Strawberry Beer - Facts and Information
If you want to try a beer that is a little bit different then have you ever considered trying one that is flavored with strawberries. Strawberry beer is not as many would think the fermented juice of strawberries but the juice is in fact added to a normal beer. Many people that the sweet flavors of the strawberries of the complemented by the bitterness of the beer to which it has been added.
Although this flavor beer is readily available and can be purchased through various beer outlets and online have you ever considered making your own. A quick search online there are plenty of sites offering you recipes so that you can try and make your own strawberry beer if you want.
To begin with one needs to get together all the right equipment that makes a home brewing kit, including a large stainless steel pot, a large glass bottle known as a Carboy, some tubing, funnel and bucket (these should be made from food grade plastic). Plus you need a large spoon (wooden), a specialist valve for the Carboy, a thermometer and a siphon rake. The best place to purchase such supplies is either from a home brewing retailer or online.
After you have this equipment together you now need to get the ingredients together to make your strawberry beer with. For this you need strawberries, amber hopped syrup, dry light malt, crushed crystal malt, leaf hops, and pectin enzyme and ale yeast starter.
After you have these ingredients together with your equipment you can now start to brew your own beer and below are the steps you will need to take for making strawberry beer.
Step 1 - Make the yeast starter by boiling a cup of dry malt extract in 1 quart of water then allow it to cool until it reaches a temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. When it reaches this temperature add to it ale yeast and stir it. Now let this stand for 2 hours.
Step 2 - Whilst the above mixture is left standing rinse the crystal malt which has been steeped in a gallon of water. Then take the rinsed crystal malt and put it in a pot with the hops and dry malt along with between 1 and 1.5 gallons of water. Heat this mixture up until it starts to boil and then allow it to continue to boil for a further hour.
Step 3 - After an hour of boiling turn the heat down under the pot and slowly add to this the strawberries which have been washed, stemmed and then pureed. Mix together well and then leave the pot on the low heat for another 15 to 20 minutes. After this time remove the pot from the heat and before allowing it to cool make sure that you remove the hops so that all is left in the pot is a mixture known as wort.
Step 4 - As soon as the mixture (wort) has cooled down enough put it into the carboy and to it add the yeast starter. You can at this stage add the pectin enzyme or leave it until the following day. Then give it time to ferment correctly before then transferring to the plastic bucket. The strawberry beer should be left in the plastic bucket (racked) for between 3 and 4 days before you eventually then put it into bottles.