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

[jazzyfool]

Just racked onto strawberries about 5 days ago and I opened up the fermenter to look at its progress. White film, powdery substances coated the top of the beer. It smells fruity, a bit tart - I tasted it and its really light, smooth with no tartness/acidity to speak of.

Thoughts? Do I have an infection/wild brewing?

 

[pwortiz]

It looks like that might be some of what they call "bret"? I have 0 experience with it but would like to hear from some experts! When I racked off, I didn't have anything that looked like that but I also didn't check it during the 3 weeks.

 

[uncleben113]

Been fermenting this for about 2 weeks now and I plan on adding fruit to it tomorrow. Instead of doing just strawberries, I'm splitting to batch into 3 smaller batches and adding strawberries to one, blueberries to another, and peaches to the last one.

I have three 3 gallon glass carboys that have pretty small neck holes so I had to dice up the strawberries and peaches and smash the blueberries. I was originally planning on freezing the blueberry concoction in a bowl but then I realized that I was going to have a large block of blueberry ice. This is what I came up with:

Tasty looking, I know. I'm just going to freeze these and chunk them into the carboy one by one. I have two trays of this stuff and I think the size of the ice cubes will be small enough to fit into the carboy neck holes.

I just bagged up my diced strawberries and peaches and threw them in the freezer.

I'm do have a question. Does it matters what temperature I condition these at? I have a kegerator that I can temp control and I can squeeze only two of them in so the third may just have to go into my fridge, which is about 40 degrees F. Is that too cold? My house gets pretty hot so I'd rather not just leave it in the closet.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[SkylerChaBro]

My buddies and I are about to finally start this brew on Thursday the 28th. I think I'm going to follow the lead of a few others here and add some blue or blackberries to the recipe. If anyone has some input on how much of each berry to consider adding, let me know.

 

[Nescent]

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

 

[knuckleheadbrewing]

I've been following this thread for a bit now and just finally got up the courage to try this out. I deviated from the extract recipe a bit as I miscounted the weight ( we use kg in Australia) and added in 2kg of wheat dme and did the right amount of the other dme. The fermenter is bubbling away, I'll be racking into my secondary in a few day's. I'll keep everyone posted

I've brewed it before I didn't worry with all the clairifing agents and it comes out and looks like this...and is amazing!

 

[Nescent]

That looks great!!

Mine is much darker due to the extra wheat. I just racked over 2kg of mixed berries and it tasted great! My starting of was 1065 and went into the secondary at 1010. Not sure how much alcohol I might get out of the secondary, but at nearly 8% now, I am happy. Should I expect much activity from the secondary?

 

[knuckleheadbrewing]

I brewed a variation of this over the weekend...I left out the Flaked Wheat, and dropped the grain bill keeping myself within BJCP guidelines for a blonde, OG came in at 1.044.....

 

[tydoug]

Just cracked open my first bottle last night and it was delicious. I followed the original recipe and will definitely be brewing again. Thanks

 

[ZombieBrew83]

I made up a batch of this substituting the strawberries with a can of apricot puree I picked up at Midwest. This was the only change I made to the original recipe.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/apricot-vintner-s-harvest-fruit-puree.html

All I did was sanitize the top of the can and the opener before pouring the mix into my primary about 10 days after pitching. Surprisingly, this did not kick up another fermentation like the strawberries did. I'm not sure what the sugar difference between the two additions comes out to. I cracked a couple bottles over the weekend. I am pretty pleased with the results. The apricot is much more subtle than the strawberry but is still pleasant to drink. The beer has more or a general fruit quality as opposed to a flavor as easily identifiable as strawberry. It was easier to add and manage (just dumping the puree and not having to deal with the actual fruit) than the strawberry addition.

Given the popularity of the strawberry batch I made up a couple months ago, I plan on doing the original recipe again soon. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[madkap_78]

has anyone tried doing this recipe using strawberry flavoring instead of real strawberries? Is the flavor the same? how much would you need would 4oz be enough?

 

[pwortiz]

has anyone tried doing this recipe using strawberry flavoring instead of real strawberries? Is the flavor the same? how much would you need would 4oz be enough?

