[john.flanagin]

Hi,

I just brewed a Milk Stout and it should come in around 8.5%. I wanted to split the batch and add cherries to it. I wanted to lay out my logic and see if anyone had any tips,tricks,concerns, or criticism.

I was thinking of getting Frozen Dole Dark Sweet frozen cherries and putting them in a vessel with enough bourbon to cover them. I would then let them sit for a few days and then decant any bourbon that was not absorbed by the cherries. Finally I would put the cherries in a carboy and rack half my batch on top of them to secondary.

Thanks for any feedback!

[klickitat jim]

I used frozen dark sweet cherries in a belgian dark strong, turned out great. You'll need at least 1.5-2 pounds per gallon if you want the cherries to shine through. Maybe more with the burboun

[john.flanagin]

Jim,

Did you add your cherries whole or did you puree/smush them?

[homoeccentricus]

Just as a side note, when I visited 3
Fonteinen recently they told me that one of the reasons they use frozen cherries is that fresh cherries are basically waterproof.

[klickitat jim]

The ones I used were stemmed and pitted and frozen. I thawed to room temp and added them.

The only thing I would do different is add the fruit when the base beer still has about 3-4 brix to go rather than waiting till it's all done.

[kramerog]

I think you could lose some cherry flavor by soaking in whisky particularly because the freezing macerates the cherries and add some whisky flavor to your stout.  I usually do not get too concerned about frozen fruit infecting beer particularly when the alcohol is high; 8.5% is above the tolerance for lacto.  Anyway, I would recommend not attempting to sanitize your frozen cherries before use.

You are probably going to need something like 1 lb of cherries per gallon of beer and perhaps more because this is a stout.

[john.flanagin]

Thanks kramerog. Small world. I joined BOSS last year. Thinking I'm gonna go 1.5lbs per gallon

[reverseapachemaster]

I would ride on the assumption that the fruit may have been pasteurized (often says on the packaging) and freezing killed off most of what may have made it into the package with the fruit rather than worry about losing flavor to whiskey or getting too much boozy flavor in the beer. I might feel differently if you plan on sitting on this beer for years where a handful of cells of an oxidative yeast like brett has time to do something with the beer. If that is your plan then I would suggest opting for an aseptic puree.

[kramerog]

Thanks kramerog. Small world. I joined BOSS last year. Thinking I'm gonna go 1.5lbs per gallon

Did you go to the picnic

[john.flanagin]

Kramerog I did not.

[TexasHumuluslupulushead]

I think you could lose some cherry flavor by soaking in whisky particularly because the freezing macerates the cherries and add some whisky flavor to your stout.  I usually do not get too concerned about frozen fruit infecting beer particularly when the alcohol is high; 8.5% is above the tolerance for lacto.  Anyway, I would recommend not attempting to sanitize your frozen cherries before use.

You are probably going to need something like 1 lb of cherries per gallon of beer and perhaps more because this is a stout.

+1  I just did a Blueberry mosaic IPA with frozen blueberries.  I did not sanitize them for the same reasons listed.  Most bugs were killed during freezing and the few that get threw wont make it in the 8.5%.  I have also done a sour cherry saison in which I used dried sour cherries(northstar).  But i added those at flame out to pasteurize