Fruit Beer Strawberry Alarm Clock v3.0 (Strawberry Blonde)

[DaBman]

Have had this bottled for a few weeks now. Tastes great! A nice hint of strawberry but not overpowering or tart at all. Will absolutely brew some more of this again.

 

[toadfuller]

Hmm. I wonder if mine will even out over time. I realize a month in the bottle isn't that long. I am hoping for a little more fruit taste and less yeasty

 

[midfielder5]

"yeasty" can be a function of how well you strain/dont suck up sediment into your bottlingbucket.. not the recipe per se. if the bottles are carb'd, stick them in the fridge for~ 7 days & try one again. hopefully the yeast will drop out!

 

[toadfuller]

Sweet... will give that a shot. There did seem to be a rather thick yeast bed with this recipe.

 

[Petho]

I have this recipe in primry now and it looks and smells great.
My Questions:

1)I was thinking about going to secondary after 7 days of primary. Is that ok or should I go on SG readings?

2)I have 4lbs of cleaned and quartered strawberries in the freezer now. I am going to dump them directly into my better bottle and rack on top of them and not use a grain bag. Any thoughts on this? Is there anything I should look out for?

This is my first fruit so I am being cautious.
Thanks!

 

[weirdboy]

1. I would just wait until fermentation is done and then add a few days before you rack to secondary. If you need gravity readings to help you judge this, then use gravity readings. I feel like I get a cleaner base beer if I just give it 2 weeks or so.

2. I recommend against just racking directly on the fruit, and I especially recommend against doing it in a better bottle or carboy, especially if you are using a 5 gallon one. When you rack directly onto the strawberries you are going to get a billion little bits of strawberry in your beer that is very difficult to filter out when you want to package it later. You know those little tiny seedlings that are all over the surface of the strawberries? They just float around in your beer and are nearly impossible to get rid of completely, unless you invest in a filtering setup. For my first few batches of this I ended up with bits of strawberry in every bottle that ended up in people's glasses. A 5 gallon paint strainer bag can be bought at your hardware store, Lowe's, or Home Depot for a buck or two and significantly reduces the effort involved with managing the fruit.

Regarding the better bottle, the problem is that a) you won't be able to fit the fruit + beer in there, and b) when you rack the beer onto the fruit it is going to start fermenting again, and it will get EXPLOSIVE if you are using a 5 gallon carboy or better bottle. I am talking about painting strawberry beer on your ceiling, if you're lucky. I am speaking from experience in this matter.

If you use the paint strainer and a 6.5 gallon bucket, this is an extremely painless process from start to finish. If you use no strainer and/or a carboy, it becomes a pain in the butt.

 

[Petho]

Excellent. Thanks for the advice.
I have some HOP bags that I can use to put the berries in. I will boil the bags to sanitize them too.

Thanks Again!

 

[makomachine]

What's everyone's thoughts in pairing this with some vanilla for a strawberries and cream beer?

 

[lextasy23]

Just racked my Strawberry Summer Ale to secondary

 

[lextasy23]

What's everyone's thoughts in pairing this with some vanilla for a strawberries and cream beer?

Lactose for the milky mouthfeel. And way too many strawberries . With the right grains, you could have yourself a tasty strawberry shortcake brew lol.

 

[weirdboy]

Just racked my Strawberry Summer Ale to secondary

So, uh...I couldn't help but notice that your carboy looks VERY full.

I would use a BIG blowoff tube, NOT an airlock, and keep a close eye on that carboy. And pray that your fruit doesn't clog up any openings or your carboy could explode. You are pretty much guaranteed to have a messy second fermentation on your hands.

 

[makomachine]

So, uh...I couldn't help but notice that your carboy looks VERY full.

I would use a BIG blowoff tube, NOT an airlock, and keep a close eye on that carboy. And pray that your fruit doesn't clog up any openings or your carboy could explode. You are pretty much guaranteed to have a messy second fermentation on your hands.

