Beer Forum

Im Trying to figure out where and how much strawberries to add to my blonde ale... I'm open to suggestions. Its a five gallon batch. Thanks for your suggestions ahead of time.
Rich in sacramento

I was thinking of doing this same beer soon because fresh strawberries are so cheap here right now, but most of the suggestions I heard were for frozen strawberries(7lbs. in 5 gallons) in the secondary. I guess they come out better than fresh, but most people said they weren't getting that much berry charachter in the final beer. I remember the petes wicked show and I think he said that they were using strawberry flavoring at bottling and not even using berries. where you get strawberry flavoring i don't know.

I did Jamil's blonde ale. I made 8 gallons and put 2 of those gallons in with strawberry's. I used 2 pounds frozen strawberry's for the 2 gallon. I did a week primary and racked onto the strawberry's for a secondary. I left in the secondary for 2 weeks. I tasted one Friday and it was nice. Not too much.

When making a mead with fruit it's recommended to use frozen berries instead of fresh because, I believe, the freezing process breaks down the cell walls in the berries and let's more of their fruity goodness get into the booze. I've got 3 gallons of sweet mead I'm trying out with this right now (3 lbs of frozen raspberries in the secondary) but I haven't tasted it yet so I don't know how well it's working. I assume the same theory will work with fruiting up beers. And if you get a Pete's Straw Blonde recipe that works well, post it. That was one of our go-to beers back in the day and I'd love to give it a shot.

i suspect the source of your strawberries makes a difference. I've heard Dr. Scott on the show recommending some huge amount of berries - 2#/gal maybe? Maybe so with California berries, but when I make mine with Plant City strawberries, 4# in 5 gallon usually gets comments back on score sheets of "too much strawberry, tone it down some".

I prep my fresh berries by a pulling the cores out with a teaspoon, a quick dip in a saucer of starsan, then into a ziplock bag in the freezer. I usually add the fruit at the end of primary then let it sit for another week or two. Sometimes I just dump the frozen berries in and other times I'll let them thaw, mush them up in the closed bag, then dump that in. both ways seem to work about equally as well.

When it is not local berry season, the frozen ones from the grocery store work great. They are frozen when they are at prime so should be just as good as when you were buying them fresh.

I tried making a strawberry wheat before, and all the berries contributed was color and haze. That was 5 pounds in 5 gallons. chopped and frozen

I don't know, maybe there is some huge rate of strawberries - like 10 pounds in 5 gallons that would work, but I think strawberry flavor needs to be artificial

bump.

Has anyone ever tried using strawberry jam? Assuming you get one without preservatives and strange chemicals? It seems like the jam would have a lot more sweetness and intensity of flavor, while also having some gelatin in it to help clear out the final product. I'm thinking about attempting this on a small scale batch this weekend... just wondering if anyone has heard of doing this or has tried it

strawbeery nutters

I know you shouldn't put fruit in hot wort because it develops pectin... but I'm not sure what would happen if you put something with pectin already in it into cold wort... might take a long time to clarify (or maybe wouldn't)?