Fruit Beer Succulent Strawberry Blonde

[matalec1984]

Thanks for the lactose input. I've been going back and forth on whether to use the lactose at the last 10 of the boil or in the secondary with the berries. I may be leaning towards the secondary at least for this batch.

Hopefully I can get this beer going on tuesday and have it drinkable for the very end of the summer/early fall.

 

[matalec1984]

So I'm brewing this beer as I type, figured I'd share what my final recipe ended up being.

Grains:
8 oz Carapils
12 oz White Whear
4 oz Crystal 20

Fermentables:
7 lb Extra Light DME
1 lb Wheat DME

Hops: 1 oz Sorachi Ace for bittering
.5 oz Willamette at (30 min)
.5 Willamette at (5 min)

Extra:
Whirfloc Tab (15 min)
.5 lb Lactose (10 min)

yeast: WLP 029 German Kolsch.

Im going to be using 7 lb of frozen strawberries in secondary.


I am going to have to add the lactose during secodary cause someone just came and bought the last 2 bags at my store

 

[Tizzomes]

I had the berries sit for three days and it turned out pretty good.You get the tart in the beginning but it mellows as you drink.

 

[matalec1984]

I racked over the strawberries and added my lactose mixture yesterday. I figure I'll give it about 3-5 days sitting on the strawberries and then rack over to tertiary. I can't wait to taste test.

 

[Marnrfn]

This is an awesome brew. I made it and used 7lb of strawberries in the 2nd fermenter for 2weeks at 60F then moved to refer another week at 40F. Kegged it and added 1.5 oz of Extract. One of my new favorites for the summer.

 

[hshiggins]

In case anyone is curious, I did the recipe with 7 pounds of blackberries as well. I think I like it better than the strawberries even.

 

[matalec1984]

Bottled this up yesterday. Did a quick taste test and was pleasantly surprised. It had a nice strawberry nose but still tasted like beer instead of strawberry juice. More importantly while there was a slight tart finish it was very subtle and I think the 1/2 lb of lactose I put into the secondary really helped out.

Can wait to try the finished product.

 

[D_Nyholm]

Wish I put lactose in mine as after a few months, it is still tart, though seems to be getting better. Pulled it from the keg and bottled it up and hid it in the back of a cabinet to revisit it in 3 months or so. Even with adding 3 tablespoons of splenda, the tartness is there and it tastes slightly like strawberry juice. I used a Texas blonde kit from ahs and I think it was too light to rack onto.

 

[smithnick0]

I bottled mine on 6-8-11 and tried a couple at the end of June. They were good but like most tart. I tired one last night for the first time in a month. Holy cow the beer was SO much better! The tartness was gone and had a smooth taste. I would compare it to Abita Strawberry anyday. If you make this let it sit for 6-8 weeks and you wont be dissapointed!

 

[blackbear219]

I ordered the ingredients for this yesterday and will be brewing it next week. I'm really excited to give this one a go and I think SWMBO is going to love it.

 

[matalec1984]

So I did my official taste test yesterday, the beer is carbonated and I have to say even though it only bottle conditioned for a week it is extremely drinkable!

There is a light natural tartness (after all it is strawberries) but the lactose did a great job of mellowing it out. It has a a great strawberry nose and a distinctive strawberry taste (i agree with the Abita comparison's) but finishes with a nice lingering malty after taste.

I was expecting to have to give this at least a month to bottle condition but to be completely honest this thing is ready to drink. I'm guessing that the longer it conditions the strawberry flavor will become lighter, so if you are looking for less of a strawberry taste I would still condition for awhile.

Outside of lightening the berry taste a little this recipe worked out great. A definite summer time pleaser especially for those who are looking for a fruiter easy drinking summer brew.

 

[Tizzomes]

How much lactose did you use? I brewed and drank most of mine and plan on making another batch

 

[matalec1984]

I only used a 1/2 pound boiled in water and I put it in the with strawberries in secondary and jsut racked over it.

My original plan was to use the 1/2 pound in the boil, but the store I work at was out of lactose. In the end I'm glad we were out because I think using it in the secondary worked really well.

 

[blackbear219]

I brewed this tonight. I ordered the ingredients from Austin Homebrew and the Cascade hops were 5.5% and the Saaz was 2.5% as opposed to the 7.5% and 5.8% respectively that the recipe calls for.

