Cherries in the snow

[tschmidlin]

@hopfenundmalz

@tschmidlin

@hopfenundmalz

The early hot weather caused the trees to bloom, then the hard frosts/freezes have wiped out 90% of this years crop.

Oh no!  Sounds like the WA cherries will be expensive this year.  The weather has been great so far, my trees are in full bloom.

Michigan does grow a lot of pie cherries, either first or second in the country.  WA grows more cherries, but a lot of that is the eating variety.  Rainier cherries are one of my favorites for eating. Yum.

Edit - the wife may have just picked up the 4 lb box of dried Balatons for a reason. She also got a 4 lb. box of chocolate covered dried Balatons - double yum!

Yeah, we get a lot of eating cherries but you can find local sour cherries if you look.

The most interesting sweet ones I’ve tried were Van cherries, the orchard where we got them uses them as pollinators and leaves the fruit for the birds because it is too soft to sell.  But we (meaning a guy from the club) picked 30 lbs or so and we put them in a barrel with a BDS for ~18 months.  Try it at the conference :)  They kegged it this past weekend, I heard it’s delicious!

[hopfenundmalz]

@tschmidlin

@hopfenundmalz

@tschmidlin

@hopfenundmalz

The early hot weather caused the trees to bloom, then the hard frosts/freezes have wiped out 90% of this years crop.

Oh no!  Sounds like the WA cherries will be expensive this year.  The weather has been great so far, my trees are in full bloom.

Michigan does grow a lot of pie cherries, either first or second in the country.  WA grows more cherries, but a lot of that is the eating variety.  Rainier cherries are one of my favorites for eating. Yum.

Edit - the wife may have just picked up the 4 lb box of dried Balatons for a reason. She also got a 4 lb. box of chocolate covered dried Balatons - double yum!

Yeah, we get a lot of eating cherries but you can find local sour cherries if you look.

The most interesting sweet ones I’ve tried were Van cherries, the orchard where we got them uses them as pollinators and leaves the fruit for the birds because it is too soft to sell.  But we (meaning a guy from the club) picked 30 lbs or so and we put them in a barrel with a BDS for ~18 months.  Try it at the conference :)  They kegged it this past weekend, I heard it’s delicious!

Cool stuff.  I will try that. Might bring some of my mead that had Balatons in it just because. 

[tschmidlin]

@hopfenundmalz

Cool stuff.  I will try that. Might bring some of my mead that had Balatons in it just because. 

Fantastic 8)

[scott]

I’m confused about the recipe.  Is it 8.5 lbs of LME in 1.5 gallons of water?  That seems way to concentrated to me.

[frochild]

I double checked and it is 1.5 gallons of water.  I think it has to do with getting the temperature where you want it as to avoid setting the pectin. I think I should have used the juice in the jars because the temp I got was 179 when it should have been closer to 160.

Cheers