should I make an imperial kriek or cut back somewhere?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jester5120

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2011
Messages
769
Reaction score
22
Location
DuBois
I brewed the base for a kriek last summer.I ended up getting way better efficiency than i anticipated and it came in at 1.064. I'm now getting ready to add cherries in a month or so and if i did my calculations right the kriek will be in the neighborhood of 10% abv if i add the 6lbs of cherries i originally planned on. so my question is should i just go for it and make a monster of a kriek, should i cut back on cherries, or should I drop the abv and increase volume by adding some sterile water (i'm against this option but open minded to suggestion)?
 
The addition of whole cherries shouldn't increase the ABV of your beer in any substantial way. I'm not sure of the degrees plato for cherries, but most fruit has enough water to cancel out it's sugar so that it will either negligibly raise the ABV of a low gravity beer or decrease the ABV of a high gravity beer.

With your 1.064 OG, your lambic/kriek will likely stay in the upper 7% to low 8% range.
 
I'm using the vintner harvest cherry puree. It says the cans are between 1.092 and 1.115 I figured that to be about a 1.025 once added to the beer. I could be way off in my math though. I just wanna make sure I get some cherry flavor and get it sour enough without killing the bacteria.
 
Back
Top