When to add fruit to a lager

[Cal565]

I am planning on brewing a strawberry lager on Friday and plan on using 8# pounds of frozen strawberries. When would be the best time to add these? I am afraid that if I add it to the primary that most of the strawberry flavor will be lost with the CO2. If I add it to the secondary I am afraid that all the sugars will not get fermented out of the strawberries at the cooler temps and I will have to worry about bottle bombs. Has anyone had any experience using fruit in a lager?

 

[Cyclman]

Secondary, do a diacetyl rest towards the end to be sure beer is fully fermed.

 

[Cal565]

So, would you ferment and once 80% done do a diacetyl rest? Then rack on top of the strawberries and drop to lager temps and then do another diacetyl rest once it finishes lagering? Or once you rack on top of the strawberries, would you leave it at fermenting temperatures and then perform another diacetyl rest before dropping to lagering temps?

 

[batty]

So, would you ferment and once 80% done do a diacetyl rest? Then rack on top of the strawberries and drop to lager temps and then do another diacetyl rest once it finishes lagering? Or once you rack on top of the strawberries, would you leave it at fermenting temperatures and then perform another diacetyl rest before dropping to lagering temps?

I highly doubt you'll have an issue getting the strawberry to ferment out, even in secondary - they are very simple sugars and dry down to nothing. Your bigger issue will be getting any strawberry flavor to stick around after ferment - it is notorious for being very difficult to capture. I think you would be best off keeping that part of ferment as cool and slow as possible. re: the second diacetyl rest I would just taste after the strawbs are done.. then do one if necessary.

This gets me to think about doing another strawb beer.. think I would take a different tack this time though. used a kolsch yeast and I think if I just made a super dry beer, then actually stopped the ferment (by chilling or otherwise) then 'back sweeten' using the strawberry.. I keg so shouldn't be too tough to keep the ferment stopped.

 

[JayDubWill]

Last year I racked a wheat beer on to 3lbs of fresh diced peaches in secondary and left it alone for 3 weeks. Turned out ok, just took a long time (3 months give or take) for the peach flavor to come around and reasert itself. I bottled that batch using my normal amount of corn sugar and didn't have any issues with bottle bombs.

 

[Cal565]

Thanks everyone for the advice.