Fruit Beer Wild Strawberry Blonde

[Steve3730]

Are you stil using extract as well? Take a look at the Succulent Strawberry Blonde thread. It is a extract and the inspiration for mine. Maybe between the two recipe's, you can come up with a hybrid?

I will check it out. I use extract but as little as possible. My first partial mash i used 6lbs of grain in 3 gallons. Sparged with 2.5 gallons and added 3.5lbs of extract for a 1.070 beer

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Also if I batch sparge should I just combine and do a single 5g?

I would definitely sparge. at least once.

 

[HalfWit]

The Costco berries worked great. I used 18lb on a 10gal batch. The aroma , color and flavor is great on the berry side. Just re-racked them and pulled all the strawberries out. Will keg and bottle in 5 days. cold crashing right now. Something on the front end does taste a little off. It's only the 1st sip and a spit sec. after that all is great. I didn't find American Pils so I think I used Canadian or German. We'll check my notes. Hopefully it will go away in the re-racking.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

The Costco berries worked great. I used 18lb on a 10gal batch. The aroma , color and flavor is great on the berry side. Just re-racked them and pulled all the strawberries out. Will keg and bottle in 5 days. cold crashing right now. Something on the front end does taste a little off. It's only the 1st sip and a spit sec. after that all is great. I didn't find American Pils so I think I used Canadian or German. We'll check my notes. Hopefully it will go away in the re-racking.

Frozen or fresh berries? I notice a big difference in taste (a little off) when using frozen. That's why I only use fresh now.

 

[tally350z]

I wanted to update on my attempt at brewing this. I brewed the base beer and racked the beer onto the strawberries within 10 days. I actually got really busy so I was not able to keg the beer and take it off the strawberries until about 20 days later. Most of the strawberry flavor was gone and it was a bit too tart(used 5lbs in 5 gallon batch).
I really wanted to get a great strawberry flavor, I was planning on using the strawberry extract but after getting a bottle of it, it was too artificial for me so I didn't want to use it. I ended up taking 4lbs of fresh strawberries, freezing them and then putting them into my blender. I blended for about 5 minutes until I knew it was nice and liquefied. I then poured the puree into a hop bag and added it to the keg.
I will post another update with the taste once the beer has carbonated and is ready to drink. Its been a fun learning process..

 

[Steve3730]

brewing this next weekend. How is everyone sanitizing their strawberries? I plan on stemming them and freezing them, but do we give them a little spray of starsan too?

 

[nextgenxx]

brewing this next weekend. How is everyone sanitizing their strawberries? I plan on stemming them and freezing them, but do we give them a little spray of starsan too?

I just washed really good, freezed, then pitched. I don't think you need to stem them though. The OP might know more.

And on that note I am off to go pick 20# of hood strawberries this morning!! strawberry fields forever!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

I rinse, stem and freeze. Thats all. In my mind, right or wrong, the freezing will kill any bacteria. I've never had an infection, so there's that. Im sure a spray of star san wouldnt hurt, but dont know if it's necessary.

 

[nextgenxx]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1433614796.497573.jpg
I lied 25#'s of hoods!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Nice!!!!

 

[smit70136]

I've not brewed this recipe but in my experience yeast will absolutely go to town on strawberries so the risk of infection is pretty low no matter what you do. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm even close to dumping a load of just picked strawberries into my carboy without some sort of sanitation! Just not something to loose sleep over IMO.

 

[wantonsoup]

I found it was a little off right away too but a few weeks later it's phenomenal.

 

[nextgenxx]

Knowing that I love sour beers, at what stage, or what would be needed to turn this into a sour strawberry batch? I have 10 gallons (2x5) almost fermented out (1week so far) and just about ready to add the berries for the next steps. Just wondering if I could add Brettanomyces yeast next with the berries and make a sour strawberry brew?

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

I'm not a fan of sour beers, but this idea sounds great. Someone with experience in sours will need to chime in though.

 

[Wreck99]

It's not sour at all.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

It's not sour at all.

haha

 

[nextgenxx]

The reason I am curious about this is because last weekend I was at Portland's Fruit Beer Festival and they had a Widmer fresh strawberries beer that tasted really good...notes below.

Widmer Brothers Brewing: Fresh Strawberries
Tart Farmhouse Saison with Strawberries
Fresh Strawberries is a collaboration brew with Coda Brewing from Aurora, Colorado. Using Saison as a base, we added fresh strawberries and then kettle soured the beer with Lactobacillus to increase the tartness and balance out the sweetness from the fruit. French Sasion yeast allowed us to pull some subtle spicy notes in the aroma and flavor. 5.4 % ABV.

Any sour pros out there?

 

[Rocko2620]

Well after racking to secondary on the strawberries this was the first time i have had anything blow up through my airlock.. cleaned it out and it is still going nuts.. may need to do a blowoff tube..

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Sounds like you racked to secondary too soon. How long did you ferment in primary before racking?

 

[Rocko2620]

it was in primary for 10 days at 68 degrees, krausen dropped to almost nothing showing, racked it to secondary and then 3 days later i checked on it and it was blowing thru.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Wow. Did you take a gravity reading before racking to secondary?

 

[Rocko2620]

Wow. Did you take a gravity reading before racking to secondary?

Unfortunately I was not smart enough to.. i have racked on apples, and apricots and even pears (for cider) before never had fermentation explode back up like this.. it was mighty tasty though i gotta say!!!!

 

[iijakii]

Knowing that I love sour beers, at what stage, or what would be needed to turn this into a sour strawberry batch? I have 10 gallons (2x5) almost fermented out (1week so far) and just about ready to add the berries for the next steps. Just wondering if I could add Brettanomyces yeast next with the berries and make a sour strawberry brew?

Brett isn't sour. You need lacto or pedio for that. Being from Portland, surely you've had the pleasure of going to Cascade? They use ale yeast to ferment and then sour with just lacto. A sour mash would also go great on this so you could turn it quickly.

 

[Steve3730]

Smell of this was delicious!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Thanks to everyone for putting this recipe in the top 100! Glad everyone likes it so much.

 

[Steve3730]

I took this to a family yard party and they floated the keg in just a few hours. It was a big hit!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

I took this to a family yard party and they floated the keg in just a few hours. It was a big hit!

Awesome!

 

[iijakii]

Mine's just about carbed up. First couple sample bottles have tasted great.

 

[wmubronco]

Another fruit beer with rave reviews, looks like I will have to try this one. Only brewed a peppered (used comopeno peppers from the mountains of Mexico - don't ask how I got them across the border) raspberry wheat before, and that one was a hit.

Cheers!

 

[res0prw2]

So I tried searching but I am still not sure. Do you add strawberries during all three stages or just the secondary?

This looks good and it might be the "gateway" to get my wife into my new hobby.