Fruit Beers

We racked our Blonde on to fruit this weekend. Five gallons each on to Strawberries, Pears, and Watermelon. They will be ready to drink in about five weeks - just in time for the hot weather!

Blonde Meets Berries

Batch 7 got racked on to 4 pounds of strawberries yesterday. I prepared the strawberries by removing the stems and slicing them in half. They then took a 15 minute bath in 160 degree water to 'pasteurize' and clean them up a bit and then spent a few hours in the freezer. Freezing the strawberries causes the cell walls in the fruit to rupture, releasing all the goodness inside when they thaw.

Once frozen, I dumped the strawberries in a clean primary and racked the beer on to them. Even though this is a secondary, I used a primary bucket for this operation since jamming four pounds of strawberries in to the 1 1/2 inch mouth of my carboy seemed like a pain - not to mention getting them all out later.

I have high hopes for this batch. The end result is supposed to have just a hint of strawberry flavor in the aftertaste. Jess is a big fan of Pete's Strawberry Blonde, so she is excited about this one as well.

Notes

I managed to go 6 batches without adding any fruit to my homebrew. As you can see below, batch 7 is incorporating strawberries. I hope it's good because it will be about 6 weeks before we can drink it.

Regarding the American Light Ale we have been making: it sucks. There is nothing wrong with the batches, we just don't like the taste of it. Batch 3 tastes just like batch 1 and I tasted batch 6 on its way to the keg and it's all the same - yuk.

So we have roughly 100 not-very-good beers to drink. I am recruiting friends to come over this week and help us power through it. I'm going to crank the fridge down and get it as cold as possible to ease the pain.

On the upside, the Weizens are great. I mean really great. Refreshing and light. I can't stop drinking them. We even bottled a six pack to take with us to a party over the weekend. Jess likes it better than Flying Dog's Hefe. Nice.

Batch #7 - Strawberry Blonde

Brew Date: 7/20/08
Recipe:
30 Minute Steep of -
1 lb. Rahr 2-Row
1 lb. Cara-Pils
.25 lb. Flaked Oats
.25 lb. White Wheat Malt

Boil -
1 lb. Light DME (Breiss) 60 Minutes
.25 oz. Saaz (4%) 60 Minutes
.50 oz. Saaz (4%) 30 Minutes
5 lbs. Light DME (Breiss) 15 Minutes
.50 oz. EK Goldings (5%) 15 Minutes
1 tsp. Irish Moss 15 minutes
.50 oz. EK Goldings (5%) Flame Out
Wyeast 1056 American Ale (Washed/OJ)

OG: 1.060

Notes: Will secondary on to 4 lbs. fresh strawberries for 2 weeks, then rack off to clean carboy for another 2 weeks.

8/9: 1.016 (Moved off berries into carboy)