Cranberries and sour beers

Has anyone had any experience with using cranberries in a sour beer? There is a recipe in Radical Brewing where a wheat beer is aged on cranberries and a Lambic blend.

Cranberries themselves require cooking before they tasteany good, although I'm not sure how that would go with cranberries raw in beer. - they are also hard uncooked. Possibly they go through a sacrification like malt does, although I'm only speculating there.

And cranberry wheat or lambic sounds tasty!

Im in the process of making a cranberry lambic right now. I stole the idea from New Glarus Brewery (they make the infamous Spotted Cow). They have special editions out every few months that typically are sours. The current/last one was Cran-bic ale. One taste and I was hooked. Since I was trying to figure out the best way to add them and how much, I made some extra wheat beer base the last beer I made. I just tasted that beer last night, and with one 20oz package to 3 gallons of beer, it wasnt enough. There was a really faint tart to it, but not noticable enough. I will be adding a second bag to see what happens. I ended up pastuerizing mine on the stove in a pot. After warming them up to 160, I was able to use a sanitized spoon to mash them. Before I heated them they were near impossible to crush.

Hopefully someone else will have some input and has tried it, but I searched for a while and couldnt find much info on using cranberries when I looked.

I did do a cranberry wine once - I just used soem cranberry juice and some cranberry jelly, came out nice and tart. Although in general I support using the fruit particuarly with beer because other items usually have corn sugar or cane surgar added.

I've got a cranberry sour beer aging right now - just about ready to bottle. The whole beer was pretty experimental - I used a high percentage of acid malt (13%) to help with the souring and fermented it with a wine yeast before adding the cranberries and some Brett c. So far the samples have tasted really good. I used 1 lb of cranberries per gallon. I bought the cranberries fresh and then froze them in vacuum sealed bags. If you're interested, all the sordid details can be found at [bad link deleted.]

Glad someone posted who has used them. Good to hear that 1lb per gallon is the ticket, thats what Im ending up with once I add a second bag. Thanks!

All iknow is that the sam adams cranberry lambic was god awful

I realize this reply is 2 years after OP but as it turns out, I'm doing an almost identical beer. I racked my brew into secondary on top of about 3.5lbs of cranberries. They were fresh when I bought them. I froze them overnight, thawed them out and crushed them before funneling them into my 6gal carboy and racking my beer on top. All the berries are floating at the top, with about half of them above the surface of the liquid. I was wondering, why aren't they submerged? Is it possible that I didn't crush them all enough to break the skin of the fruit? I have another 3.5 lbs in the freezer and might repeat in a 3rd vessel later but I just wanted some advice as to why my fruit seems so buoyant. Thanks!

Most fruit end up floating at the top in sours. You are fine.

But do you think they are actually fermenting or adding anything to the beer if they are above the surface of the liquid?

They will eventually sink a little over the next few months, possibly even sink completely.

evolume said:

But do you think they are actually fermenting or adding anything to the beer if they are above the surface of the liquid?

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My cranberries floated until I racked them in may. There was a nice cranberry tartness. They worked well in the beer and I am thinking of doing it again.

The beer won Belgian Specialty out of 18 entries this past fall. So it makes a decent beer.

lacticacid said:

My cranberries floated until I racked them in may. There was a nice cranberry tartness. They worked well in the beer and I am thinking of doing it again.

The beer won Belgian Specialty out of 18 entries this past fall. So it makes a decent beer.

Click to expand...

What was your recipe? I have an assload of frozen cranberries that need to be fermented somehow.

This is crazy. I was just talking about doing a cranberry beer at dinner last night after being told "it's cranberry season"

I was thinking of racking my Berliner on top of some cranberries.

I don't know this, but I would have assumed that fresh cranberries would have a very high ph and kill off yeast.

Rapt0rBrown said:

I don't know this, but I would have assumed that fresh cranberries would have a very high ph and kill off yeast.

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No.

Rapt0rBrown said:

I don't know this, but I would have assumed that fresh cranberries would have a very high ph and kill off yeast.

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Cranberries, like most fruit, are on the low pH side, which gives them their tartness. Regardless, they will have no impact on the yeast.

Just a quick update: The berries are still floating but not as much. Over the past 2 weeks I have been periodically and gently tipping the carboy to about a 45 degree angle in all directions. This has the effect of gently (GENTLY!) rolling and soaking the floating berries with beer. some of the berries toward the bottom of the float are fermenting into a really pasty orange color. And there is still some air lock activity though very little. I have not ventured to measure the gravity but I will, before I rack it next time. It has been just shy of 3 weeks since I racked onto the berries.

highgravitybacon said:

What was your recipe? I have an assload of frozen cranberries that need to be fermented somehow.

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Malt & Fermentables

% LB OZ °L PPG
37% 6 ~ Belgian Pilsner Malt
Mash 2° * 34
12% 2 ~ Buckwheat (Kasha)
Mash 1° * 20
12% 2 ~ Belgian Wheat
Mash 2° * 38
10% 1 10 Belgian Candi Syrup A
Boil 40° * 36
9% 1 8 Rye Malt
Mash 4° * 29
6% 1 ~ Munich Malt
Mash 9° * 37
6% 1 ~ Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)
Mash 5° * 34
6% ~ 15 Spelt
Mash 5° * 34
2% ~ 6 Acidulated Malt
Mash 2° * 33
16 7
Specific Gravity
1.070 OG
(1.062 to 1.073)
17.1° Plato
1.010 FG
(1.009 to 1.011)
2.6° Plato
Measured Values
Edit Gravities / Edit Color
Color
11° SRM
21° EBC
Copper to Red/Lt. Brown
Mash Efficiency
75 %
Hops

Usage Time OZ AA » IBU
first wort 75 min 1 ¼ Styrian Goldings ~ pellet 4.5 » 16.8
boil 30 min 2 Czech Saaz ~ pellet 3.0 » 13.2
boil 5 min ¾ Styrian Goldings ~ pellet 4.5 » 1.9
Bitterness
31.9 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
6 HBU
BU:GU
0.46
Yeast

Sorry it's a bit hard to read. The yeast in primary was WLP Farmhouse ale. In secondary I added dregs from jolly pumpkin and slurry from Wyeast Rosalaire and WLP Brett l and Brett c. After 6 months i added 3 lbs of frozen cranberries and 3 lbs of frozen cherries. It sat on that for maybe 3 months.

JLem said:

I've got a cranberry sour beer aging right now - just about ready to bottle. The whole beer was pretty experimental - I used a high percentage of acid malt (13%) to help with the souring and fermented it with a wine yeast before adding the cranberries and some Brett c. So far the samples have tasted really good. I used 1 lb of cranberries per gallon. I bought the cranberries fresh and then froze them in vacuum sealed bags. If you're interested, all the sordid details can be found at [URL redacted]

Click to expand...

First: It looks like the URL, while sorid, no longer has anything to do with beer. Might want to edit OP.

But my Real Question is...
Did you have any problems clearing the brett out of your soft brewery parts? Did you do any particularly special cleaning/sanitation?

Curious, as I'm about to undertake my first sour and a little nervous about that part.

Thanks!

olie said:

First: It looks like the URL, while sorid, no longer has anything to do with beer. Might want to edit OP.

But my Real Question is...
Did you have any problems clearing the brett out of your soft brewery parts? Did you do any particularly special cleaning/sanitation?

Curious, as I'm about to undertake my first sour and a little nervous about that part.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

This post is over 10 years old. I'm sure the internet has had some sites come and go, which would surely affect links that were typed 10+ years ago?