IMO, flavorings are usually pretty strong so 4 oz would definitely be enough, but with all flavor in general, it comes to personal taste. That's also a key to having a bottle of flavoring - you can add to taste

That said, I do not believe that the flavor will be the same. Flavorings rarely are - again, that's my opinion.

I have heard that Wicked Pete's Strawberry Blonde is made with flavoring so you might get more of that sweeter flavor vs the tartness from the real berries.

In either case, I'm pretty sure I'd drink your beer.

 

[ZombieBrew83]

has anyone tried doing this recipe using strawberry flavoring instead of real strawberries? Is the flavor the same? how much would you need would 4oz be enough?

I have only done this recipe with real frozen strawberries so I can't compare. However, using the real fruit made for a delicious beer! What makes you apprehensive about using real fruit? I think that you could even try using less fruit and still have a delicious strawberry beer. IMO the 4lbs is really pushing the fruit flavor into an almost wine-cooler taste. But my wife (and her friends) love it and it is a refreshing beer on a hot day. Good luck!

 

[madkap_78]

I was thinking it would be easier and probaly alot cheaper to just get some strawberry flavoring of some kind. If I go that route Ill probaly add it at bottling. How much should I add? I was going to do 4oz for a 5gal batch. is that too much?

 

[weirdboy]

Well it is certainly easier, although I don't know about cheaper. I usually make this when strawberries are in season and selling for dirt cheap. I think the most I've paid for the 4lbs of strawberries I've needed for this beer is around $6, and usually it is $4 or less.

Those little bottles of flavoring/extract are not particularly cheap.


I personally don't use the extract, *especially* the strawberry extract, because it has a peculiar flavor to it that tastes wholly artificial to me. You can taste it in e.g. Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde. That is why I came up with this recipe in the first place. However, my tastes are not the same as everyone else's, so if you want to do flavoring additions go for it. As to how much...my advice is to pull yourself maybe a 12 oz sample (be sure to measure the amount carefully...use a measuring glass to hold your sample) from the primary and try adding extract to it with a dropper for which you know the amount in each drop. Then you can slowly add drops, mix, and taste it until you get to the level of strawberry flavoring you like. Count how many drops you added, and figure out the ratio you need for the full batch.

 

[ZombieBrew83]

madkap, If you go to discount grocery stores you can usually get frozen strawberries for $2/lb in the Twin Cities. It really is not that difficult with frozen fruit. All you do is soak a large nylon mesh bag in starsan, dump in the fruit (make sure the bag does not touch unsterilized surfaces), knot the bag, and then put the bag in the primary. I've used this method twice without infection. The results certainly speak for themselves.

I would again urge you to bite the bullet and spend the extra couple bucks to get real fruit. Try it with only 3 lbs if you need to save a little. I agree with weirdboy about the fakeness flavor of strawberry extract. I did this with real fruit and the beer tasted and smelled like strawberry preserves my grandma use to make.

What ever you decide to do make sure you post your results to let others learn from your experience.

 

[absoluthamm]

Keg is ready and will be my football drink today

 

[robodeath]

Has anyone tried Dogfish Head TweasonAle and compared it to this brew? I want to brew a gluten free version of this. Has anyone tried back sweetening it?

 

[weirdboy]

I had never heard of Tweason'Ale before, but looking at their page for it, my guess is that it tastes completely different. I will see if I can find a bottle around here and try some to get an idea of what that beer is actually like, because it's quite difficult to gauge just from reading a paragraph.

I have been meaning to brew a gluten-free beer just to try it out, but to be honest, I don't think I've ever even had a gluten free beer and I don't know which ones are worth drinking. I don't have any friends who suffer from celiac (at least, that I know of) so it's not like I am motivated to design gluten-free recipes. That being said, I have heard some interesting things about this stuff called Clarity Ferm, which is a fining agent that supposedly removes glutens from beer in addition to clarifying it.

