Black Cherry Wheat Beer

I hope this is in the right thread:

I'm trying to make a black cherry flavored Wheat Beer. In the past I've made cherry wheat using four oz of cherry extract (mostly alcohol) added just before bottling.

Now I have a pint of pure black cherry concentrate that has 14g sugar per tablespoon. I want to try that in a hefe.

I ferment with 4 ounces of dextrose, which equals 113g sugar. Can I use 8tablespoons of extract instead of dextrose? That's still 112g sugar.

I would like this hefe to have a strong cherry taste. Any suggestions on how to use more or get more flavor into the final product? I don't want to over carbonate so I'm hesitant to use too much. Can I add it to the wort and let the yeast convert the sugars or would that eliminate the cherry flavor?

Any help is appreciated.

It certainly would be possible to carb using it, but I'd be a bit leery about doing that. It seems like that would be an easy way to under or over carb your beers.

Personally I think your best bet would be to add the juice right after flame-out, or if you use a secondary, toss it in there before you rack. It will ferment the sugars, but should leave you with plenty of cherry taste. The best way to get more taste would be to add more I suppose.

I wouldn't bottle with it either. As stated, at flame out or at after primary fermentation is over.

The dosage is another question. Then concentrate is not nearly as strong as extract. If you're talking something like a frozen concentrate, 16 ounces in 5 gallons is not going to be a huge impact. Do you have more information on the extract?

It sounds like an interesting variation on the kriek beer. I'll check back in on this thread and see how it turns out.