My thoughts when I saw it was of my volcano science fair project in 7th grade. YIKES!

 

[lextasy23]

So, uh...I couldn't help but notice that your carboy looks VERY full.

I would use a BIG blowoff tube, NOT an airlock, and keep a close eye on that carboy. And pray that your fruit doesn't clog up any openings or your carboy could explode. You are pretty much guaranteed to have a messy second fermentation on your hands.

My thoughts when I saw it was of my volcano science fair project in 7th grade. YIKES!

Oh ya. Wayy full. I forgot to compensate for the volume the strawberries would take up, when i made the batch. I have a gallon in a growler also.

There's a blow-off hose on it, into a bucket of sanitizer.

 

[weirdboy]

Still, keep a very close eye on that thing. If it gets clogged up, even partially, you need to vent it immediately. And be prepared for beer to spray everywhere when you do that.


I had a glass carboy explode once during fermentation several years ago, and it was not pretty. It had a big blow-off tube, the the tube had gotten clogged up overnight. Not a fruit beer, just from the krausen.

If anyone had been in the same room they probably would have been killed. We were pulling pieces of glass out of the ceiling in 3 different rooms.

 

[lextasy23]

The carboy plug has 2 holes, one feeds the tube and another has a cap. I'd be willing to bet that it would blow the second cap long before it would blow the carboy... what did you have for a cap?

 

[weirdboy]

No cap the blowoff tube was 1" directly inserted into the top of the carboy.

If you are using a carboy cap I personally would be a bit worried just because those holes are pretty small.

 

[midfielder5]

Seriously full! I'd drain off 1/2 gallon into another growler.

 

[makomachine]

What's everyone's thoughts with doing this recipe with WLP007 instead of the S-04? I have a tube of the WLP007 and love this yeast.

 

[lextasy23]

What's everyone's thoughts with doing this recipe with WLP007 instead of the S-04? I have a tube of the WLP007 and love this yeast.

Try it, and let us know! (Only one way to find out...)

Experimenting at it's finest

 

[makomachine]

Try it, and let us know! (Only one way to find out...)

Experimenting at it's finest

I think the 007 will dry things out more than the S-04 and wasn't sure what the consensus was on how that would translate on this beer. Never done a fruit beer before, so it's all a giant experiment for me!

I was thinking of raising my mash temp a few degrees - say 155 - to account for the higher attenuation. Thoughts?

 

[weirdboy]

This beer already ends up feeling pretty dry to me with the S-04, I think in part because of the additional sugar from the strawberries, and also because it finishes a bit tart on the back of the palate.

I agree with raising the mash temp if you are going to use WLP007 or something like US-05. I think 154-156 range would work pretty well.

 

[makomachine]

This beer already ends up feeling pretty dry to me with the S-04, I think in part because of the additional sugar from the strawberries, and also because it finishes a bit tart on the back of the palate.

I agree with raising the mash temp if you are going to use WLP007 or something like US-05. I think 154-156 range would work pretty well.

Thanks for the quick input on that. I'm also weighing upping the crystal a hair but that's less likely as I don't want to change the malt character of the base too much.

 

[midfielder5]

I try to do a tried & true forum recipe once as is, then tweak it. Of course, for this one I changed the yeast bc of what I had on hand... lol.

 

[makomachine]

I try to do a tried & true forum recipe once as is, then tweak it. Of course, for this one I changed the yeast bc of what I had on hand... lol.

That's my usual approach as well. In this case, I've read where WLP007 is very close to S-04 but with a slightly higher attenuation. I love the malt character from 007 and had a tube already - the only reason I would modify first!

 

[pacifisticuffs]

Brewed up a batch of this today. Had some crisis with the mash tun leaking madly from its spigot, so I had to go with a half-assed brew-in-a-bag method in the kettle. Hit the target gravity at the end though, so I'm hopeful something drinkable will come out the other end.