Here is a thread here on HBT about it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/has-anyone-tried-clarity-ferm-brewers-clarex-white-labs-175574/

And here's a short article which talks about Widmer's use of Clarex/Clarity Ferm in their brewing process for GF beers:
http://www.katu.com/news/business/Craft-Brew-Alliance-shares-gluten-free-beer-secrets-150193935.html

 

[robodeath]

I have some clarity ferm and am going to try it with an extract honey cream ale kit. I was diagnosed with celiac disease 2 years ago. Drinking a sorghum pale ale homebrew right now.

I'm going to make a basic sorghum brew and secondary it onto strawberries and see how it goes. I'll probably end up adding honey before kegging, I like this TweasonAle, it's very sweet.

 

[h0psnobery]

bump

 

[Stovetop535]

I made a batch of this a few weeks ago to serve at a party he first week in may. It is currently in the secondary on the strawberries where it will sit at least another week or two.

One question, has anyone added some strawberries to the keg for additional flavor? I will be serving this from the keg at the party so it would be easy to drop a few lbs of strawberries into the keg.

Thanks

Alex

 

[theCougfan97]

Just brewed this about 24 hrs ago. The fermentation is putting off a pretty foul/sweet odor, anyone know if this is normal?

 

[weirdboy]

I wouldn't worry about any odd smells during fermentation for any beer.

 

[ZombieBrew83]

Notes on how long to let this sit on the berries:

I've made this recipe three times. I just racked the latest batch into a keg last night. Each time through I've played with the time the beer spends sitting on strawberries. My method for adding the berries is to put 4 pounds of whole, frozen berries from Aldi (econo grocery store) into a sanitized nylon bag, dunk the whole thing in starsan a couple times, and gently lower the bag into my primary bucket ( I do not secondary.) The bucket stays in the high 60s the entire time.

I've noticed slight differences in the final strawberry flavor/aroma in the finished product depending on the time the berries were in the beer. I've done 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and 4 weeks. Each time the beer turns out fantastic. It is a crowd favorite for sure. However, it seems like the longer time on the berries pushes the flavor toward strawberry preserves. The shorter time leaves a fresher berry flavor/aroma. Anyone else notice a difference? Just thought I'd share.

 

[weirdboy]

That sounds like a heat x time issue to me. I bet if you had the strawberries on the beer at 35 degrees instead of high 60's you'd get a fresher flavor. I definitely get more of a "preserve" flavor if I pasteurize the strawberries before using them.

 

[brewser7]

I recently made a 10 gallon batch of this (third time) and I'm about ready to add the strawberries to the fermenter. I've been reading up on the use of gelatin to clear up the beer. I had a crazy thought to use a strawberry jello mix on this one. It could add more strawberry flavor or it could royally screw it up. Anyone ever try something like that?
Thoughts?

 

[weirdboy]

My only thought is that it will probably kick off a bit of fermentation again, since jello has sugar in it. I tried to find out how much sugar is in it by looking at nutrition info online, and the only reference I could find said it's 80 calories in a 3oz packet, which would mean ~20 grams of sugar which is .7 oz...probably not enough to worry about, but I wouldn't want to do it if your plan is to bottle immediately afterwards, as it would probably screw up your priming sugar calculations. If you are kegging then I don't see why not.

 

[yellowjacket151]

Sincere appreciation goes out to Wierdboy for this recipe. Second year I've done it. Went so fast last year that I made a double batch this this time around. This time I pitched 5gal with S-04 and the other 5gal with Notty's to do a side by side yeast comparison. My only tweak has been to add a small amount of lactose to the boil to balance the strawberry tartness.

Cold crash question- I recently picked up a chest freezer and am using it for this batch before my inaugural lager. After 3 days @ 35F w/ gelatin, the beer was absolutely crystal clear at bottling. I've never seen my beer clear up like that before. Should I have any concern about there being enough yeast still in solution to bottle condition?

 

[weirdboy]

Crystal clear at at bottling? Business as usual IMO. That is how it's supposed to look! I would not worry about the yeast. Unless you've been lagering it for a few months you'll still get plenty of activity soon after you add some sugar to carbonate.

FYI I did this beer once fermented with a lager yeast, and it turned out pretty clean and tasty. I want to say on that one I did a split-batch and side-by-side fermented with S-04 and a lager yeast. The ale yeast might have been US-05, though.