Bourbon cherry stout

Ok I have a question for you guys. I am fermenting a 8% stout and I'm putting toasted oak chips in a Masson jar with bourbon for two weeks. Can or should I add the cherries in the jar or fermenter? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Dennis

 

I made a bourbon cherry stout last October that turned out great. I soaked the oak chips in bourbon for two weeks. For the cherries i transferred the beer to a secondary and added the fruit, you could probably add it to the primary after a week and let it sit on the fruit another week or two if you don't want to do a secondary. For the bourbon I would just add the oak chips after the beer has finished fermenting and leave them for a couple weeks. I did this and it needed more bourbon so I would also save the bourbon that you soaked the oak in and add it to taste at bottling (or kegging) time.

 

I've done a strawberry ale a number of times that is a neighborhood favorite. I'm not big of secondaries so I add my strawberries after about 1-2 weeks, directly to the primary and then let them sit for about a week. By the end of that time, they look pretty rough, but once you pull them out, the flavor is great. Not that it matters with a stout, but my strawberry cream ale comes out clear, even without the secondary. So a couple of takeaways for what you're doing

- Don't add the cherries to your bourbon/oak. They'll get nasty after a week and you won't want to put them in your fermenter.
- Don't worry about a secondary. Soak your oak in your bourbon then pitch that and your cherries directly into your primary after a week or two of primary fermentation. Since you're doing a stout, no need to worry about clarity, which is the only reason to need a secondary to begin with.

Hope this helps!

 

Awesome, thanks for the help guys.

 

If I wanted to add vanilla been to this when should I have done it? Or can I still do it, it was brewed a week andnd a half ago. I added the cherries last Friday one week into fermentation. I will add the bourbon soaked oak chips this Friday and let it sit for two weeks.

 

I'm thinking I should just go ahead and take two beans slice down the middle and throw them in with the oak chips? Maybe two tablespoons of coffee as well?

 

Yeah that is what I would do, it's not too late.

 

You can take your vanilla beans and put them into vanilla extract. Let sit. Add at bottling time. I used a tsp for 4 gallons of bourbon barrel aged stout.

As to the coffee, I would say don't. You got enough going on with this one. Vanilla though, yummy.

And maybe let the beer sit for a week to ten days on the chips, two weeks may leave it too oakey.

If you really want to do this right next time, get a freshly dumped barrel from Woodinville whiskey. 8 gallons, chock full of so much goodness you can never recapture that with the chips. I used the 100% rye barrel.

Best wishes on your brew :rockin:

 

I am thinking about doing something like this but doing the easy/lazy route of just using a bottle of cherry flavored Bourbon such as Evan Williams