Dried Cherries in beer

[clyne]

Evening all! Hope you're all doing fine and have plenty of homebrew in the fridge/keezer/keg :)

I'm planning a choco cherry stout something or other this weekend. I've got a 1kg of tart dried cherries from a home food shop and some cocoa nibs. I've been reading around a bit but wanted to get the opinions of you experts.

I'll be doing an all grain brew (5gal/23l), I'm thinking something along the lines of 4kg MO, 500g Choc Malt, 250g Caramalt, 250 Torrified wheat.

I was going to let it do it's thing with a yeast (not sure what I'll use yet, need to check the fridge) and then once fermentation is almost done (maybe about two weeks) to add the cherries and cocoa nibs. Any thoughts, in particular, on:

- How much cherries to add (I'm going for a blackforest gateau type taste so want to taste the cherries)?
- How much cocoa nibs to add?
- Is adding them at end of fermentation the best bet?
- Should I soak/rehydrate the cherries in hot water?
- Never used cocoa nibs before - do i just chuck them in?

Any advice most welcome

 

[clyne]

Nobody have any words of wisdom for me?

 

[Covrich]

Never used cherries so not sure. With other fruit like raspberries it was 2.5kg for a 23l bucket.

I have heard with cherries using extract/ essense.

Not sure on the other points, a lot of people add cherrys after primary in sours but I am wondering whether to add them a few days into fermentation to try and avoid that.

 

[Oneflewover]

Nobody have any words of wisdom for me?

Dunno about words of wisdom, but here's my thoughts.

I'm not sure what your expected OG / FG are, but I'm guessing 5% ish. I'd go big on a beer like this, I'd want something luxurious around the 10% mark.

I've never used dried cherries, but yes I'd rehydrate them in boiling water and add to the FB mid fermentation.

I have used cocoa nibs and had good results steeping them in vodka for a week before chucking the lot in a day or two before bottling

Good luck!

 

[Slid]

Why cherries in a stout?

But anyway, I would hydrate the things first, put them in a bag - nylon - so paint staining bag or the fruit bag from Sainsburys - add them at 4-5 days before racking to secondary, pull the bag out and squeeze it at racking time.

A week in secondary and then bottle etc.

 

[phettebs]

I only used cherries once in a beer. It was a Kriek using fresh sour morello cherries. I just dumped them straight in the bucket and then racked the beer out leaving the cherries behind when it was done again. But this was in a base lambic that was already funky and I wanted any and all organisms on the cherries to add to the funkiness.

 

[Alastair70]

This weeks Brülosophy podcast is about adding fruit to Belgian ales. Haven’t listened to it yet, but they're always worth a listen and some of the info might be relevant.

 

[Ajhutch]

I had the Pilot chocolate and cherry stout recently and it was delicious.

I’ve used dried cherries in a Flanders red and it’s worked fine. Don’t worry about rehydrating, but rinsing them in boiling water is a good idea to make sure any preservative coating is washed off. You will want to let them sit in the beer for a bit longer than you would with fresh fruit though.

1kg of dried cherries is a lot, probably equivalent to 2kg or more of fresh. I do also tend to agree with the previous comment that beefing up the ABV for a luxury beer like this is a good idea.

 

[clyne]

Thanks all for the comments, really appreciate it. Why cherries in a stout @Slid - why not?? :-) I love cherries, and think it should go nicely with the chocolate flavour of a nice stout, but absolutely take on board the comments from @Ajhutch and @Oneflewover to make it a bit more beefy, so I'm going to adjust the recipe now. Tomorrow's brew day! I'll give an update once it's finished (and if I remember!) Thanks guys

 

[lancon]

I would definitely boil them for a while, if you don't then there may be a problem with them taking in water and not letting flavours out, or if so slowly, possibly too slowly. Also boiling will remove any possible cross contamination. You could add them to the boil? though if you do that then probably best to put them in a hop sock to stop blocking of filters. I have boiled morello cherries and then suspended them in the boil, as the wort went to FV the pulp of the cherries was just off-white. I always add them, boiled to FV after a week and leave them another week.