Adding Lemon Juice To A Cherry Wit

[stillscottish]

Just kegged a Cherry Wit. I used 3 big jars of sour cherries in it, used about 2/3rds wheat in the recipe and mashed low but didn't get the sourness I want. I'm thinking of adding some lemon juice to the keg to give it a bit of a sour edge.

Has anyone out there tried this?

Campbell
and yes, I've done a search

 

[Tanga]

Just kegged a Cherry Wit. I used 3 big jars of sour cherries in it, used about 2/3rds wheat in the recipe and mashed low but didn't get the sourness I want. I'm thinking of adding some lemon juice to the keg to give it a bit of a sour edge.

Has anyone out there tried this?

Campbell
and yes, I've done a search

Damn! Pity that wasn't ready for Christmas. Would have been awesome!

How sour did you want it? Most wits are pretty sour in and of themselves. Kick in your teeth sour is nice... for about half a glass. Then it really isn't. Are you sure you want to do this dude?

How'd it turn out other than 'not sour enough?' If I can find some sour cherries cheap (which I should be able to do after Christmas) I'm totally stealing this idea for my birthday tipple.

 

[stillscottish]

It doesn't have a lot of cherry flavour and hardly any sourness compared to the last time I made this. I didn't taste the cherries before I tipped them in. Maybe they're a bit weaker flavoured than last time. Next time I think I'll use 5 or 6 jars.

I just want a little bit of sourness, not an overload, so I think i'll add a little juice to the keg and try it.
Suck it and see.

Campbell

 

[Fermented]

You could try some citric acid.

I did a cherry beer not too long ago. It was before cherry season so I just used some sour cherry syrup. The nutritional label mentioned 480 kj, 30 g carbohydrates with 29 g carbohydrate from sugar in a 35 ml serving (i.e. 83 g / 100 ml). Ingredients are listed as 65% concentrated fruit juice, citric acid, sugar and water.

So, I don't know the quantity involved to get the result you're after but maybe someone else could guess at it.

The resulting brew was definitely sour cherry flavoured, but took about a month or so to lose the aggressive tartness and become more melodious.

YMMV, etc.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[Swizzle]

On a slight aside...
It's cherry season in Tas and I'm about to have a crack at the Kriek recipe I found in a book. It calls for transfering the beer (details not on hand but can provide if req'd) from primary into secondary containing 6 kg sour cherries. The guy at the cherry farm up the road made his wine with the sweeter cherries towards the end of the season so will await a few more warm days then get into it.

 

[stillscottish]

I ended up adding 15 ml of Lemon juice to about 14l that was left in the keg last week. It seemed about right. I'll try it again on Fri and see how it's settled.

Campbell