Help With A Cherry Beer

[SJW]

I want to do a beer with Cherry's or raspberry’s or similar. As I have never used fruit before could someone point me in the right direction?
My thinking is telling me to use a light/basic grain bill. Maybe 60% Pils and 40% Wheat or Caramel Wheat and Saaz to 20 IBU. So for my first attempt:

1- Would Cherry's be the easiest to manage as a first attempt?
2- Should I boil em up first to get them all mushy?
3- Would I just dump them in the secondary or should they go in a bag? What about the seeds and skins?
4- What can I expect i.e. a dry finished beer? If so should I add some crystal into the grain bill?
5- How many Kg's for a 25 litre batch for a big Cherry taste?
6- What OG should I be aiming for as the fruit would up the gravity? Or just shoot for 1.050 and go for a panty dropper

Steve.

 

[xtrabyte]

2- Should I boil em up first to get them all mushy?

Steve.

I believe the best process is to freeze, thaw, heat to 80C cool then add them into secondary.
I want to try this one day :super:

 

[Adamt]

From my experience:

I have used raspberries in a brew before, i added them frozen from the packet into a (boiled, sanitised) stocking which i fed into my secondary. The raspberries were ordered through a catering place so i assumed they were fine without pasteurisation. I didn't have any problems at all re infections/whatever.

I didn't use any sort of caramel/crystal malt and it is very dry, almost tart. I would recommend using some crystal if you were making a raspberry, maybe not if you were going to do a sour cherry sort of beer.

I used I think about 1-1.5kg of raspberries for a 23L batch, gave it a nice pink tinge and decent flavour. Not sure about cherries though.

 

[bakkerman]

5- How many Kg's for a 25 litre batch for a big Cherry taste?

Belgian breweries use up to 1KG of krieken / cherries per 5 liters.

Just give the cherries a thorough wash and remove the stalks. No need to remove the stones as they impart some almondy flavour, and add after primary fermentation has finished.

Cherries go pretty well with a Brown flemish ale if you're not in to the Lambics.
I don't think you're far off with your recipe, but maybe drop it down to 1.040, as 4.5 KG of cherries will push the ABV ap quite a bit!

I'm planning to add cherries to a Lambic that's on the go, but will wait till summer comes and it's a bit more affordable to add 6 kg's!

 

[Quintrex]

Belgian breweries use up to 1KG of krieken / cherries per 5 liters.

Just give the cherries a thorough wash and remove the stalks. No need to remove the stones as they impart some almondy flavour, and add after primary fermentation has finished.

Cherries go pretty well with a Brown flemish ale if you're not in to the Lambics.
I don't think you're far off with your recipe, but maybe drop it down to 1.040, as 4.5 KG of cherries will push the ABV ap quite a bit!

I'm planning to add cherries to a Lambic that's on the go, but will wait till summer comes and it's a bit more affordable to add 6 kg's!

I've heard that a good ratio is 4:1 fermentables vs cherries, guess that works out roughly similar.
ie. 4kg grain....1kg cherries will give a noticeably cherry beer, any less and it becomes more Beer with some cherry vs cherry beer. Make it to your taste
Q

 

[SJW]

I was talking to Mark (MHB) who said to try a 35% Cherry syrup from Coles and the rest is sugar and water. He said this might be a better way to go, and less messy than real fruit. I might do a trial run with a light beer kit and a kg of sugar and see how it comes out. What type of yeast? maybe a ale?

 

[///]

Yeast can soak up to 25 of the colour, so better to use fruit in the secondary. Alot of folks in commercial plants now add extract in-line to a base beer to get consistent results....

Anyway's, have a go, just never try watermelon, is awful and I know.

Scotty

 

[SJW]

I think I will use the real thing, maybe 1 kg for 25 litres.
Also If I do an AG and go for a wheat style what type of dry yeast is worth using, if any. I dont like dry yeast that much but there is a couple I would use.

 

[///]

I think I will use the real thing, maybe 1 kg for 25 litres.
Also If I do an AG and go for a wheat style what type of dry yeast is worth using, if any. I dont like dry yeast that much but there is a couple I would use.

The Belgian Ardennes goes well with fruit beers as it floc's well and the tart finish goes well with fruit. Sorry, dont use dried yeast...

Scotty

 

[bconnery]

I think I will use the real thing, maybe 1 kg for 25 litres.
Also If I do an AG and go for a wheat style what type of dry yeast is worth using, if any. I dont like dry yeast that much but there is a couple I would use.

K97, despite being useless as a hefe yeast, actually works quite well as a fruit wheat yeast. I do a strawberry one each year and switched to T58 last year and I will definitely go back.

