A few weeks ago I beer blogged my brewing session of my Strawberry Nights Wheat. I figured an update is in order. (you can click on all images for a bigger picture)
First, here are the ingredients
I made a yeast starter so that I could get a better yield. Here’s my mad-scientist stove hard at work Yes, that really is an Erlenmeyer flask. I like it because it can go from the stove right into an ice bath without worrying about the glass breaking.
Of course, then I had to boil the wort and the hops.
Once the wort & hops were boiled for 60 minutes, I had to cool it using my home made immersion chiller.
The wheat beer sat in primary fermentation for a week. After a week, I thawed 5 pounds of strawberries, crushed them and put them in the secondary fermenter. This is what they looked like after those 2 weeks.
Here’s the beer being racked into the bottling bucket. I use this bucket to mix in priming sugar which feeds the remaining yeast in the bottles so that each bottle will carbonate. The action of siphoning the beer into the 2nd bucket mixes the sugar solution in with the beer without splashing it around. Then, I simply attach a hose to the spigot and use that to fill the bottles.
Now, I plan on letting these bottles sit for a month or so before I declare them ready. Strawberries are sour more than they are sweet and the sourness will fight with the bitterness of the hops so some extra time in the bottle will allow the hop characteristic to mellow out a little. I did try one this weekend just to see how it was going, and let me tell you that this is one gorgeous looking beer.
Unless I tell you that strawberries were used in this, you wouldn’t be able to tell. The flavor is really just a hint, and like I said it’s more sour than sweet. I think I need to dump another 5 pounds in as soon as the boil is done in order to add a stronger aroma, but the flavor at this point is spot on. I didn’t want a strawberry flavored beverage, I wanted a beer with a hint of strawberry and so far it looks like it might just be that.