Adding strawberry to a blonde ale

[Soulshine2]

Imo, it takes a lot of fruit to bring a respectable character
fwiw, I do a raspberry hibiscus wheat beer that uses 9 pounds of berries in a 10 gallon batch...

Cheers!

sounds about right. when i made my blackberry pomegranate hibscus kettle sour (with locally grown and sourced wheat and homegrown Crystal hops) , i used 4 lbs of blackberries in secondary ...add the juice of 1 lime to that too, the tiny amount of citrus helps bring out the berry flavors . you dont taste the lime at all.

 

[couchsending]

At what stage did you add the freeze dried strawberries and 1-10 rating for level of strawberry flavor did you get for only 8 ounces?

At the very end of fermentation.

I’m not 100% sure but I believe 8oz of freeze dried would be equivalent of about 12# of fresh, or somewhere in that neighborhood. I would say a 8 or 9 out of 10 in regards to impact. It’s pretty saturated and very red/pink in color.

With freeze dried you also don’t lower the ABV by diluting with so much water. If anything it actually can increase the ABV.

 

[kenmcchord]

Quick update. It's been 11 days or so since I added the strawberries to the secondary and after receiving some good advice to cold crash this before I try kegging I cobbled together a solution with my cold crash guardian. I have no idea how this is going to come out, I've had days in here where the temp strip read 78° and others where it read 72°. When I first transferred this over you could see yeast moving through the beer, and the airlock had some subtle activity. The past 4-5 days it's been mostly calm but as I said the temp has been pretty high.

I'll give it a good two or three days in here before I try to transfer it over. I still don't have a clue how I am going to transfer it off of that strawberry mess at the bottom, I only hope that a few days in the mid 30's will help this clear up. It would be sweet if that tube at the bottom was visible and out of the mess, I would love to drain it to keg through that valve.

I'll update again when I get this in the keg, of course with tasting notes too. Wish me luck!

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I always rubber-band a square of paint strainer nylon mesh with a large SS washer inside to the end of my racking cane, stick the end in my Star San bucket while I attached the sanitized tubing with beer QD.

In use I start with the cane tip above the beer line, and push enough CO2 through the tubing to purge it before attaching the QD to the keg. I have the carboy wedged into a healthy tilt, then I put the cane end in the beer about halfway, get the flow going (pressure just 1 psi the whole time), then wait for the beer level to drop to nearly the end of the cane, then follow the dropping beer level until the transfer is done. That way the mesh doesn't get immediately loaded up, and taking advantage of the tilt effect provides more margin at the end as well.

When I racked both batches of my raspberry wheat I had no problems in spite of the massive pile of clear raspberry skins at the bottom...

Cheers!

 

[kenmcchord]

Does that mean you have a CO2 line into your fermenter? Do you have a picture of that in use? Thanks, this sounds like a perfect solution to my situation.

 

[AzOr]

Apologies for late response as I see the OP has already brewed his batch.

However, for others that are considering using fruit in beer;
-raspberries and strawberries are very tart. I find that using 6 oz of honey malt really helps to balance the tartness. I’ve only tried this in blondes and pales. Other styles may have enough malt character.
-strawberries lose their vibrant red fairly quickly and can turn brownish. A small amt of hibiscus tea or leaves can really keep the reddish color.

 

[day_trippr]

Does that mean you have a CO2 line into your fermenter? Do you have a picture of that in use? Thanks, this sounds like a perfect solution to my situation.

Here's the basic setup, though I put the keg atop a digital scale set on the floor now.

Here's what the cap looks like. The inset is to make it clear what that part is
The 1/4" flare thread carries to the post adapter - which is specific to that post, though other adapters are available for other type of gas posts (chicompany.net carries all these parts).

And chasing the beer down...

Cheers!

 

[kenmcchord]

Thanks again for the input @day_trippr Just curious, I ordered some parts from MoreBeer and shipping has these parts coming in on April 7th? Would it be bad to leave this in the fridge for that long or do you think I need to move it out and off the strawberries sooner?

I find this to be the more frustrating part of homebrewing, the cobbling together of solutions through various trial and error methods. Alas, the fun of homebrew... Thanks again!

 

[day_trippr]

I'm inclined to think it wouldn't hurt the beer as long as the fermenter isn't allowed to "breath" air, which presumably your cold-crashing rig should prevent...

Cheers!

 

[kenmcchord]

Quick update, I got all the parts in yesterday and managed to transfer it all into my keg. It's under pressure now and I'll give it a try in a week. This sure did sit on the strawberries for quite a while, no telling how it will be going down but I'll report our tasting notes. This was a pretty cool solution, a floating pick up tube that stayed well above the strawberry mess. I was able to fill a 5 gal keg and still keep out any of the gunk at the bottom. Thanks to @Dgallo for the great idea! Here's a few pictures I took...

 

[cmac62]

Looking forward to hearing how this came out.

 

[kenmcchord]

It's been 5 days since it was kegged up and I thought I would give this a try. Carbonation seems just right, the foam sticks to the side of the glass a bit and is around for a little while. This brew was the from a recipe called Centennial Blonde. It's supposed to be 4% but I missed a little and I'm at 3.75%. This is a light beer, the lightest beer I've had for a homebrew. The strawberries are there, but it's more of a tartness than anything else. Very refreshing!

So I'm calling this a win, got 5 gallons on tap. Should be perfect for my lawn mowing days that are coming up. Thanks again for all the tips and tricks you guys offered.

Cheers!

 

[enkamania]

I do a strawberry cream ale with 48 ounces (mine, not the canned stuff). I add to primary at day 3 or 4. I add a little strawberry extract to the keg.