Please give me your 2 cents.....
I just made a dry stout (similar to Guiness). I got the kit from AHS.
Anyway, I'm making this beer for my sister's wedding, and she requested that she wanted a fruity type beer. I suggested a Black cherry stout, she's all for it. Soo, I have the wort fermenting with the yeast, as I type. I just purchased a can of black cherry juice from one of those specialty super markets. On the side of the bottle it says 100% juice. The ingredients say, 100% black cherry juice - no preservatives. The lid says pasturised for your saftey, so I'm assuming I can just pour the juice directly in with the fermenting wort, no boiling, right?
Well, the bottle is 32 oz. I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions on how much I should pour in? The whole bottle, maybe half?
I know stouts already have a strong flavor and I want to have a pretty strong flavor of black cherries, but I don't want it to be over kill on the beer flavor.
Since I'm pretty new to this home brewing, I was wondering if any one could shed some light on techniques I could use? Has anyone tried using pure juice from a bottle that's already been pasturised? Oh, and one more thing, I was thinking about adding some unsweetened coco as well, thought I might make it a Chocolate black cherry stout. Is unsweetened coco the way to go, since beer has so much sugar in it already?
I'd skip the chocolate personally. Stout malts already have a lot of the characteristics of unsweetened chocolate and I think it'll be lost. It's generally better to keep beers simple...something newer brewers inevitably have trouble accepting
I'd use all that cherry juice at least. Why not? It'll ferment and won't be too sweet and to notice the cherry in a stout, you'll need a lot. Cheers
__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit
Hey,
Thanks for the advice.
Yes, I do agree about the stouts already having chocolate characteristics. That brings up another question, I saw white chocolate powder as well as the regular chocolate coca. Have you ever, or heard of anyone ever using white chocolate powder instead? I thought it might be interesting for a future batch.....White chocolate stout?? White almond chocolate stout??
My advice: Definitely don't use white chocolate. It's not even cocoa. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter and sugar. If you use chocolate at all, I'd get a high quality dark, unsweetened chocolate powder like Scharffenberger or Ghiradeli.
People who know chocolate don't even really consider white chocolate a chocolate. It's a sweet, but it's basically sugar and fatty oils. None of the stuff that makes chocolate so groovy. Real chocolate is a drug
Mmmm...chocolate...
__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit
Here's a good link on chocolate. Long and short of it is, I don't know what white chocloate would add...it's fats that probably don't dissolve and could go rancid. To get real chocolate character, you want cocoa...not cocoa butter, Cheers
__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit
Since your on a roll here.
I was also thinking about making a Hazelnut stout this weekend. I'm going to use the same dry stout recipe, but add in some Hazelnut syrup.
The stuff I got was from the same specialty super market. The label says certified organic. Does that mean I have to boil the syrup at 180 degrees for 20 minutes to make it all natural? Then cool to 80 and add to the wort?
That's kind of my concern. I tried using extract on a batch a couple of months ago. I added it at bottling time, however, no flavor, zero zilch nada nothing....
I just thought I might try a different approach. Do you still think the syrup would be a bad idea? Would it make the beer undrinkable?
Syrup is primarily...syrup. It's going to result in another small fermentation that may or may not result in the flavor you're trying to achieve (depending on how much you add). Plus, I'm not really sure how those other ingredients may affect the beer, perhaps not at all.
Extract should definitely do the trick. You may need to add more. If it's good enough Rogue, it should work for us, too!: http://www.rogue.com/brews.html#hazelnut
Black cherry stout, your $0.02 please...
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