CherrBerr Lager

5# 6 Row Malt
2.5# Flaked Maize
2# 30*L Caramel Malt
4 oz. Rice Hulls
4# Whole Cherries
1.75# Black & Red Raspberries
1 tsp. Irish Moss
2 tsp. Calcium Chloride - Mash
2 tsp. Burton Water Salts - Mash
1 oz. Chinook Hops Pellets
1 oz. Saaz Hop Pellets
Wyeast 2035 Am. Lager Yeast Prop. Pak

Stove Top heating method used
3.5 gal mash water - 136*
mash-in temp - 126*
Protein Rest - 30 minutes
Mash temp increased to 156* - 90 minutes
Run-off drawn and recirculated til clear
4 gal Sparge Water - 170*
Fly Sparged - 45 minutes
90 minute Boil
Chinook hops - 60 minutes
Saaz hops - 5 minutes
Irish Moss - 15 minutes

Cherries were washed, sorted and de-stemmed
Raspberries were home grown, sorted and froze, then thawed for brewing
Fruit was pulse chopped in food processor, seeds and all
Wort temp lowered to 180*
Fruit was added to wort & held for 20 minutes
Wort was crash cooled with IC to 67*
Yeast smack-pack pitched
Beer was stored at room temp (68*) for a few days,
Then moved to basement at 55* for 16 days
Transferred to secondary and moved to lagering room (35-40*) for 22 days
1 cup Corn Sugar boiled in a pint of raw beer and added to bottling bucket
Bottled beer held at room temp (68*) for 12 weeks

Chilled a bottle and the beer had a great dark red color, nice pink head
Good fruit aroma, good fruit flavor that is not too intense
Nice malt after taste

Excuse my new-ness, but I have a question on the fruit and what you did with it in general.

You had all wild fruit or store bought?
Did you boil it at all to get rid of wild yeasts?
When did you add the fruit, I'm guessing during the secondary?
And final question, how did you add it?
This is how I see it: you processed it and then just dumped it into the bucket, resealed it and then took it to the lagering room.

The reason why I ask is I made a blueberry apply beer before, and it came out infected, not completely sure why but I think it was the apples. I bought store apples and didn't boil them at all, ruined a whole batch of beer (the blueberries were frozen, apples were off the shelf).

The raspberries were all home grown and frozen. The cherries were fresh and purchased at a local farmers market. I just washed and sorted 4 pounds. I then just put some of them in my food processor and pulse chopped them just a couple times, just to get them broke open, but not (hopefully) cut into the pits to much.

After the wort boil was finished, my wort chiller was in the boil pot for the last 15 minutes or so, I then just dropped the wort temp to 180* (which didn't take long), and just added all the fruit and kept it at that temp for 20 minutes. This is long enough to disinfect the fresh fruit, but low enough as to not set the pectins. After the 20 minutes, I just finished chilling down the wort. I left the fruit in the primary, and just carefully racked it after two weeks. I then moved it to my lagering room for three weeks and bottled as usual.

I am planning on making this again some time, but I would definitely get my cherries ahead of time, get them washed and in the freezer for a while first. That way I won't have to chop them in the food processor, and I probably could just get by using a potato masher to smash them a bit. But if I was going to use them right away, I would probably put them in a campden solution for two days first, then chop them. That should knock down any whild yeasties, and process as I have described.