cherries in the secondary

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tripplehazzard

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This is my first attempt at adding fruit to the secondary. My recipe calls for sweet and sour cherries. I heard a lot of people use merichino cherries for sweet but I have no idea what kind of sour to use. Also, do I need to pasteurize them by boiling them for a bit or can I drop them straight in? Should I use the syrup or discard? I know they should be fairly room temp so I don't shock the yeast.
 
In Brewing Classic Styles Jamil recommends using fruit puree because it's sterile and often more reasonably priced than fruit from the grocery store.
 
Don't use maraschino cherries. The cherries you can find in the grocery store are the kind of sweet cherries you want. Sour cherries are harder to find (worth it- way more cherry flavor than sweet cherries) but online homebrew stores or winemaking stores will often have them in cans- they may have canned sweet cherries too. Also don't use cherry pie fillings or anything stored in syrup.
 
I'm doing a trögs mad elf clone. Its a chocolate cherry ale I had the privilege to try over the holidays. I don't recall a strong cherry flavor at all, so I think adding a puree would be a good call. How much puree for the 5 lbs of cherries it called for? I'm guessing that a frozen fruit juice concentrate would do the same? It is a real strong ale not too dry ( about 10.0% abv) so I shouldn't have to worry about infection in my secondary. This fruit thing seems tricky. Idk if ill try this again. Also if I decide to use the cherries you mentioned will I still need 5 lbs?
 
I'm doing a blueberry "mead" melomel and read somewhere that soaking the berries in vodka will work to help sterilize so I thought I'd give it a shot. So far it is working...and I "made" blueberry vodka...a win-win
 
I'm doing a blueberry "mead" melemol and read somewhere that soaking the berries in vodka will work to help sterilize so I thought I'd give it a shot. So far it is working...and I "made" blueberry vodka...a win-win

Wow that sounds so good!! Win for sure.. I'm sure ill figure it out. Just weighing my options and trying to do it smart and economical
 
I believe you can freeze fresh fruit, thaw an toss it into secondary as is?

I did that with my blueberry mead.

Ive also made a vanilla stout an i simply cut the bean up an tosed it in straight from the jar it came from.
 
I dumped a can of oregon cherries into a half batch of my last stout when primary was finished. Abv was only 5%... no signs of infection, but the taste isnt what I was looking for. Should have used sweet, this came out tart... not overpowering though. I let them in there 2 weeks
 
Bamsdealer said:
I dumped a can of oregon cherries into a half batch of my last stout when primary was finished. Abv was only 5%... no signs of infection, but the taste isnt what I was looking for. Should have used sweet, this came out tart... not overpowering though. I let them in there 2 weeks

Where did you find said cherries? All I can find online for cherry purée is sweet cherries but I need something tart.
 
I believe you can freeze fresh fruit, thaw an toss it into secondary as is?

I did that with my blueberry mead.

Ive also made a vanilla stout an i simply cut the bean up an tosed it in straight from the jar it came from.

Thinking about adding some vanilla now too... how. Much to add to a 5 gallon batch? Chocolate vanilla cherry ale... mmmm 10% abv
 
Where did you find said cherries? All I can find online for cherry purée is sweet cherries but I need something tart.

Local grocery store. Oregon was the brand and they seemed pretty popular by the amount there. Oh, and I found them by the canned fruit... not by the pie filling or baking stuff. Its not a bigt grocery store so im assuming most would carry them...
 
I ordered some tart michigan cherries canned in water from king orchards. I am going to add 3 cans to a belgian stout I plan to make.
 
Thinking about adding some vanilla now too... how. Much to add to a 5 gallon batch? Chocolate vanilla cherry ale... mmmm 10% abv

I added 1 vanilla bean and it was MORE than enough. If your wanting a hint of vanilla then I'd go with half a vanilla bean. I got it out of a jar, cut it in half long ways an tossed it in the secondary right from the cutting board. I'll never do a whole bean again only half from this point on. That is unless you just love vanilla and need it to be strong flavored.

Cherry vanilla choco sounds too dam good.
 
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