Making a cranberry spiced ale for the holidays, need some input.

So I'm thinking about crushing up whole cranberries and adding them to the boil and then adding 100% cranberry juice in the secondary, just not sure if these methods will give me the flavor I'm looking for or if it will just water it down and end up sour. Anyone ever do anything like this or have any tips they could pass along? Any information would be much appreciated! Cheers!

 

I'd treat it like any other fruit: rack onto it in secondary. I'd use either whole frozen cranberries or dried "craisins" as long as they have no preservative on them.

 

I make a Cranberry Walnut Christmas Ale and I use 1 lb fresh cranberries in the mash and 1 lb in in secondary. I use an old hand grinder (not a mill) to crush the cranberries and I mash them with the grains. I add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger and 1/4 clove to the boil (5 min). I use a basic all grain amber ale recipe.
For secondary I run 1 lb cranberries through the old grinder with 1/2 lb walnuts and I pour that into 2 quarts of water with 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp clove about and 1/2 ounce cascade hops and boil it for 15 minutes, then cool and strain and pour the cooled strain liquid into the secondary and leave for 7 to 14 days and then bottle it. Was a major hit with my sisters who are not beer drinkers.

 

Thanks for the replies, I've been stewing on this for the better part of 24 hours and I really like the idea of using the whole fruit in the secondary. That cranberry walnut ale sounds delightful, I think I may just use that idea of adding them to the mash, was gonna do the boil but I like the mash idea better. Thanks again, cheers!