Frozen Cherries/Fruit, To Campden or Not to? Also Cherry Stout Recipe Feedback

[ArkotRamathorn]

So I will be acquiring some (5lbs) of frozen tart cherries for a cherry stout attempt and was sort of curious if I should before I transfer to secondary, toss a crushed up campden tablet in with the cherries just to make sure I'm not getting something crazy trying to ferment them. Or by dint of going through commercial processing before being frozen, I shouldnt have much to worry about?

Next I am going to attempt to come up with a decent stout recipe to match up with the New Glarus Cherry Stout (sadly they havent done it for two seasons now). Or at the very least, a suitable replacement cherry stout to appease SWMBO. I hope some here are familiar with the New Glarus Thumbprint Cherry Stout. I dont remember it having a very high ABV so I'm only shooting for around 5.5-6% abv.

6# 2-row
1# Flaked Oats
12oz Chocolate (more or too much?)
4-6oz Roasted Barley (I believe this will be enough to give it a balance of crispy roastiness)
8oz 60L (I have some English Medium Crystal that is stated as between 50-60L so I was going to use this)
8oz Belgian Biscuit

1oz EKG at 60min


I am thinking I need one more little bit of something to add to this, at 5 gallons I come to just about 30 SRM, I don't wanna go straight to 40 SRM though. Maybe 8oz of Special B and 4oz of 120L would bump it up another 4-5 SRM. Looking for feedback, other suggestions are more than welcome on the whole recipe in general. I really like US-04 as I've used it several times now and am thinking of using it on this recipe. I will be adding the cherries during secondary and leaving them in for about 4 weeks (hopefully most of the sugars ferment out). As well a short period of oaking this beer as I believe the commercial version is oaked, since its not extremely overpowering I am assuming a very light toast (if I'm wrong, please tell me).

 

[abeasst]

If you are talking about frozen cherries. I made a blackberry wit and just added them directly to secondary from the freezer.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

If you are talking about frozen cherries. I made a blackberry wit and just added them directly to secondary from the freezer.

I figured this might be the case considering whatever they do for commercial processing. Does 5lbs sound like a decent number for a 5ish gallon recipe?

 

[SupervisingChildren]

I use 6# on my cherry wheat. They're sweet though and come through a bit FWIW.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

I use 6# on my cherry wheat. They're sweet though and come through a bit FWIW.

Makes me wonder if I should put part of them in during primary fermentation so the gist of the sugars are fermented out. Then use the other half in secondary when I am oaking.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Double post oops.

 

[abeasst]

I used 5# of blackberries in secondary in a wheat beer and can't taste any of it. Next time I'll try using a little more and smashing them.

 

[Dustbowl]

I would suggest blending the cherries smooth and heating them in a pot to around 170f and just turn off the heat and let them cool. You'll be sure you have no wild yeast or bacteria and you'll get better extraction of flavor.


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