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Fruit Beer recipe

D

Dr Hop

Now the season is upon us and the Cherries are available, does anyone have a good recipe for a Cherry Beer. Maybe along the lines of the famous Kriek? i know these take ages to condition but i am willing to give it a blast.

Need something for the Ladies other than the obligatory glass of wine.
 
If you want to make a true Kriek, I'm not sure it would be something that the ladies whom you speak of would enjoy. The extreme tartness and sweaty horse hair character of a true Kriek is not something that I've found most ladies enjoy. At least not ladies who don't really like beer. I would say make a cherry wheat of some sort. Take a hefeweizen recipe, brew it with an american ale yeast and add .1-.2 lbs. of cherries per gallon to the secondary. Prepare the cherries in this way: Pre-boil them whole with just enough water to make them slightly fluid. Strain the solids and let cool to room temp, then throw em' in the fermenter.

Darin
 
I have a very good Baltic Cherry Porter. It has some chocolate flavors and a cherry tartness. My wife likes to drink a bottle of it occasionally. I have made it three times, the first two I did not add cherries. The last time, Turned it around! I have gotten good marks with it in the one competition I entered it into. It is now a year old, and I'm down to a few bottles left of it, I wish I had put this one away until now! I bought frozen cherries and blended them up and added them to the secondary for 7 days then racked to a Third carboy for aging.

Cheers
Preston
 

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Preston, my gal wants me to make a cherry wheat beer (something about her liking Sam Adam's cherry wheat).
I have a basic wheat recipe set up in BeerSmith.
I'm seeing and reading different ways to do the fruit.
I would rather use fruit or concentrate instead of extract.
So, either fresh if I can find them, canned or frozen.
You talked about blending them and adding them to the  carboy.
Could you give me an idea of how much of the cherry puree I would want to add to a 5 gal batch?
I have no idea.  I have tasted a raspberry wheat, but not a cherry.  I don't know if I would need a cup or a quart or more.
I don't want to overpower it, but I have read forum articles about getting color, but not enough flavor.
I was planning on putting the fruit in the secondary.
I normally do a my primaries and secondaries for 2 weeks each.
Would that be too long in the secondary with the fruit?
Maybe 1 week in the 2nd and then 2 weeks in the 3rd.
Tell me what you can.

If anyone has a favorite fruit beer recipe (wheat and fruit), could you share it with me?
I have seen a number of them on the forums and web sites. 
I would like to start with a simple or basic recipe for my first batch.  Also, one that has been successful!

Thanks
 
SkyFlyer said:
Could you give me an idea of how much of the cherry puree I would want to add to a 5 gal batch?
I used 6LB for 5G, and that was just about right. Granted that was a porter so there was a lot of malt's and other stuff in there. If it were me, and I was brewing a Wheat beer, I would probably start with 3-4LB for a beer around 1.040, and go from there. I used Frozen (Without seeds) because this usually kills any bad stuff that might be on the cherries, and I did not have to pit the cherries. By the time you are adding the Fruit to the secondary. The beer is "usually" to toxic for anything bad to grow, but it never hurts to be safe.
I was planning on putting the fruit in the secondary.
I normally do a my primaries and secondaries for 2 weeks each.
Would that be too long in the secondary with the fruit?
Maybe 1 week in the 2nd and then 2 weeks in the 3rd.
I would say stay with your normal Primary fermentation of 2 weeks. One week on the cherries would be fine. If yo leave them in there for to long they will suck up all the alcohol, We don't want that! Then go two more weeks on the tertiary for clearing. Staying with a simple recipe is a great idea. Sometimes people put 40,000 items in a beer to make it better, when they could have used 2 and had a great beer. Sometimes simple is all that it takes.
 
OK, thanks for the info, Preston.
What if I can find fresh cherries?  How would I deal with them?
Crush them to get the pits out, maybe bring them to a boil with some water to sterilize them.
Then puree and freeze until I make the beer next week?
I'll look around for some ideas.
 
I am interested in brewing this recipe. Can you give us a hint on when the lactose and syrup are added?

Thnx
 
I add both at the beginning of the boil. Enjoy!

Cheers
Preston
 
In one of the recent BSmith blogs a master brewer said of all the fancy brewing stuff you can buy --- fermentation control has the biggest impact on the quality of your final product. The other benefit is a much more relaxed - controlled fermentation
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I made a cherry ESB using cherry liquor in the bottling segment. I was suprised how well it turned out.
Stayed nice and sweet for that tooth, and gave it very little off alcohol flavor.
Used 1 cup instead of priming sugars.
If you really want to get fancy, pasturize 50 or so cherries and put one in each bottle. That is in addition to the aforementioned step.
If you want to see how good the lady kisses...Leave the stem attached and see what she can do with it ;)
 
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