Cherry saison?

Ingredients
1

What do you guys think about using sour cherries in a saison?  Yesterday I made 10 gals of saison.  It was:
14 lbs Pils
2 lbs Light Munich
2 lbs Wheat
1 lbs brown sugar
4 oz black patent malt added at sparge
1 oz Magnum
1 oz EKG at flameout
WY3711 - big pitch from last batch
OG was way higher than I expected at 1.070 (I probably measured my water wrong because that’s 96% efficiency and I’m not that good).

I added the black patent because I was trying for a “red” saison.  Just playing around mostly.  But, last night I got thinking.  What would happen if I added 5 lbs of sour cherries to one of the 5 gal pails and pitched a tube of Brett as well.  I have some WLP670 coming so I may also make a starter with that, pitch it for a different beer and then re-use the container to jug to build it up again and pitch that.

Would the spicyness of the saison match the cherries?  Would the saison/cherry/brett character be good/bad?  My thoughts is with such a high alcohol beer (assuming this will finish around 8%), I will bottle this into 750’s and put them away for 3-6 months to allow the Brett to work it’s magic.

2

I haven’t done it with actual sour cherries since they’re not exactly local to my locale, but I have goosed a saison with this stuff - King Orchards Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate.

It’s a pretty good effect. Don’t know if you need the Brett, but what the heck!

3

Thanks Drew.  Or the other way to look at it is…are the cherries necessary?  Maybe just saison and then add brett.  Sort of something like.

4

Deifnitely not necessary… done quite a few Brett Saisons. Cherries are nice though

5

Brett saisons are tasty. Add sour cherries… Now that sounds intriguing. I say go for it.

6

BM-45 throws big cherry flavors. It doesn’t ferment maltotriose well, so you’d want to use it for only part of the ferment.

7

How much did you use?

8

Been a while, but I believe it was a pint.

9

BM-45?  I’ve not heard of this one.  New strain?

10

I hope BM doesn’t mean bowel movement.

Sent from the future…

11

BM-45 is a wine strain. It’s been around for a while. Used to be (or still is) a Lallemand strain but it’s not super easy to find anymore. It doesn’t come in the typical Lallamand homebrewer-sized packets. Not sure who packaged it, but I got it at Midwest.

I’ve got a Belgian dark strong fermenting with BM-45 and B. lambicus right now. The hydro samples are a full-on cherry assault on my nose. I think a split ferment, maybe half and half and blending to taste would be the way I’d go if I wanted a balanced cherry flavor/aroma.

It’s a slow starter and has high nitrogen needs, so it’s kind of crap for a wine yeast, but does pretty well in wort once it picks up speed.

12

Schlafly brewed a saison with black cherries a while back and it was great.  I don’t know the yeast they used but it was very much a saison, with cherry flavor and a deep red color, i.e. not a fruit beer that tasted like a saison.  It was quite good, I picked up a growler of it when I left.  So based on that, I say go for it.  :slight_smile:

13

Cherries and brett are wonderful in saison.  I did a split off my lime saison with sour cherries and brett lamb and it was and still is stellar.  I called it cherry limeade.  Fantastic stuff.