Luckyeddie's AG #11 - Wit 2, Bruté

[luckyeddie]

23 litre batch as follows:

1.750 Wheat Malt
1.500 Maris Otter
0.750 Munich Malt
0.340 Torrified wheat
0.250 Wheat, Unmalted
0.100 Cara-Pils/Dextrine
0.075 Flaked Oats

Hersbrucker Hallertau 20g @ 45 min
Saaz 20g @ 30 min
Saaz 15g @ 15 min

Safbrew WB-06

This is actually stage 1. It's going to have a long secondary fermentation over 2 kg of strawberries. Yum.

I couldn't motivate myself to take piccies. I just sat in the sun, drinking coffee and eating bacon and tomato butties while the mash was on, and drinking beer when the boil was in full flow. It's a tough life, but someone's got to do it.

 

[battwave]

Now that sounds like a perfect day..... wait a minute...... is that ketchup on your shirt?

Just been on an elderflower thread; a strawberry thread sounds promising too.

 

[Svarrogh]

Nice one with strawberries! Well done!

 

[luckyeddie]

I did a strawberry wit last year from extract - it was very nice.

If I had brewed it next Saturday, I would have called it 'Fruli Scrumptious' in honour of Ian Fleming (May 28 is his birthday - and of course he wrote 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang') - although of course the character Truly Scrumptious only appears in the film, and not the book, and Fruli (the strawberry beer from Brouwerij Huyghe) is just a bit too gimmicky.

You learn something new every day.

 

[Svarrogh]

Tell me one thing. Will you cook your strawberries before you put them in fermentor and will you put them in some hop bag or something similar? Thank you

 

[luckyeddie]

Tell me one thing. Will you cook your strawberries before you put them in fermentor and will you put them in some hop bag or something similar? Thank you

Last time, I just pulped them with a potato masher, added a teaspoonful of pectolase and a crushed campden tablet, left it for half an hour and racked the witbier onto it. In truth, I had made 20 litres of beer and only racked half of it, 'just in case'. The primary fermentation had subdued, but it was still ongoing. I worked on the theory that with plenty of active yeast still in the primary, chances were they would overwhelm any possible infection.

This time, I think that I shall scald the strawberries in boiling water, leave for a few minutes and drain, then do as before (mash, pectolase, rack). If it goes **** up, well, I've only lost a tenner's worth of grain and yeast.

Another possibility would be to mash the strawberries then boil in a bit of water, cool and rack (giving it a gentle stir).

Either way, I'm not bothering with a hop bag. Last year, the strawberry mush fell out in the trub. I left it in secondary for 4 weeks, primed and bottled. 3 months later, the bottled beer was beautifully clear and was perfectly carbonated with a soft, creamy head.

 

[Svarrogh]

That sound perfect :) Thank you!