Cranberry Ale

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Tsuyako

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Location
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Okay so I was hoping that all you pro's would take a peek at the following recipe. I'm basing it off of another recipe I got on here (thanks for posting Conroe:)) that was from Radical Brewing. I'm thinking of adding sanitized cranberries to the fermenter instead of in the boil and then again in the secondary for more cranberry flavor. Anyway here's the recipe.

All-Grain
5 Gallons 90 minute boil
Partial Boil as I cannot get 5 gallons up to a boil on my stove
Mash at 153 for 60 min
Sparge at 170 for 10 min

4 lbs Rahr Pilsner
3 lbs Six-Row
Maybe another grain?
2 bags frozen whole cranberries added to fermenter

.75 oz saaz hops at 90 min
1/2 oz saaz hops at 10 min

I've replaced the .75 Mt. Rainier hops for more saaz as, well, I like them and I wanted more of the cranberry to come through than the hops. Maybe something fruitier? I'm still learning the difference between the hops so maybe cascade or wilamette?

I'm stuck on yeast. The recipe called for US-05 and that seems to be a pretty round about yeast. I currently have my popcorn cream ale fermeting so I have no idea what it currently tastes like. The wort was delicious before the hops were added so I'm not concerned. Anyway what do you all think?
 
Okay so I was hoping that all you pro's would take a peek at the following recipe. I'm basing it off of another recipe I got on here (thanks for posting Conroe:)) that was from Radical Brewing. I'm thinking of adding sanitized cranberries to the fermenter instead of in the boil and then again in the secondary for more cranberry flavor. Anyway here's the recipe.

All-Grain
5 Gallons 90 minute boil
Partial Boil as I cannot get 5 gallons up to a boil on my stove
Mash at 153 for 60 min
Sparge at 170 for 10 min

4 lbs Rahr Pilsner
3 lbs Six-Row
Maybe another grain?
2 bags frozen whole cranberries added to fermenter

.75 oz saaz hops at 90 min
1/2 oz saaz hops at 10 min

I've replaced the .75 Mt. Rainier hops for more saaz as, well, I like them and I wanted more of the cranberry to come through than the hops. Maybe something fruitier? I'm still learning the difference between the hops so maybe cascade or wilamette?

I'm stuck on yeast. The recipe called for US-05 and that seems to be a pretty round about yeast. I currently have my popcorn cream ale fermeting so I have no idea what it currently tastes like. The wort was delicious before the hops were added so I'm not concerned. Anyway what do you all think?

If it were me, I would probably stick with the earthier English hops to balance the cranberries, which tend to be a tangier fruit. I would be afraid that a lot of the sourness of cranberries would stay while the sweeter parts ferment out - thus I would say balance with malt and English hops...
 
If it were me, I would probably stick with the earthier English hops to balance the cranberries, which tend to be a tangier fruit. I would be afraid that a lot of the sourness of cranberries would stay while the sweeter parts ferment out - thus I would say balance with malt and English hops...

That's a good point. I didn't think about the sourness of the berries. Maybe I'll use a little less berries and some smoother hops, something with a low AA%. Could you recommend a good english hop? I hate fuggles, so anything that doesn't taste like that.
 
I recently brewed a mixed berry ale (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries). I waited until secondary to add the berries and did a cold fermentation, stored in my kegerator at about 45 degrees for 5 days before racking into a keg.

I had two reasons for going this route:
1.) I was trying to brew a fruit forward beer for my wife's birthday
2.) I was horrified that my addition of 4lbs of berries to 4 gallons of beer was going to create an explosive secondary fermentation and make a giant mess that I wasn't really in the mood to deal with.

This beer was VERY fruit forward (which was what I was hoping for) but delicious nonetheless. My cold "fermentation" was really more of a cold steep with no visual yeast activity happening which helped withhold alot of the flavor of the berries. On a sort of interesting side note, when I tasted a sample before kegging it actually had a little bit of carbonation to it... as if the very minor fermentation that did happen didn't have quite enough umph to make the airlock to bubble and ended up turning the carboy into a big beer bottle... sorta kinda.

Anyways, If you're looking to impart a big flavor from the cranberries, I'd recommended this method, although I don't know that I'd use a 1lb berry to 1gal beer ratio with something as sour as cranberries.
 
Well I'm not set up for kegging but I could put in downstairs in a cold cabinet. I will have to do a secondary and it looks like a blow off might be involved (oh well). Glad to hear your beer turned out good! I was thinking of using another red berry incase I needed to cut the tartness but your cold steep might just do the trick!

Mind if I ask what color your beer came out to?
 
I'll go draw a pint and upload a picture as soon as I can find my camera.
 
167299_945501405589_14815845_50052342_4618436_n.jpg

Its got a nice redish amber color to it with a ton of the berry aroma on the nose. This was a partial extract batch with pale malt extract. I'd give you my grain bill but the computer I have it saved on is toast unfortunately... hopefully I can recover the data at some point because this will definitely go into the "will make again" file. That being said, the recipe was a pretty basic pale ale recipe and I'm pretty sure I used the Safale British Ale yeast. I've been digging the Safale yeast as it instruct you to pitch it by sprinkling the dry yeast directly into your cooled wort without re-hydrating. I've used various Safale yeasts for my last 3 brews without re-hydrating prior to pitching and have been very happy with the results.
:mug:
 
On a side note, I'm not sure if you can still find it around but New Belgium's Frambozen is a raspberry brown ale that has a pretty fantastic deep, rich, red hue to it... it also tastes pretty fantastic so bonus. It's a seasonal x-mas time ale so I'm not sure whether or not you can still find it but it was my general inspiration for this beer. My cold steep imparted a ton of color on this batch which I was pleasantly surprised about. I'm guessing New Belgium uses at least a small quantity of mid to dark roasted grains to give their color a bit more depth.

For what its worth, heres a link to their info on it.
http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/detail.aspx?id=284aa352-e5a3-48a3-abbf-a4de361bcab3
 
Wow thanks so much! Your berry ale looks wonderful with that deep color.

I took a brief look at that rasperry ale, I'll look into it more later this afternoon.

*I'll also post again this afternoon*
 
Actually not yet. I can't seem to find frozen cranberries at the store. I'm hopeing they were just out last time I went. I'll check again next time I'm there and see if I can't get something brewed up this weekend. I'll post pics if/when I brew this.
 
Though I haven't used them myself, there's plenty of chatter on the forums about Oregon Fruit Puree working well. Its just canned mashed up fruit from what I gather. I know I've seen the stuff at Fred Meyer... assuming that you're in Washington state, not D.C., I'd bet its available at most grocery stores around the area.
 
I know dried cranberries are easy to find... maybe that would work for you? Maybe rehydrate in some hot/boiling water??

I'm also interested to see if this works out, so keep us posted, m-kay?
 
I remember coming across a few threads about dried fruit working also when I was researching my brew. If I recall correctly, there's some debate about how to rehydrate the fruit in a sanitary manner while avoiding some pectin problems associated with boiling fruit. I don't recall the specifics but definatetly do a a little research on that if you go for dried.
 
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