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Hayden123982

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Ended up at a farm with cherries for 1$/pound so I left with 17 pounds of cherries. Majority are bings which are incredibly juicy, but I also got about 6-7 pounds of sour pie cherries.

I know I want to rack a sour on these eventually and also will split up some of the 5 gallons of mead I have going right now on some cherries. This still leaves me with a ton of cherries to use up.

Any recommendations on other cherry projects? Was thinking about 1#/gallon for my ratios. For the sour I was thinking a belgian-style grist/yeast then pitching in some sour batch kidz
 
2-3 lbs/ gallon isn't too much cherry. With a mix of sour/sweet cherries, I'd suggest mixing the two, perhaps with more sour in the mix. Lots of folks complain about the flavors created when fermenting sweet cherries. That might use up all your cherries.

Really can't go wrong with cherries - dark, pale, red sour all go well with cherries.
 
I made a 100% tart cherry wine a few years back. The result was OK. but didn't taste anything like cherries.
Eat the sweet cherries, make the sour cherries into jam or a pie.
If you insist on using them in a beverage, perhaps make a high ABV mead with plenty of extra honey and rack that on to the cherries when its done with primary.
I'd freeze them for now.
 
I made a 100% tart cherry wine a few years back. The result was OK. but didn't taste anything like cherries.
Eat the sweet cherries, make the sour cherries into jam or a pie.
If you insist on using them in a beverage, perhaps make a high ABV mead with plenty of extra honey and rack that on to the cherries when its done with primary.
I'd freeze them for now.

I have 5 gallons of a sack mead (1 year old) and 5 gallons of a dry mead (new batch) that I plan on blending and definitely adding some of the cherries too


I like kriek as much as the next guy, but I decided to make a cherry wine when I suddenly found myself with 20 pounds.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/asking-for-trouble.668494/

Im thinking 13# pale, 5# chit, 1# candi syrup D-90, and 0.75# C-120 with triple double + sour batch kidz

Wine looks like fun, I'll be following to see how it turns out. May have to do that next year
 
Ended up at a farm with cherries for 1$/pound so I left with 17 pounds of cherries. Majority are bings which are incredibly juicy, but I also got about 6-7 pounds of sour pie cherries.

I know I want to rack a sour on these eventually and also will split up some of the 5 gallons of mead I have going right now on some cherries. This still leaves me with a ton of cherries to use up.

Any recommendations on other cherry projects? Was thinking about 1#/gallon for my ratios. For the sour I was thinking a belgian-style grist/yeast then pitching in some sour batch kidz
oh boy, many things you could do ..like my 7 lbs of blackberries, so many uses with a limited fresh supply.
ice cream, cobbler, pie, hand pies/turnovers...wine or moonshine additive?
the cherry sour sounds great - I think I would use the tart pie cherries and maybe amend that with some of the bings , Id throw a little lime zest in that as well.
 
oh boy, many things you could do ..like my 7 lbs of blackberries, so many uses with a limited fresh supply.
ice cream, cobbler, pie, hand pies/turnovers...wine or moonshine additive?
the cherry sour sounds great - I think I would use the tart pie cherries and maybe amend that with some of the bings , Id throw a little lime zest in that as well.

Oh I like the lime zest. Maybe 3# bing and 2# sour cherry. Haven't used lime zest before. Any idea of how much to use for 5 gal?
 
Oh I like the lime zest. Maybe 3# bing and 2# sour cherry. Haven't used lime zest before. Any idea of how much to use for 5 gal?
generally its by your personal taste or the amount of other fruit in it ,but I would say zest of 1 lime per gallon might be heavy. Youre just zesting the rinds outer surface, not getting any of the white underneath. I've found in a lot of recipes (non-brewing too) that tiny bit of citrus acid brings out a lot of the other flavors ,might be the slight change in pH thats doing it.
 
So far I've added 1# sour cherry to mead, 1# bing cherry to mead, and 1# blend to mead.

For my sour, did a belgian dark strong-like base with 5g lime zest and 2g coriander (hops were just 5 cones Ekuanot at flame out). Pitched suburban brett and triple double with some L. planatarum 48 hrs after pitch. Will be tranfering maybe 6-8 weeks into ferment into a new glass carboy and add 3# bing and 2# sour pie at that time. May do a small amt of port soaked french oak cubes as well (0.5oz).
 
For my sour, did a belgian dark strong-like base with 5g lime zest and 2g coriander (hops were just 5 cones Ekuanot at flame out). Pitched suburban brett and triple double with some L. planatarum 48 hrs after pitch.
FYI if there's any hops in there at all, it won't sour.
 
I thought that good belly could handle a small amt of hop? I guess I'll know for sure in a couple days. If needed, Ill pitch some Pedio. I plan on sitting on this one for some time anyways
 
Update: transferred beer onto cherries over the weekend and got a sample. It is managing to sour with the goodbelly. I was actually very tempted to drop the cherry idea altogether because this beer tasted like it is headed in a great direction. Lots of cherry notes coming on its own with some interesting phenolic character from the triple double. I think the main Brett character now is the funky fruit notes, mainly cherry. Mild acidity currently

Gravity 1.020 so plenty of residuals for Brett to play with
 

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