Priming Help Required

[Dutto]

At the moment I have a Wilco Hoppy Copper Bitter and an AG Pale Ale fermenting away.

Yesterday in Lidl I bought a couple of bottles of Lowicz Cherry Syrup on the basis that I could use it to flavour one of the above beers, but I have never used the stuff before!

Looking at the details on the bottle it gives the Carbohydrates as 86g per 100g of syrup "of which 86g are sugars".

I would like to impart a Cherry Flavour into one of the above beers; but I don't want to significantly increase their ABV or have the Cherry Flavour in all 23 litres of either brew.

So, a few questions:

1. Which of the two beers would be better served by adding a Cherry Flavour? (I would use a Wilco Cerveza but I don't have the time this session!)

2. How much of the "86g of sugars" are fermentable?

3. How much syrup should I use to carbonate 10 litres of beer?

For 10 litres at 2.0 volumes of CO2, the Priming Calculator gives 45.5g of Table Sugar which would equate to 52.9g of syrup. i.e. 45.5g x [100/86] = 52.9g

As I intend to use one of my new 10 litre kegs with a Pressure Relief System it should be okay if I go slightly over. (Here's hoping!)

Finally (assuming that the 52.9g of syrup is the correct amount to use for priming) will the use of the Lowicz Cherry Syrup as a Priming Sugar be enough to give me a Cherry Flavoured Beer?

 

[JapanBrew]

Wish I had advice but what you've come up with sounds good. I will follow this thread to see how it goes. Sounds like a cool thing to try.

 

[Dutto]

Still waiting for some confirmation of the idea.

I love the Cherry Beer I get in France and when I saw the Lowicz Cherry Syrup in Lidl the little light in my head (nowadays a very dim "little light" :whistle:) went on!

IF it works out okay, I will use a Wilco Cerveza (my "Experimental Beer of Choice") with a full bottle of the Lowicz Syrup in there as an adjunct at the fermentation stage and then use the remainder of the bottle as "Priming Sugar".

I just love the "Here's hoping!" aspect of this hobby of ours! :thumb:

 

[Bigcol49]

I love the Cherry Beer I get in France and when I saw the Lowicz Cherry Syrup in Lidl the little light in my head . . .

Hi!
Saw this and thought of you :lol:

 

[Dutto]

Hi!
Saw this and thought of you :lol:

If they ever make a film of my life it will be titled "Dim and Dimmer!" :lol::lol:

 

[johnnyboy1965]

A few years back I did a lot of experimenting with cherry flavoured beers after drinking a bottle of Bracchus (sp) Kriek. I just loved it.
I could not get enough cherry flavour into the brews. I dropped the project promising to return to it one day.
My next step would have been a weak cherry wine, using malt and carbonating as you would a beer. I did phone my specialist supplier to ask for a quality cherry concentrate, but I cant remember what he suggested.
Ill reply as soon as Ive checked my notes.

 

[simon12]

1. Which of the two beers would be better served by adding a Cherry Flavour? (I would use a Wilco Cerveza but I don't have the time this session!)
My guess would be the sweeter/higher FG one

2. How much of the "86g of sugars" are fermentable?
I think fruit sugar should be 100% fermentable

3. How much syrup should I use to carbonate 10 litres of beer?
As per your calculations. As for how much you need for the required flavour try it in water or a beer and see what you think.

 

[wfr42]

What you have above is what I did when I primed with maple syrup (which worked well for priming).

Not sure how much flavour will be left from your syrup, especially as it mostly sugar but would be worth a try (and the wilko kit experiment sounds good for the future!).

i would probably add it to which ever beer you know the best, so you can see how much difference it has made, would be frustrating if you liked it in the pale ale but were not able to recreate it, if it was a totally new recipe.

 

[marlon]

This is very interesting, keep us posted. If it works for you, I'd like to have a go myself next year, maybe using actual fresh cherries. Got no idea how many kilo's a 23 litre batch would need though...

 

[Dutto]

Thanks for all the replies; some great common sense there (as usual)! :thumb:

The Pale Ale is an AG brew of my own devising and I think it will best suit a Cherry addition. This is the second time I've brewed it and I deliberately made it a lower ABV (less than 5% ABV) for summer quaffing.

At the moment it is just reaching the two week fermentation period but as it was showing no signs of life (and apparently stuck at 1.020 a few days ago) I will leave it another week before checking the SG again.

I like the idea of trying out the "flavour profile" with a watered down sample and sometime tomorrow I will get out a syringe and measure out an appropriate amount to test it for flavour. I have a funny feeling that it will only give a significant flavour if I chuck it in to a full brew at the fermentation time.

Again, many thanks and keep the ideas coming. :thumb:

 

[strange-steve]

This is very interesting, keep us posted. If it works for you, I'd like to have a go myself next year, maybe using actual fresh cherries. Got no idea how many kilo's a 23 litre batch would need though...

Cantillon use 200g per litre for their kriek, so you'd need around 4.5kg at that rate (which at Tesco prices would cost about £36)! I added some cherries to half a batch of my lambic but didn't use so much, I think I used 150g/L but don't know yet if that's enough.

 

[Dutto]

Did the small experiment today with the Lowicz Cherry Syrup in a SMASH with EKG that I have in a PB.

From my original calculation of 52.9g per 10 litres I decided that 5ml in a 1 litre beer would give some indication of both "Cherry Flavour" and colour if it was used as a priming sugar.

From the photographs you can see that the 5ml hardly touched the colour of the beer and I suspect that I could only taste the "cherry flavour" because I knew it was there! Ah well, it seemed like a good idea at the time! :whistle:

Plan "B" is to use 3 x 400ml bottles of Cherry Syrup as an adjunct in a 23 litre Wilco Cerveza brew. At 86% sugars that translates to +/- 1,032g (approximately ten times what I put in today) and therefore, it should give a decent colour, taste and ABV to the finished product. ...

... and it only adds an extra three quid to the cost; at Lidl prices! :thumb:

Here are the photographs from today. You can just see the change in colour, if you look hard enough! :lol: :lol:

 

[Dutto]

Nobody (and I mean NOBODY) knows what I have to put up with!

I decided that I could actually squeeze a brew in and try out the Lowicz as an adjunct if I got a move on ... :thumb:

... but I had to stay home and wait for a parcel to arrive. (Still waiting BTW!)

It was agreed with SWMBO that she would nip down to Wilco's and get me a Cerveza Kit and then move on to Lidl and get an extra two bottles of Cherry Syrup. No problem. I even wrote everything down on a bit of paper with the price of everything alongside. :whistle:

It started to drizzle so SWMBO (who normally walks everywhere) decided to take the bus. Obviously, in this modern day and age she didn't bother to take her phone so when she pulled out her bus-ticket and realised that she had thrown away the bit of paper I gave her she just had to guess at what I wanted.

I now have a Wilco Pilsner Kit fermenting away with 3 x 400ml bottles of Lowicz Cherry Syrup added as an adjunct. :thumb:

Of course I'm grateful. Who wouldn't be? :whistle:

The OG of the brew is 1.048 so here's hoping that the current cherry taste and pink colouring is maintained through fermentation.

I'll keep you posted. :thumb: