What did I do wrong?

[zeggie]

Decided to make something a bit different for christmas and adapted a strawberry wheat recipe I found and added dark malt. WB-06 yeast. Spent 2 weeks in primary then boiled and strained 2 kg of strawberries and added the syrup for another week.

Everything went fine, smelled great in the fermenter, smells great pouring into a glass, but the taste....well it just tastes like nothing. Completely bland. Not infected, not sour or horrible just tastes like nothing.

Pretty baffled as I've never had made a bad beer before....


3.00 kg
Wheat Malt, Dark (17.7 EBC) Grain 1 61.9 % 1.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 2 20.6 % 0.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (59.1 EBC) Grain 3 10.3 % 0.20 kg Wheat, Roasted (837.3 EBC) Grain 4 4.1 % 0.15 kg Carared (39.4 EBC) Grain 5 3.1 %

10.00 g Magnum [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 11.4 IBUs 25.00 g Hallertauer Hersbrucker [3.40 %] - Boil 30.0 min (both adjusted 20mins for no chill) Hop 7 7.5 IBUs

 

[manticle]

Boiling fruit should be avoided.

There was an article on adding fruit to beer in the db (unfortunately non-existent now) that suggested strawberries are not a great fruit to add.

 

[Malted]

I too have had similar results from adding fruit to a beer near the end of fermentation. I suspect the simple sugars from the fruit could be like giving the yeast a shot of steroids and then they run around and smash up everything. Equally you could say it might be like supercharging the yeast and then they run over everything. That's just my conjecture.

Manticle, do you recall why fruit should not be boiled?

 

[manticle]

Just because of the flavour change. If you are aiming for a cooked/stewed flavour then nothing wrong with it I guess.

Same with cooking apples for cider.

 

[zeggie]

Damn. Thought I would get some strawberry flavours in the beer. Thought boiling would be sanitary.

Will try again in a month but I have very little hope it will improve.

 

[Dan Pratt]

would it have been ok to just slice the stawberrys and add them to the FV?

 

[manticle]

One method some people use is to freeze (helps rupture the cells) and blitz or just add in.

To be honest I haven't had much success adding fruit with the exception of citrus in a couple of sours.

 

[zeggie]

Well it was about time I had something go wrong. I had a good run right from the first batch I did

 

[elcarter]

Would strawberry conserve give you what your after?

Maybe measure the SG pre and post adding the boiled strawberry concoction then again after the yeast have had their way with it?

Might be a good indication that the flavor might be in the sugar and the yeast destroyed it when they ate it all.

I've got no idea I've never played around with fruit beer as yet. I know when I was in Germany they loved adding fruit juice to Berliner's might be a good way to experiment if you like it before nutting the recipe out.

 

[zeggie]

Yeah next time I might just pinch the recipe from the strawberry and white chocolate beer from the last GABS. Pretty sure they use syrup of some sort.

 

[TimT]

I'm curious - why not just add the fruit at the beginning of the primary fermentation?

Other recipes I read suggest immersing fruit in spirits overnight/for a few days, which strikes me as a sensible way to kill natural yeasts and other troublesome bugs (which obviouisly won't be able to tolerate the high amount of alcohol).

 

[warra48]

Interesting timing.
I just received an email newsletter from BeerSmith Home Brewing News.
It's part 1 of 2 about Brewing Fruit Beers at Home.

I don't know if you have BS, but if you do, you too should get the email. It might be of interest.

With full acknowledgment to BeerSmith, this is what they say about strawberries:

 

[rotten]

I recently made an apricot beer with a large proportion of the grist being fresh apricot puree. After much straining and cc ing I ended up tipping it.. Not sure how it relates to your story as the flavour was there in abundance. Half was added during the boil (no chill) and then the other half in primary in two seperate batches.

I strained after both of these several times but it was still very cloudy and had lots of sediment. It tasted great though

 

[zeggie]

Yeah I get the beersmith emails but I rarely read them. lol.

Needless to say I won't be brewing another fruit inspired beer for a while. *shrug* oh well had a crack at something different.

Will get back to the IPA, APA and Stouts my mates (and myself) love.

 

[rehabs_for_quitters]

I have only used raspberries twice, first time chucked 1kg in primary frozen (20L batch), if throwing them in frozen I would allow for a little bit of dilution though, second time I mashed them in with my grains, the first brew had a slightly stronger taste but slightIy tart pithy sort of thing but that was the time I left them in fermenter that caused that, after about 3 months on tap it came into it's own and then everyone tucked into it and loved it,

But in saying that the mashed version isn't all that bad either just not quite as in your face, subtle under tones of raspberry, it suited my palate better