For my holiday beer this year I’m going to make a belgian dark strong as the base and add in some spices to the boil, probably cardamom and black pepper. I’m also thinking about doing a secondary fermentation with some cherries. At this local farmer’s market this morning I saw they had both sour cherries and sweet cherries.
I was thinking of using either all sour cherries or maybe two thirds sour, 1 third sweet. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?
I’m going to buy them now while they’re in season locally and freeze them for a couple months until I’m ready brew it, probably early August.
Will the sweet vs the sour show up in the finished product? That’s my question- if it makes a difference after fermentation. Well maybe the sour will lend more acidity; while I don’t think much cherry sweetness will be in the brew come serving-time.
If cherries are anything like apples, the sweet won’t have much flavor once the sugar is gone. I’d probably just use the sour cherries. I was thinking of doing very similar, except I decided to try using BM45 to get cherry flavor instead of real cherries. I haven’t done that before, but we’ll see how it goes.
$10 a pound for cherry syrup? You could make your own pretty easily. Amber syrup with fruity flavors is easy to make on your stovetop. I’m still working on getting the nice dark chocolate flavors and super dark color from D2, but I’ve made plenty of lighter/fruitier syrups without too much hassle.
How many lbs would you use for 5 gals? And, do you pit them?
I think your Belgian dark with cherries sounds amazing. What yeast are you thinking of? I’ve been wanting to try a high alcohol Belgian. A cherry winter warmer may be just the trick.
Most people say 2lbs fruit/1 gallon of beer. But, depends on the type of fruit. Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels has a good section on making fruit beers.
I’ve made a BDSA with kirsch ( sour cherry brandy ) soaked oak, and it’s lovely, just took a bronze medal at SOFB last month. I think adding sour cherries, is a great idea.
When I lived in Florida bing cherries would be in season, available in the local supermarket, and get cheap around early to mid-June. I would buy 20 lbs and make two batches of cherry weissbier. The first batch would be for celebrating Independance Day, and the second for sometime later in the summer. I would feeze the cherries in 5# lots and use 10# per five gallon batch. Freezing the cherries breaks up the cell walls in the cherries and makes them easier to crush, and much jucier.
The flavor of the cherries was distinct, but subtle. The color was a gorgeous garnet, with a beautiful pink wheat beer head.
CAUTION! Cherry beer fermentation is violent and complete in around three days. If you use an airlock on your fermenter there is a high probablity that you will have pink and red stains on your ceiling.
Now that I live in Hawaii I cannot get cheap bing cherries any more. However, I can get very cheap (free) lychees. Now I make lychee weissbier and lychee melomel in June. Yum!
As Wind In His Hair said to Dances With Wolves, “Good trade!”
I was thinking about adding this in maybe as well.
Sounds like I should go with the sour cherries at about 2lbs per gallon. I wasn’t planning on pitting them, just freezing and crushing. My standard yeast for the base beer is 3787 so that’s what I was planning on using for this
We had plans for cherries and food and drink this year. The 90F weather in March followed by frost/freeze has wiped out 90% of the pie (sour/tart) cherries here in Michigan (2nd for cherry production). It might be and expensive year for cherries. Lets all hope that there is a bumper crop of cherries in Washington.
The wife was talking to a woman from a local orchard that has started making hard cider two years back. Same story for the apples. They were trying to get cider apples from New England, but the weather did a number on the apples there too. Lets all hope there is a bumper crop of apples in Washington.
I have 2 bottles of my brett BDS cherry beer brewed about 8 years ago. It was one of my very best beers ever and set me on a path of experimentation.
This past fall I did a Belgian blonde, racked it onto 12 pounds of bing cherries with a starter of Orval dregs. It’s got a very nice dry cherry hint to it, but not as much brett as I hoped
Well, most of the orchards are in eastern WA, and I believe so far so good. I can say that my cherries and apples are doing really well, possibly even a bumper crop, but since I have one apple, one sour, and one sweet cherry, that’s not going to go very far