I did 1oz cascade for the full 60 min and 1/2 oz Saaz at 20 and another 1/2 oz at 5 min.

What kind of differences should I expect to see with the hops percentages being different? I figured that the strawberries provide the majority of the flavor in this brew so it wouldn't be a huge deal. Sorry, newbie question...this is my first non-kit batch. Thanks!

 

[matalec1984]

So this beer has been an absolute hit, so thanks again to the original poster....not only have the ladies enjoyed but most of my guy friends even those who hate fruity beers have given it a lot of love.

I have one issue however and that is over carbonation of sorts.

It has been bottled for about a month now and up until recently everything has been fine. However over the last few days if I leave a bottle in the fridge for more than an hour the bottle absolute explodes when opened. I know it may sound weird but if I give it less than an hour, or allow it to warm up first when I take it of the fridge it opens fine and tastes great.

I used the standard amount of priming sugar for bottling and have never had an issue like this before.

Thoughts? does it have to do with the lactose or strawberries used in the secondary?

 

[matalec1984]

So I'm still trying to figure out what has occurred that is causing issues with my beer.

I've never had an issues with exploding beers so I'm almost positive this is related directly to the use of fresh fruit.

The things I have come up with that could be the issue are...

The extra sugars from the strawberries that were put in secondary plus the priming sugar causing the beer to become way over carbonated. There really isn't any yeast to cause fermentation in the secondary at this point so is it possible that there is no much sugar in the bottles causing the massive amount of carbonation/exploding.

or, I used frozen berries but I only thawed them out and then put them in the secondary. Since frozen berries are "flash frozen" is it possible that the cell structure didn't break down on the berries enough and is causing a problem. And if so should I have thawed them out, and refroze them in the freezer slowly before using them.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, the beer was fantastic and its a bummer to have lost half the batch. I want to make it again but i would prefer to avoid the same issue

 

[blackbear219]

Here is what mine looks like at bottling. The color doesn't really come through. It's really red, almost like a red ale mixed with koolaid. It's also a lot clearer than I expected.

To me, it's pretty tart right now. However, I almost had to tie SWMBO down to keep her from diving into the bucket she loved it so much, so we'll see. In the closet it goes for 6 weeks or so.

 

[teetee523]

Hi everyone!
I brewed this earlier this summer but wanted to post my version. It came out great and has been a huge hit with everyone that has tried it! Thanks to the original poster. We decided to try a Strawberry/Raspberry version of the brew, so used the same base recipe. We got about 4 lbs of frozen strawberries from a local farm store, chopped off the leaves and cut them in half after rinsing them all off. Put them in a freezer bag and stuck in the freezer. Also got 2 bags of frozen organic raspberries from Trader Joes and used about 3 lbs of them. After about 1.5 weeks in the primary, transferred to secondary (both were 7.5 gallon buckets) on top of frozen fruit.

Left the beer with the fruit in secondary for another 1.5 weeks. When bottling, I used a sanitized strainer to get all the fruit out, which had just floated to the top of the bucket and were a strange color. Then bottled. Here's a picture of the final product!



One note is that I wish we had done a tertiary fermenter just to get any leftover fruit particles. It really wasn't that bad though, the brew ended up being pretty clear with that pinkish tint. It was pretty fruity, but I liked the taste because it wasn't artificial. Even my boyfriend who doesn't like fruity beers enjoyed this. It came out at about 5.4% but you could not taste it.

Definitely a great summer brew with easy drinking. Definitely going to brew this again next summer!

 

[teetee523]

So I'm still trying to figure out what has occurred that is causing issues with my beer.

I've never had an issues with exploding beers so I'm almost positive this is related directly to the use of fresh fruit.

The things I have come up with that could be the issue are...

