[erockrph]

My cranberries are just about ready to pick. I'm going to reserve a bunch for making a few batches of cranberry sauce over the fall, but I should have quite a bit left over afterwards. I was thinking of using them in either a Saison or a cider.

My question is how to use them? My usual approach with fruit is to freeze and thaw them then add them to secondary. But cranberries don't really break down too much after freezing. For sauce, you usually boil them until they pop to get the juice out. But since they have so much pectin I think that's just asking for haze.

Has anyone out there used whole cranberries successfully? Is there a way to boil them but keep the pectin from setting? Or should I just mash or puree them? And any idea how much to use per gallon?

[HoosierBrew]

I vote to puree them - no worries of heat/pectin issues, and many fewer headaches come racking time. I've never used cranberries, but have always meant to try some in cider. But I feel that they're definitely on a par with raspberry and cherry in terms of intensity and acidity. I use between 3-6 lbs of puree of either cherry or raspberry in fruit wheat beers for my wife.

EDIT  -  To not overshadow the apple character could be the tricky issue obviously in the case of cider. I love the idea of adding cranberries to a saison.

[garc_mall]

I have never used them, so I cannot comment on process. However, I have drank a few beers with cranberries in there, and one thing I noticed is that cranberries have a lot of tannin in their skins. It can really overpower a light/dry beer. I would plan the grain bill to leave some extra residual sweetness in the beer to balance that out.

[erockrph]

I have never used them, so I cannot comment on process. However, I have drank a few beers with cranberries in there, and one thing I noticed is that cranberries have a lot of tannin in their skins. It can really overpower a light/dry beer. I would plan the grain bill to leave some extra residual sweetness in the beer to balance that out.

That's why I'd only want to use them in a Saison (specifically using 3711) or maybe a sour when it comes to beer. In those beers the tannins have some tartness to balance them out. The tannins can really compliment the lighter mouthfeel as well.

[pete b]

We get a case or two or three of cranberries most years real cheap from a friend whose brother works on a cranberry farm down on the cape. We make about 25-45 gallons a year of sweet cranberry mead and give away a lot of bottles of usually the two year old mead at the holidays.
Anyway, for mead we pulse the cranberries and put them in a mesh bag and add hot water and the honey then let cool to pitching temperature. We let the cranberries stay in there during all of primary. Obviously this exact method wouldn't work for beer but the basic idea of using a mesh bag to make a tea might work, and its not messy. I would think for beer you could make the tea, reduce it, then add pectic enzyme after it cools and add at what point you feel would work best: secondary, primary after krausen etc. If you don't want to boil it you could just keep in mind the volume of cranberry tea you will be adding later on when doing your calculations.
Actually now that I think of it you could drop the bag of macerated cranberries in the wort either for the last 10 minutes (add pectic enzme later) or take some hot wort out near the end of boil and make a tea with that on the side.
Long story short, macerating the cranberries and using a bag to steep in hot liquid works great and is easy. Phew!