[GolfBum]

I recently had a chocolate straweberry porter at a brewery and wanted to recreate it. I have the chocolate part down but need some advice on the strawberry part. Fresh, extract? How many pounds if fresh? How much if extract? I am going to be adding it to secondary with the cacao nibs later this week. I am looking for a strong taste of strawberry. It's a 5 gallon batch that started at 1.057 if that helps anyone. Thanks for the help in advance.

[tschmidlin]

I've only used strawberries once, and found that the flavor fell off quickly.  It's been more than 15 years, so I don't recall how much I used.  If you want a strong flavor, I would use puree and supplement with extract in the keg to bring out the aroma.  If you do just extract it will probably taste artificial, I had a beer like that a few years back and it was awful.  Expect renewed fermentation when you add the fruit, I would probably hold off on the nibs until that is done.  And I would go with at least a pound of fruit per gallon.

[reverseapachemaster]

I've had two strawberry beers that were worth drinking. One was good and the other was great. Both were milk stouts but the same process should apply. In each case they knocked off the yeast before adding the strawberries so the sugars in the strawberries wouldn't ferment out. Then they kegged after the strawberry flavor was extracted. I don't recall what I was told about the amount of strawberries used but it was a high pound to gallon ratio.

Fruit flavors are driven by acidity, sweetness, or a combination of both. Strawberries are low-acidity fruit. The flavor stands out with sweetness. When you ferment out of the sugar and leave the strawberries in an acidic beer you don't get much in the way of strawberry flavor. This same premise is why high-acidity fruit, like cherries and raspberries, work so well in beer.