 

[pacifisticuffs]

Removed the strawberries and added the gelatin today. Came in right on target at 1010. The sample I tried was great, and my girlfriend really liked it. The strawberry aroma is fantastic, and the tartness is refreshing.

My strawberries were a little long in the tooth and had started to rot. So I cut away as much of the mildew as possible and decided to cook them for a bit. This extracted a lot of juice, and the final product is quite good. I'll try this again with fresher strawberries and see how they compare.

 

[BWRIGHT]

Son of a……….Brewed this recipe up exactly as the OP. Racked it off of the berries yesterday and tasted the hydrometer sample. Awful. Definitely has a strong phenolic taste to it. VERY strong medicine/plastic taste. I’m so disappointed; this is the exact reason I’ve stayed away from using fruit in the past. This is actually the first time I’ve put fruit in any beer. I’ve never had a contaminated batch of beer before this, so I’m pretty sure my sanitation is sound. I’m guessing it’s got to be a wild yeast contamination from the berries. I washed them, halved, and froze them. Added them to the secondary after fermentation and let them sit for just over 3 weeks. No sign of anything unusual when I racked it yesterday. It was crystal clear with a slight reddish tint. The berries didn’t have anything on them that I could see. I’m going to let it sit for a few months and see what happens. I haven’t dumped anything yet. I hope this isn’t the first. I’m actually hoping I can find a cheap microscope somewhere to confirm that it actually is a wild yeast culprit. Son of a………

 

[weirdboy]

I racked another batch of this to keg a few days ago, and pulled a sample last night to see how it's coming along. The flavor is there, but my sample was pretty murky.

Of course, I skipped the gelatin this time to see how it did with just cold crashing in the keg, and I think I may have also forgotten the whirlfloc at the end of the boil. I didn't make a note of it one way or the other, but I know I had a batch somewhat recently where I forgot to add it. Anyway, I plan to give it another few weeks and if it's still cloudy I will throw some gelatin in there to see if I can't clean it up a bit more.

 

[weirdboy]

Son of a……….Brewed this recipe up exactly as the OP. Racked it off of the berries yesterday and tasted the hydrometer sample. Awful. Definitely has a strong phenolic taste to it. VERY strong medicine/plastic taste. I’m so disappointed; this is the exact reason I’ve stayed away from using fruit in the past. This is actually the first time I’ve put fruit in any beer. I’ve never had a contaminated batch of beer before this, so I’m pretty sure my sanitation is sound. I’m guessing it’s got to be a wild yeast contamination from the berries. I washed them, halved, and froze them. Added them to the secondary after fermentation and let them sit for just over 3 weeks. No sign of anything unusual when I racked it yesterday. It was crystal clear with a slight reddish tint. The berries didn’t have anything on them that I could see. I’m going to let it sit for a few months and see what happens. I haven’t dumped anything yet. I hope this isn’t the first. I’m actually hoping I can find a cheap microscope somewhere to confirm that it actually is a wild yeast culprit. Son of a………

Did you taste the sample before you added the strawberries?

Also, what kind of water are you using, what are you using to clean/sanitize your containers, and what did you use to clean the strawberries? This sounds like it could be chlorine/chlorophenols. Although it could also be some kind of infection as well, chlorine is usually the culprit among the brewers I know that get this flavor. I know I got this before on a witbier, and it was definitely chlorine that was responsible. Even an infinitesimal amount can cause pretty strong off flavors as the taste threshold for chlorophenols is very low; in the parts-per-billion range.

 

[BWRIGHT]

It tasted fine before I added the strawberries. My cleaning sanitation is good as far as the containers go; at least, I've never had a problem before. The only thing I did to the strawberries was rinse them off real good with tap water. I never use my tapwater for anything so I can't really comment on it. I know there is some chlorine in it. I use Iodophor for sanitizing so i don't know of any other source of chlorine. I use bottled spring water for all my brewing. There was no obvious sign of infection. No film or anything else out of the ordinary. So I guess it could be the chlorine in my tapwater or wild yeast. I was so looking forward to this beer.