Frozen strawberries in keg?

[Crogers]

I'm about to hit the road with a 5 gal keg of Bevarian Hefe... going to a 3 day event called the Strawberry Music Festival. Was wondering what would happen if I hung a sanitized grain bag with frozen strawberries in the keg. This will all get consumed within a couple of days, and I'm thinking that it would give it a bit of fresh strawberry flavor/aroma, and hanging it in a grain sack would keep the dip tube from clogging.

Yeah or nay?

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Yeah, if you are going to add the strawberries at least 1-2 weeks before consumption, otherwise I don't think you will have much strawberry flavor.

However, I would make sure you cold crash the beer, otherwise you might get a secondary fermentation.

 

[KellyK]

Careful with the frozen strawberries. I ruined a batch of perfectly good beer with them. Many of the "budget" frozen fruits are rinsed with heavily chlorinated water then flash frozen, locking in that delicious chlorine taste. You don't taste it too much when just eating them, but a little chlorine in beer will have your beer tasting like a bandaid in no time. I'd suggest using either fresh flash boiled (to sanitize) strawberries or making sure to get "organic" frozen ones.

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Careful with the frozen strawberries. I ruined a batch of perfectly good beer with them. Many of the "budget" frozen fruits are rinsed with heavily chlorinated water then flash frozen, locking in that delicious chlorine taste. You don't taste it too much when just eating them, but a little chlorine in beer will have your beer tasting like a bandaid in no time. I'd suggest using either fresh flash boiled (to sanitize) strawberries or making sure to get "organic" frozen ones.

Or buy some fresh strawberries and freeze them, it will break the cell walls down and allow more of the flavor to be absorbed by the beer, and if your ABV is above 5% then it is unlikely that any infection/contamination will occur. Beyond that it sounds like you will be emptying that keg too quickly for any bacteria to make an impact.

Just remember natural sugars are being added with the fruit, so you want to make certain you keep your yeast dormant, have removed a majority of it, or allowed the secondary fermentation to finish. By the sounds of your plan the latter is not applicable.

 

[weirdboy]

I always buy the fresh ones and freeze them...

As for putting them in the keg, you will definitely want to bag them, and maybe try to suspend the bag inside the kig to prevent them from blocking up your dip tube.

 

[BuonAnno]

Or buy some fresh strawberries and freeze them,

I always buy the fresh ones and freeze them...

This is my method as well. I quarter 3 lb of fresh strawberries per 5 gallons. I toss them with some Vodka and put the whole thing in the freezer. When I'm ready I simply dump them into the secondary. It works amazingly well.

In your case I would throw it all in a grain bag and suspend in the keg. Now I usually let them sit for about 10 days so if you are in a time crunch you may think about doing 4-5 lbs for 5-7 days. As others have mentioned I would occasionaly bleed out the excess CO2 caused from the addition of the sugars to prevent any issues.

 

[Crogers]

Thanks for all the advise... was in a time crunch, and left the beer fruitless. Keg kicked in a few hours!