Can this be blended into a Cherry Tart?

[ja09]

Thinking of a little experiment, so to summarize, I have 4 main questions:

1. Can I blend an already fermented beer with some wort & tart cherry juice, pitch Roselare, and achieve good results?
2. Would Roselare & tart cherry juice be too much tart/sour...should I use a neutral or Belgian yeast instead?
3. Would I oxygenate the new wort blend, or just let yeast do it's thing without?
4. Any opinions on the recipe below from experienced fruit brewers?

Cherry Tart Recipe/Blend
1.5 gal caramel creme ale (already fermented, recipe below)
1 gal ~1.040 wort (wheat DME)
.5 gal TJ's tart cherry juice
1 pack Wyeast Roselare

Planning on letting this sit for at least 6 months in the fermenter. The reason I'd be adding the extra gallon of wort is to bring down the percentages of crystal and the IBUs from the original recipe.

The recipe below was neglected due to my ferm chamber being full, so it fermented a little too warm and has some fruity esters. This is one of the reasons I think it could blend well to make a cherry tart.

Original Recipe
OG: 1.054 SG
FG: 1.015
ABV: 5.8%
IBU: 27.0

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 1 13.1 %
3 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 2 39.4 %
3 lbs Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 3 39.4 %
5.0 oz Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4 4.1 %
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 75.0 min Hop 5 20.2 IBUs
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 4.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 9 2.5 IBUs
5.0 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for 10 min](0 Sugar 10 4.1 %
2.00 oz Vanilla Extract (Boil 0.0 mins) Flavor 11 -
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 12 -

I can't pick up any Vanilla from this beer, so this shouldn't be a factor.

My motivation for the cherry tart is my love of New Glarus fruit beers, so I thought I'd try an experiment and see how this turns out. Doing this would only take ~ 45 minutes to boil/blend/pitch and forget about, so I thought this could be a quick and cheap experiment.

Thanks for your help.

 

[eastoak]

it's really tough to know what a sour beer will do over time unless you've been brewing it for years. blending sour beer has a long history and obviously it can work but all we would be doing is taking guesses about your beer and you should be able to do that better than we can since you're there tasting them. i've made sour beer that tasted horrible initially then totally changed a year later in ways i would not have expected; tobacco, stone fruit and apple flavors that i could not have predicted. i say just do it.

 

[ja09]

i've made sour beer that tasted horrible initially then totally changed a year later in ways i would not have expected; tobacco, stone fruit and apple flavors that i could not have predicted. i say just do it.

Did you leave your sour on the yeast cake for the entire year, or bottle it sooner?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[eastoak]

Did you leave your sour on the yeast cake for the entire year, or bottle it sooner?

Thanks for the feedback.

on the cake for the entire time, all of my sours stay on the cake for the duration.

 

[ja09]

on the cake for the entire time, all of my sours stay on the cake for the duration.

Thanks. This is where I'm doubting my recipe. If I'm going to experiment with sours, maybe I should go with some proven recipes instead of tying up a fermentor for a year with something that might not turn out.

Do you notice these positive changes a few months after you've bottled, or do you attribute them entirely to the yeast cake?

 

[eastoak]

Thanks. This is where I'm doubting my recipe. If I'm going to experiment with sours, maybe I should go with some proven recipes instead of tying up a fermentor for a year with something that might not turn out.

Do you notice these positive changes a few months after you've bottled, or do you attribute them entirely to the yeast cake?

i don't think you'll find a brewer who will say they really understand how sour beer really works, i sure don't. i use dregs from russian river, jolly pumpkin, and other sour beers and i count on them to do whatever it is they do. the grain bills are usually very simple or i round up left over grains and use them up. to date i have not had a sour that did not turn out well for me, i've never dumped a sour but i've dumped plenty of clean beer. once i started using oak, wine soaked oak, and fruit it added a very nice layer of complexity that my earlier sours did not have. i leave the sour on the cake because it's what was traditionally done and has worked for a long time. the cake may give the various bacteria and yeasts something to snack on as they go about their business, i don't know this for sure but i think it's true.

 

[Renegades_Brew]

You might be on to an interesting final product.

I am brewing something that I hope to come close to being a New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red clone. However its just starting and it has 1 year primary and 1 year secondary to go...