It does depend kind of what you want out of it. Aim for the best yeast for your base beer is the way to go in my book.

Rasberry goes very nicely in a more american wheat or very muted hefe.

Cherries would also go well in a darker and I know Bindi from here has made a cherry wit he was happy with. Sour cherries are more commonly used, or else a mix.

I can pm that to you if you want...

I'm a big fan of fruit beers and have tried a lot and I would say most definitely skip the syrup and go for the real thing.

I've got a bunch of frozen fruit waiting for a fruit hefe and a sour orange ale coming up, might go and do some more beersmithing...

 

[MVZOOM]

Phrak and I both brewed a cherry beer over the last few months. We listened to the brewing network's show on fruit beers and went accordingly. The catalyst for the brew being Phrak's rather cheap purchase of some 2kg bags of normal, fresh(ish) cherries.

We both started out with a Pilsner base beer, however quite low hopped. I would guess mine was at 12-15 IBU, however it was an AG that didn't go quite right and was rather lacking in body and gravity. Mine was going to try to be a lowing alcohol Pilsner anyway, but the result was a lowly 1022 SG....!

This sort of goes against the message of the Brewing Network guys who rightly suggest that a fruit beer shouldn't be made to mask the shortcomings of the base brew. However, I then added 2kg to secondary (18L) and let it go for 3 weeks at 11degC.

The resulting beer wasn't great and was pretty watery, although I totally put that down to the crappy Pilsner I brewed to start. The colour wasn't too bad - held up to a light it was rosey, the initial bouquet on the palet was fruity, however after that it went downhill!

Phrak's was (or is?) a lot better, due to the fact that he made a better base beer, lagered for longer and I think may have used more cherries. I enjoyed his and it gets better the more you drink. More of the good, ie.. nose and colour, with a subtle sourness. Clear too, because of the lagering.

Some suggestions if I were to do it again:

- Use good quality, fresh base fruit - this will really affect colour and aroma. I'd even look to use an extract fruit (ie.. canned) if you can

- Use a good quality base beer

- Make the base beer quite low in bitterness and aroma hops

- Make the base beer as pale as you can

- Maybe use more cheeries some crystal to balance potential sourness

Any queries, let me know - or PM Phrak as his was better than mine!!

Cheers - Mike

 

[SJW]

Thanks fellas, I'm just a bit worried about blowing a good Lager by dumping in a load of cherry's and wrecking the whole thing. I guess I'll never know unless I give it a crack.

 

[Phrak]

I want to do a beer with Cherry's or raspberrys or similar. As I have never used fruit before could someone point me in the right direction?
My thinking is telling me to use a light/basic grain bill. Maybe 60% Pils and 40% Wheat or Caramel Wheat and Saaz to 20 IBU. So for my first attempt:

1- Would Cherry's be the easiest to manage as a first attempt?
2- Should I boil em up first to get them all mushy?
3- Would I just dump them in the secondary or should they go in a bag? What about the seeds and skins?
4- What can I expect i.e. a dry finished beer? If so should I add some crystal into the grain bill?
5- How many Kg's for a 25 litre batch for a big Cherry taste?
6- What OG should I be aiming for as the fruit would up the gravity? Or just shoot for 1.050 and go for a panty dropper

Steve.

Hi Steve,
I'm not an expert, but here's what I reckon:

1- Would Cherry's be the easiest to manage as a first attempt? - Up to you, but this was my first attempt at a fruit beer. I found cherries quite manageable.

2- Should I boil em up first to get them all mushy? - No! Boiling them will remove all the fantastic colour and aroma! Best preparation would be to freeze them for at least a few days. Freezing ruptures the cherry's cell membranes and (allegedly) makes it easier for the cherry-goodness to leach out into your beer.
Sanitising your whole cherries is another thing. I did a fair bit of research into fruit sanitisation when I was preparing for my beer. The easiest and most effective method I found was to pasteurise the cherries in 80C water for 1min. I used a hop-sock to dunk and remove the cherries.

3- Would I just dump them in the secondary or should they go in a bag? What about the seeds and skins? - De-stalk the cherries, sanitise them, then dump them on the bottom of your secondary fermentor. Rack your beer onto the cherries. Avoid transferring as much yeast/trub as you can. You don't want to ferment the cherries, just suck the cherry life-force out of them
I'd strongly suggest that you use a sediment reducer on the back end of your tap to prevent the cherries from getting sucked into your tap-hole. (Mike didn't, I did )

4- What can I expect i.e. a dry finished beer? If so should I add some crystal into the grain bill? - My beer turned out relatively dry, a teensy bit sour and a bit almondy. I let the base beer ferment for about a month (maybe longer?) before it saw any cherries. the SG before cherries was about 1.005 or 1.008. If I do another one, I'll probably stop the fermentation at 1.013 or so to keep the sweetness up, then add the cherries. Depending on the style of base beer you want, crystal might or might-not be appropriate.

