Fruit beer.

[Bad_Idea_Beers]

Hi everyone,

So we have made about 8 batches of beer ranging from IPA to stout and thought it would be good to try attempting to make a strawberry beer.

Having read all the different ways to do this; freeze the fruit, boil it, cover in Star San, let soak in vodka. All these seems to have pros and cons with various degrees of success.

Our question is; has anyone used strawberry flavouring, or strawberry juice, or dried strawberry dust? Wondering if this will give a similar flavour without the issues of sanitation and the cost of (what seems) a massive amount of strawberries!

Thanks all

 

[McMullan]

http://www.funkincocktails.co.uk/strawberry-puree

I haven't used it, but I did use their raspberry purée for a stout. It was nice.

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

At what point are you thinking about adding strawberry? I have heard from various sources that adding strawberry pre- fermentation doesn't work well, as the fermentation process drives off nearly all the flavour (and colour), and that you need a large quantity of fruit to get anywhere.
The last time I made a Belgian Wit I experimented with blending the funkin cocktail purées (strawberry and raspberry) with the finished beer. This worked out very well, and I especially liked the strawberry one. Not really in Fruli territory, but good enough. Not overly sweet.

 

[McMullan]

I racked onto the purée when primary was pretty much complete and left it for about 10 days. :drink:

 

[Bad_Idea_Beers]

Thanks for the suggestions.

We were looking at that funk in cocktails stuff. Think we will go with that and rack into it after fermentation.

Do you remember how many packs you used per 20l batch?

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

For my Belgian Wit I seem to recall using a ratio of about 10:1 of beer to puree (perhaps even less), but I would recommend a test mix to see what you're happy with.
I bought mine from Amazon where they are about £6-£7 per litre, but you need to buy enough to get free delivery. Once opened you are supposed to use them within 8 days. I just squeezed out all the air and popped them back in the fridge, and they seemed all right for a lot longer, though. You might even be able to freeze them.

 

[Bad_Idea_Beers]

Perfect. We have a 40l batch fermenting at the moment. Think we are going to bottle 20l as it currently is (bog standard beer) and just do 20l of strawberry beer. (spending £28 on strawberry flavouring and having 80 pints is too risky for the first attempt).

I will update and get some pictures up once we have it all done in a few weeks time.

We also have an "apple pie" beer fermenting at the moment. Will also update on that one once we have tasted it. If it's any good will put the recipe and method up to help others. If it's cr*p I will let people know where I think we went wrong so people can avoid our mistakes.

I feel like we are turning into mad scientists as I don't even really like flavoured beer but just wanted to push our limits and see if we could make it! Haha

 

[Leemond]

Interesting read. Next time I do a brew I might rack some off into a demijohn on the strawberry purée and see what happens! Would this impact the ABV? :hmm: