt at any kind of fruit beer (I've never made one either) and I'm thinking the strawberries probably should have been thawed first. He said the recipe he found said to put frozen strawberries in the primary. Hey, if the recipe says it, one would assume that must be correct.
What do you guys think? Should I warm it up to 70 or so and see if we can energize the little buggers, or did they freeze to death, and another pitching is necessary?
My friend and I both brewed some beer this weekend - Mine an oatmeal stout, and his, a strawberry beer. Mine is bubbling away just fine, but his is not. Here are the details:
His recipe called for 10# of frozen strawberries to be added to the primary. We are both using buckets, so that's not a big deal. It's a 5 gallon all grain batch that, after his boil, turned out to be more like 4 gallons. He cooled it down to about 80 degrees and tossed the strawberries in. This, of course, dropped the temp down to probably 60 or so. His OG was around 1.060, I don't have his notes to give you the specific, but all looked normal.
He pitched dry American Ale yeast (we both incidentally pitched the same kind of yeast, purchased that day from our LHBS, and mine is fine so I don't THINK the yeast was the problem.) We then stirred in the yeast and yeast nutrient with sanitized paddles and put the buckets in their dark, 60 degree corner of my house where they've been since Saturday night. I check on them occasionally when I'm walking by, and mine is going great. His has not yet had one bubble. This is his first attempt at any kind of fruit beer (I've never made one either) and I'm thinking the strawberries probably should have been thawed first. He said the recipe he found said to put frozen strawberries in the primary. Hey, if the recipe says it, one would assume that must be correct.
What do you guys think? Should I warm it up to 70 or so and see if we can energize the little buggers, or did they freeze to death, and another pitching is necessary?
