Strawberry Beer

[Antsvb]

Hi guys,

Been a regular reader of the site for a while. Never joined as I'm generally not big on forums. Anyhow, here now.

I was wondering if anyone knows how I can make a strawberry flavoured beer. Tried a Strawberry Pale at Wicked Ale Brewery in WA on a recent honeymoon (beer tour?). Also about to try the Chilli beer which is on the Question section of the web page. Wondering if I could do something similar.

Keep in mind I am not as advanced in my brewing as many of you out there. I have been brewing for fair while but only with kit brews (I play around with different kits and malt extracts for variety). This was the appeal of this Chilli recipie; nice and simple.

Thanks

[Hillbilly]

Make up a Pilsner as normal ( Coopers pilsner with light malt or dextrose ) ferment as usual, then after 5 days boil up 2 Kg of strawberrys with 100 grams of lactose ( sweetner ) if your a sweet tooth, you can also ad some red food coloring dye just for the fun of it, boil for a few minutes pour into a second fermenter, rack the pilsner onto the strawberrys. The sugars in the strawberrys is enough to kick a light second fermentation, bottle after 1 week. I've also done the same with wheat beer and peaches, beautifull.
Give it a go.

Homebrew: the more you drink the more you save

[Dogger Dan]

I wouldn't boil the berries, just pour the boiling wort onto them, let sit for 5 min then top off with cold water.

Strwberries are actually good cause they float

Dogger

[Matty]

I put a can of boysenberries into a lager, could have done with a little more. Have also had success using preservative free jams.

Cheers,

Matty

[Antsvb]

Thanks guys

Got some kegs to fill back up for the next few brews but will give it a go after that.

Cheers

[beercanuck]

I've got a Strawberry Canadian at about 3 weeks in the bottle.

I put 2.5 lbs of fresh strawberries in the primary for 10 days in a muslin bag. Slightly mushed/crushed the berries to open them up and let out some of the flavor.

Tasting when bottling suggested strong flavors, and it smelled very berry. At week 2, the smell had tapered off, and the berry flavors had crisped - almost like not quite ripe berries.
1 week later, mild strawberry smell, and a big berry flavor. Not quite scullable yet, but getting there.

Outta Canada there is a Raspberry beer by KLB. They use a Raspberry extract. If you could find that, it might be good.

[Dogger Dan]

I am always worried about extracts.

I like the taste of the fermented fruit, not necessarily the flavour of the fresh berries in my beer. It is a bit like the fruit wines where you are adding the flavour of a fresh fruit.

I found the reason for not boiling the fruit in your wort, It is so you don't set the pectin. Additionally if using fresh berries, crush them to rupture the cells. Frzen berries are already decompartmentalized

Have fun

Dogger

[db]

yeah boiling fruit will release the pectin (a wax?) causing haze.. has anyone used pectinase to reduce it? i bought some on the weekend & i'm not sure if it goes into the boil with the fruit or into the wort after it cools..

[Hillbilly]

But if you dont boil the fruit ( even just for a short while ) how do you know that your not going to infect the beer? Thats why I've allways boiled mine and never had a problem.

[Dogger Dan]

Pasturization occurs at 140 deg F, Boiling at 212.

If I treat this like a single temp mash and assume I have 11 litres of strike water and 11 kgs of fruit at room temp (which is like a boatload) My strike would have to be at 170 or so well below the pectin setting temp.

So, take your boiling wort and pour it on your room temp berries and let it sit for 5 min or so and you should very merrily pasturize your fruit with out releasing the pectins. Bet the final temp will be about a buck eighty or so

(Someone else want to check that math? I am doing it off the top of my head. )

by the way, sorry about that, we are awefully good here at bouncing around in Imperial and Metric so if you look at this I have Kg per Deg F. Which means Na Da to you guys. Neat though huh?

I had to do a calculation the otherday in furlongs per fortnight (no shit)

Dogger

[Hillbilly]

Dogger, you're a legend!

[Jeff]

Coopers have a recipe which uses the Canadian kit with honey added. Its on their website