Dry Fruit Source(s) for Sour Barrel

Looking to add dry cherries or currants to a barrel with 2 year old sour and I am looking for a good source.

I found these guys, but they are out for a few more weeks.
http://www.rawfromthefarm.com/Pages/SunDriedFruit.aspx

Looking online it is really hard to find fruit without sugar and oils added to them. If you do find them they seem more expensive than the beer is worth. Does any one have a good place that has affordable prices for oil and sugar free fruit?

Thanks a bunch. (fruit pun)

BW

Yeah, definitely expensive to source. If you are looking for cherry, you might have better luck finding cherry juice concentrate. Won't add a lot of extra sugars or liquid but will add the cherry flavors. It won't help if you're trying to get the tannins out of the fruit skin though.

This year was apparently a very bad year for sour cherries. I bought 4lbs about 5 months ago and since then the price has almost doubled. Should have bought more, but at like $8/lb I couldn't justify it at the time.

Is there a good place to get sour cherry concentrate online? I've been checking my local grocery stores and haven't found anything other than pie filling.

I would like to stick with whole fruit for the barrel. Kind of have some OCD about that.

Might have to blend some currants and cherries to bring down the price.

BW

B-Dub said:

Might have to blend some currants and cherries to bring down the price.
BW

Click to expand...

Sounds interesting. What kind of currants are you thinking? I picked up a sh*tload of red currants while they were in season and haven't totally decided what to do with them yet. They're currently in my fruit freezer tomb.

What about taking out 10-15 gallons from the barrel in to carboys and adding different fruit to each one? Not sure how big the barrel is, but that could give you more options without having to sacrifice the entire (59 gallon?) batch to the fruit gods. It would let you see what tastes the best with the beer and then allow you to make an informed decision about what to do with the full barrel.

Well the barrel I am emptying is 59G. 20G into bottles, 20G into 4-5G kegs and the remainder into carboys with fruit. However I also have 20-22G of a light sour that needs HOLDING for now and that is the beer going on dried fruit. In total I am going down to a 30G and a 10G barrel from a 59G and 20+ in kegs. Trying to size down to just the 30G and 10G by next year. Even if I get my plan done this year I will have 2-3 5G carboys, 30G and 10G barrels and some kegs full. Then process some by next year and be done with so many containers.

BW

Impressive. Just started my sour solera barrel project a few weeks ago. Looking forward to being in your position in about a year! Let us know what you end up doing. Would love you see some photos too.

It is surprising when all the beers come to roost how much one can have! I am looking forward to scaling down.

BW

http://www.cherrybayorchards.com/dr...d-unsweetened-montmorency-cherries-2-lbs.html

Above is the link to the fruit that I bought for the barrel. I really could not be happier with the the product. Looking back I wish I would have bought more! These cherries are tart and fantastic!!!!!

If you look at the process I put over 2 year old sour blond on top of these dry cherries in a 30G barrel that previously had a dark sour for about a year. I will post some photos over the weekend, but if you are on the fence; these are great cherries. Way better than using cooked canned stuff.

BW

Cool, thanks. Hey where are you located? I like your set up. How many pounds of cherries did you use?

How many pounds of cherries did you use?

Click to expand...

I used 4 pounds of dry pitted cherries. The woman I talked with at Cherry Bay said it takes about 3-4 wet pounds to make one dry. Although all the other online sources said it was about 6-8 wet to dry.

From SLO.

BW

Believe it or not the WalMart brand dried cherries don't have any oil on them. They were the only ones I could find for my sour brown.

I looked at all the health food stores and the regular stores. Trader Joes here has dry, non-sweetened with no oil. They are the sweet Bing cherries and were about $4.50 per 6 oz. The TJ's cherries feel oily to me, so I wrote them an email.

This the reply:

Thank you for your email. This product does not contain any added ingredients, including oil. Cherries do contain fat and when dried will contain a larger content than in the fresh fruit. Since the overall content is less than 2g suppliers are not required to place this information in the Nutrition Facts and can omit this content for labeling purposes. We hope this is helpful.

Click to expand...

I might use them in a 5G carboy when I empty a barrel in a few weeks.

BW

i just got (4) 3lb bags of sour cherries at montgomery winery outlet/homebrewstore in elderton, pa for around 12 bucks each.
i used these same cherries in the famed "cherries in the snow" recipe and it came out great. i still get rave reviews after 2 years in the bottle.

i just got (4) 3lb bags of sour cherries at montgomery winery outlet/homebrewstore in elderton, pa for around 12 bucks each.
i used these same cherries in the famed "cherries in the snow" recipe and it came out great. i still get rave reviews after 2 years in the bottle.

Click to expand...

Sounds great! Do they have a webpage?

Soaked the TJ's cherries in some water today and a little oil sheen rose to the surface. I will just eat the bags I bought. None for the beer!

The 30G barrel is now fermenting after about a week on the cherries.

BW

I just emailed a company called fruit fast. She said that their unsweetened dried cherries do not have any oil added.
Clicky.
I am unsure of the quality of their dried fruits but if it is near as good as their concentrates then they will be great. I prime a lot of my lambics with their tart cherry concentrate.

Fruit Fast is a little expensive at $22 per pound. Cherry Bay was $28 for 2 pounds. Good stuff too!

BW

BryanThompson said:

I just emailed a company called fruit fast. She said that their unsweetened dried cherries do not have any oil added.
Clicky.
I am unsure of the quality of their dried fruits but if it is near as good as their concentrates then they will be great. I prime a lot of my lambics with their tart cherry concentrate.

Click to expand...

Slightly off topic but how much concentrate do you use for priming? I really like the idea.