Adding Tart Cherry Juice concentrate to Stout

[cuse88]

My base beer of a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout is just about wrapped up fermenting and have been looking around at the best way to add in cherry flavor to insure a balance between the chocolate and cherry flavors.

I purchased 34oz of Montgomery Tart Cherry Juice concentrate and was trying to figure out the best time and how much juice to add to a 5 gallon batch.

I was thinking of adding all 34oz to the keg , rack the stout , and force carb. My other idea was to use the juice to naturally carb the beer but I'm afraid I'd lose out on the cherry flavor using this method.

Any suggestions?

 

[andrewmaixner]

My base beer of a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout is just about wrapped up fermenting and have been looking around at the best way to add in cherry flavor to insure a balance between the chocolate and cherry flavors.

I purchased 34oz of Montgomery Tart Cherry Juice concentrate and was trying to figure out the best time and how much juice to add to a 5 gallon batch.

I was thinking of adding all 34oz to the keg , rack the stout , and force carb. My other idea was to use the juice to naturally carb the beer but I'm afraid I'd lose out on the cherry flavor using this method.

Any suggestions?

I did exactly that this last winter, using the juice to carb an oatmeal stout and then adding some home-made cacao nib vodka extract. It was good.

I believe that any loss of perceived cherry flavor was actually due to the loss of sugar (which is a component of what you expect cherry to taste like) as well as the extra pH drop from the tart concentrate. You don't want your stout too sweet. If the bitter chocolate and cherry had taken it out of balance, I was ready with some lactose to sweeten it back up, but that ended up being unnecessary.

 

[cuse88]

How long did it take you to carb up?

 

[andrewmaixner]

I didn't write down the time from priming to serving, but even that would not have been a guaranteed accurate measurement, sorry. I'd presume that the standard 2-3 weeks at 70F would be plenty.
Also, I always do a light invert/shake of my keg or bottles the day after priming, to make sure that the sugars are mixed in. When using carb drops in bottles, you can literally see the light distortion when you give a gentle shake and the liquid mixes, because the more dense sugar solution stayed at the bottom as the sugar tablet dissolved. Before I made that a practice, I once had a super-sweet pour at the start of the keg, which implied that the more dense sugar solution sank to the bottom instead of mixing.

 

[cuse88]

I didn't write down the time from priming to serving, but even that would not have been a guaranteed accurate measurement, sorry. I'd presume that the standard 2-3 weeks at 70F would be plenty.
Also, I always do a light invert/shake of my keg or bottles the day after priming, to make sure that the sugars are mixed in. When using carb drops in bottles, you can literally see the light distortion when you give a gentle shake and the liquid mixes, because the more dense sugar solution stayed at the bottom as the sugar tablet dissolved. Before I made that a practice, I once had a super-sweet pour at the start of the keg, which implied that the more dense sugar solution sank to the bottom instead of mixing.

Did you solely use the cherry juice for carbing or did you add additional sugars? Did you mix all 32/34 oz of juice?

 

[cuse88]

I was actually just thinking, what if I let it naturally carb in the keg for roughly 5 days and then finish force carbing to preserve some of the cherry flavor. Any thoughts on this method?

 

[andrewmaixner]

Did you solely use the cherry juice for carbing or did you add additional sugars? Did you mix all 32/34 oz of juice?

Using the sugar content shown on the nutrition information, I calculated the amount of concentrate necessary for the correct volumes of CO2, and added that to the keg.

 

[andrewmaixner]

I was actually just thinking, what if I let it naturally carb in the keg for roughly 5 days and then finish force carbing to preserve some of the cherry flavor. Any thoughts on this method?

yeast eating the sugar will not take away cherry flavor, it will take away sugar. "sugar" and "cherry" are two separate components of what you taste in cherry juice.

I'd let it ferment out, and then sweeten with a non-fermentable if you don't think it's sweet enough.

 

[cuse88]

The way I figured it based off the Dextrose calc, I would only be adding in roughly 6oz of concentrate giving me 96g of sugar. That doesn't seem like enough juice to really produce any flavor or am I wrong?

 

[andrewmaixner]

The way I figured it based off the Dextrose calc, I would only be adding in roughly 6oz of concentrate giving me 96g of sugar. That doesn't seem like enough juice to really produce any flavor or am I wrong?

Add 1/48 of 6oz to a 12z sample. See what it tastes like.
If you need to use a lot more, make a spunding valve for your keg and add as much as you want.

 

[mbbransc]

I used Premium Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate in a sour recently. On the website, it says it is 68 brix (which is about 1.340 SG) at 32oz.

(here's where I put a disclaimer as others are MUCH more well versed in these calculations than I...)

But if you wanted to use the concentrate as a primer, divide that 1.340 SG by (4) to get its parts per gallon and it's Fermentable PPG would be ~1.085 SG. Compare that to plain table sugar at 1.046. So, if you were planning on adding 4oz sugar to prime, you should add about 2.16 (4 x 46 = 184; 184 / 85 = 2.16) x 4 = 8.64 oz, or roughly a quarter of that 34 oz bottle of concentrate.

Problem is, will that be enough to get the cherry flavor you're looking for? If it were me, I'd add the cherry, let it ferment out and prime as usual. Be more certain of your outcome. My experience with this concentrate is with a sour so I plan to let it sit a long time anyway.

Good luck!

(and please someone correct me where I goofed)

 

[cuse88]

I used Premium Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate in a sour recently. On the website, it says it is 68 brix (which is about 1.340 SG) at 32oz.

(here's where I put a disclaimer as others are MUCH more well versed in these calculations than I...)

But if you wanted to use the concentrate as a primer, divide that 1.340 SG by (4) to get its parts per gallon and it's Fermentable PPG would be ~1.085 SG. Compare that to plain table sugar at 1.046. So, if you were planning on adding 4oz sugar to prime, you should add about 2.16 (4 x 46 = 184; 184 / 85 = 2.16) x 4 = 8.64 oz, or roughly a quarter of that 34 oz bottle of concentrate.

Problem is, will that be enough to get the cherry flavor you're looking for? If it were me, I'd add the cherry, let it ferment out and prime as usual. Be more certain of your outcome. My experience with this concentrate is with a sour so I plan to let it sit a long time anyway.

Good luck!

(and please someone correct me where I goofed)

This is for a buddies bachelor party in a couple weeks or I would just let it age out. I may take a chance and go the sounding valve route and add half the concentrate , gas as needed.