Sun, 01/09/2011 - 19:19 — WICKEDNVBREWING
Im following the "FRIVOLOUS FRUIT ALE" recipeit, I followed all steps, But I added 2 lbs of fresh strawberrys after step 6c after the imidiate boil, I then began to chill my wort, Should I continue with the instruction on this ? It states to add Natural Fruit Flavor, to taste, During bottling sequence. Or can I, After primary, racked the beer onto 4lbs of sliced strawberries that will been steeped in water that is at near boil temp ? Let sit in secondary with berries for 7 days, then rack to a third fermentor for 7 days. To let any loose seeds settle out from the berries.
Please any comment will be very helpfull.
Forums:
You can totally rack on to strawberries and let them settle. That's pretty normal for fruit beers. The problem I think you'll have is with the strawberry itself.
Strawberry is a relatively weak flavor in beer and fades pretty quickly, so I would add even more strawberries. It's not uncommon to see recipes call for 2 pounds per gallon or about 10 pounds of strawberries for a normal batch. This is also the reason why so many strawberry things use strawberry flavoring to get the job done.
It is my opinion that you should try a strawberry extract. I think it will last longer and give you the effect you need. One issue you have to be aware of is that too much extract can sometimes throw off the flavor.
I found extracts on eBay and the following:
http://cooksvanilla.com/product/16/Pure-Strawberry-Extract-4-oz.html?gcl...
Cheers,
David Lester
I've done a similar lager beer, except I used 2ozs of extract. Apparently there are some sanitation issues with using fresh fruit.
Strawberry extract has the same artificial-tasting strawberry flavor found in everything from candies to medicine -- I don't care for it. I brewed a strawberry wheat last summer and was beyond pleased with the results. The keg was drained in about 3 hours at my firstborn's baby shower. I used 10 lbs of cheap, local, freshly-picked strawberries from a roadside stand. I bought them standing in front of the field in which they grew. My procedure was thus:
Brew wheat beer, wait until primary fermentation ends
Wash, hull, and quarter 10 lbs of strawberries (yikes)
Sanitize a stainless steel pot
Soak my sliced strawberries in iodophor solution for 1 minute, allow to drain
Place sanitized strawberries into sanitized pot, cover with sanitized foil, and freeze
Thaw (now macerated) strawberries on counter overnight
Pour strawberries/juice into secondary fermentor, rack beer on top for two weeks
Add campden tablets to halt yeast from fermenting strawberry juice
10 days later, keg and force carb
The resulting beer was a strawberry ale like I've never had before. A pint held beneath the nose smelled exactly like a basket of freshly picked strawberries. The beer had the slightest pinkish hue, but it looked like a wheat beer. Taste was spot on: first and foremost, an American wheat beer. Secondarily came a wave of fresh strawberry flavor like I've never had in a commercial version of strawberry anything.
Looking at your post, I would definitely add more fruit. 10 lbs barely got the beer where I wanted it, which was perfect. I used campden tabs because I didn't want the strawberries to ferment, as the resulting brew would taste like very tart fermented berries as opposed to fresh sweet fruit flavors. If you keg your beer, this is the way to go in my opinion. You can't naturally carb your beer in bottles after using campden tablets, hence it's a keg-only ingredient for carbonated beverages.
Good luck with the brew. Let us know how it turned out.