5- How many Kg's for a 25 litre batch for a big Cherry taste? - For a BIG cherry taste, you'll probably want 2KG/5L, for your 25L that's 10KG. I used 4kg for 20L in mine and the cherry flavour is only juuuust there. The colour is a fantastic ocre-red (click for pic) but the aroma is also very VERY sublte.

6- What OG should I be aiming for as the fruit would up the gravity? Or just shoot for 1.050 and go for a panty dropper - Just aim for 1.050. I can't find my source, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I vaguely remember the SG of cherries is only 1.006/kg or something. My Cherry blonde started at 1.050 and turned quite ok.

Randy Mosher writes on Cherries:

Of all fruits, cherries are the most traditional, as well as one of the most elegant. The subtle flavour of the cherry blends well with the tastes of malt, without completely overtaking it. Not all cherries are well suited to making beer, and it requires at least a pound per gallon to make a worthwhile beer. Sour cherries are best; sweet ones just don't have the guts to do the job.

If I was to do it again, I would increase the cherries to probably 6kg for 22L and stop the fermentation at 1.013 or so.

Here's the thread were we discussed my cherry beer:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=13758

Ignore the recipe in that thread, the final version is below.

Hope this helps mate!
Tim.

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Cherry Blonde

Brewer: Tim

Brewed: 31/1/07

Style: Fruit Beer

TYPE: All Grain

Taste: (35.0)

Notes: Primary for 4wks, secondary lagered until kegged 10/6/07



Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size: 21.00 L	  

Boil Size: 27.50 L

Estimated OG: 1.050 SG

Estimated Color: 6.1 EBC

Estimated IBU: 14.7 IBU

Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes



Ingredients:

------------

Amount		Item										  Type		% or IBU  

4000.00 gm	Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (3.2 EBGrain	   88.9 %	

500.00 gm	 Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)					Grain	   11.1 %	

30.00 gm	  Fuggles 05 [4.00%]  (40 min)				  Hops		12.8 IBU  

20.00 gm	  Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 05 [4.10%]  (5 min)   Hops		1.8 IBU   

4.00 kg	   Cherrys, Fresh (Secondary 2.0 min)			Misc				  



Total Grain Weight: 4500.00 gm





Mash Schedule: 65C for 60mins

----------------------------

 

[Weizguy]

For my 2 cents, here's a link to the Cat's Meow website where there are a few cherry recipes for motivation.

With any fruit, I've read in (defunct) Ausbeer magazine, that you should freeze the fruit for a few days beforehand and then throw it in the pot (maybe in a stocking) at the end of the boil. That should pasteurize the fruit in a similar way to the inside of a no-chill jerry can. Then toss the stocking into your sanitised fermentor and strain the beer/wort on top of it.

Another tip for cherries, is to use over-ripe fruit. They are cheaper and have more flavour. A big win-win for the brewer. The more over-ripe the cheaper the fruit and more flavoursome in the beer, or so I have read.

Beerz :beer:

 

[SJW]

Thanks boys, I might lock this one into my schedule

 

[ohitsbrad]

I would definitely head towards the 1kg or more per 5 litres ratio. My friend just added 800g of blueberries to 20 litres or so and says there is almost no blueberry taste at all.

I used I think about 1-1.5kg of raspberries for a 23L batch, gave it a nice pink tinge and decent flavour. Not sure about cherries though.

Belgian breweries use up to 1KG of krieken / cherries per 5 liters.

I think I will use the real thing, maybe 1 kg for 25 litres.

5- How many Kg's for a 25 litre batch for a big Cherry taste? - For a BIG cherry taste, you'll probably want 2KG/5L, for your 25L that's 10KG. I used 4kg for 20L in mine and the cherry flavour is only juuuust there. The colour is a fantastic ocre-red (click for pic) but the aroma is also very VERY sublte.

Randy Mosher writes on Cherries:
If I was to do it again, I would increase the cherries to probably 6kg for 22L and stop the fermentation at 1.013 or so.

 

[bconnery]

Ripe is definitely good. I used a jamming box of strawberries in the first Strawbeery, my annual beer, and more eating ones the second time and the second was definitely inferior...