The extra sugars from the strawberries that were put in secondary plus the priming sugar causing the beer to become way over carbonated. There really isn't any yeast to cause fermentation in the secondary at this point so is it possible that there is no much sugar in the bottles causing the massive amount of carbonation/exploding.

or, I used frozen berries but I only thawed them out and then put them in the secondary. Since frozen berries are "flash frozen" is it possible that the cell structure didn't break down on the berries enough and is causing a problem. And if so should I have thawed them out, and refroze them in the freezer slowly before using them.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, the beer was fantastic and its a bummer to have lost half the batch. I want to make it again but i would prefer to avoid the same issue

I had a similar issue with our brew, but I think it might've been unrelated to the fruit since there was a similar problem with earlier brews. I spoke with our LHBS guy and he said that it might've been since we hadn't been thoroughly cleaning our bottles that we'd already gotten the labels off of, just rinsed them with hot water. Not sure if this could be your problem but I had already thought it might've been the extra sugars from the fruit. We also used frozen fruit, not sure if that's the problem. Did you leave it in the fermenter for long enough? We did a total of 3 weeks, 1.5 with the fruit. Annoying problem, but if the fruit is the only change, it could be that. Hope you figure it out!

 

[matalec1984]

Yeah knock on wood, I have never had a sanitation issue. I've never had any other beers that have gushed or whatnot.

As far as my length of fermentation I left it in primary for 7 days, racked to secondary where I put the fruit and lactose in, let it sit there for 5 days on the fruit and then racked to a tertiary for an additional 2 weeks. All in all it had about 3.5 weeks of fermentation time.

I've spoken with a few other people and they haven't been able to give me much in the way of answers. It's getting old up here in New England so I will probably have to wait until next spring to try and figure out what the issue was.

 

[ShKotty]

Making some of this strawberry blond this weekend! Looking forward to it. One question, did you leave the strawberry frozen when pouring the wort on top??

 

[engineer100]

Just made this batch. Am looking forward to putting the fruit into it. I've never done a secondary fermentation before nonetheless with fruit.

 

[teetee523]

Making some of this strawberry blond this weekend! Looking forward to it. One question, did you leave the strawberry frozen when pouring the wort on top??

This response might be too late for you, but I just froze my fruit and took them out of the freezer right into a sanitized fermenter then siphoned wort on top of it. Before racking to bottling bucket, I used a strainer to get most of the fruit out which had floated to the top.

 

[zangung]

Brewing this up today. I'm actually making it a imperial strawberry blond

 

[ShKotty]

Bluelinebrewer, how long did you let this brew sit in bottles??

 

[ShKotty]

Ok here's the situation. I brewed this beer about a week ago with some edits to the recipe. I used 6.6 pounds of Muntons Extra Light LME and 2 pounds of Muntons DME, and Ale I Wyeast pack (what I had available) -- I came up with an OG reading of 1.098 = way high. Is this a matter of my differences in ingredients?

Now, after 7 days in primary the gravity reading is 1.034 with my refractometer. I have read that refractometers are not accurate when alcohol is present and to just use the handy-dandy hydrometer for a good reading (although I recently shattered mine). I checked it two days in a row and still 1.034 -- Do I have a stuck fermentation on my hands?

I went ahead and racked it into secondary onto 8 pounds of frozen strawberry and threw in some active dry yeast, thinking this might get it going again, and set my room up to around 75 degrees. The airlock is bubbling but still pretty slowly. Sorry for the long post, but any pointers here???

 

[ArrowheadAles]

@shkotty

How did this turn out?

 

[ShKotty]

This brew has turned out very well so far. I just bottled it yesterday after 2 weeks in tertiary. Fairly cleared out, but will do more in the bottles I believe. It smells unelievably good so I am pumped to try it! My final gravity reading (with hydrometer) was 1.014, so I am happy with that -- I just don't trust my initial reading of 1.098 -- that would be a meaty beer/wine combo. Will let everyone know how it tastes!

 

[Bluelinebrewer]

Wow, haven't logged into HBT for a looooooong time.... Life kinda got busy and just haven't had the time to brew. Recently got a beer kit for Christmas, and thought I'd try to get back into it. I had no idea there were so many posts on this thread!! It appears that the beer seems to be good! I'll try to read back through all of them and see if there's any questions, that haven't been answered yet.

 

[ArrowheadAles]

I made a 10 gal all grain batch of a basic blonde ale and split into two fermenters. Tomorrow I'm racking to secondary after two week primary and putting half of onto 3lbs of frozen strawberry.

I'm also getting a little crazy and dry hopping with .5 oz of sorachi ace for a hint of lemon character too. The other 5 gal I'm dry hopping with sorachi ace and a little cascade. I'll be kegging the strawberry and bottling the other. Hope it all turns out!

Cheers