cherry Cola flanders

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Grod1

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so i have been developing an idea and what what im picturing is a flanders with either coca-cola or dr. pepper flavor added.Granted if i spend 6 months brewing a flanders that i might not want to add cola extract to it but i think the flavors will work together.
Anyone have any input?
im thinking any Flanders Red Ale kit with the addition of a few pounds of cherries or some sort of puree/concentrate in the primary fermentor.

anyone have a suggestion for a flander kit/ recipe?
also any suggestions for a good cola extract/ technique i can use to obtain the flavor ?
maybe add actual kola nuts in the primary or in a secondary.
anyway im just entertaining an idea please share.
 
To be honest, it doesn't sound very good to me but you never know. Just a thought, but maybe try blending some cola or cola extract with a commercial FR and make sure you like it before going through with it.
 
Honestly I love his idea. Definitely worth a 1 gal batch for the sheer experimentation! I know the Bruery made a beet called L'Deracola that that meant to taste like Cola..

Sorry I have no input, but I say go for it, whats the worst that can happen?
 
I should buy a flanders and add some cheep cola extracts to make sure its not terrible.That is true.I'm thinking the cola flavor is going to work well.
At the same time i think i wanna run with this idea. What about a cola kriek? sound more palatable?
what about a cola candy kriek?

so this is what im thinking sour mash kriek (cheating) w/ cherry cola candy and im going to make only 2-3 gallons
anyone have a recommendation for a reliable PH meter?


so this is what I'm going with in my head right now
1 gallon DME sour kettle mash
1 gallon pure cherry juice 3/4 tart and 1/4 sweet( equivalent to 10.5 lbs of fruit &or 15.5 oz sugar)
1 gallon marris otter(3lb)mash
with 1 lb cherry cola candy at 10 mins to flame out (12 oz sugar)
whats the highest ABV a kriek should be?Just throwing numbers around on brewers friend it seems this will be hard to keep below 6%
this recipe above would have my ABV a 6.68 if my brew house efficiency is 75.

cola.jpg
 
I'm not sure cola candy has much cola in it, it's mostly sugar really. I personally think sticking to cola extract is probably the better way to go, but it couldn't hurt to try your cola candy idea either. Maybe try both in a split batch?
 
My 2 cents, if your calculations are correct, that's a ton of fruit for such a small batch. More like a wine/beer hybrid than a fruit beer. For comparison, I used 7.0# of homegrown tart cherries in 5 gallons of a petite saison. It has huge cherry flavor and the tart cherries dropped the pH down to 3.68...that's without adding any lactic acid bacteria. Another time I brewed a beer based on New Glarus' Wisconsin Belgian Red with 4.0# tart cherries and 1 gallon tart cherry juice in a 5 gallon batch. It took a gold medal in Fruit Beers, but it was borderline too much wine-like character in my opinion.

Re sweet cherry juice, I wouldn't use any...unless it's already blended with the tart cherry juice. The reason being, sweet cherries are mostly sugar and when it ferments out you're not really left with anything. Tart cherries have the flavor that's usually associated with cherries.

+1 what Talgrath said, I think there'd be better ways to get cola character than using candy. Kind of like the amount of cherries, a pound of candy in a small batch is huge. With that much simple sugar it seems almost like a recipe for hooch with accompanying bad headaches the morning after.

Not to be negative, but there are a lot of things I'd do differently if I were making it. A good sour is not easily done and they're worth doing right.

Re pH meters, I have this one and really like it, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085WV6GM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

A bunch of guys in my club swear by this one, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DTNDME/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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If you want to add cola flavor - consider looking for and using the Cola nut. It something a brewery here in my country did, with a dunkelweizen. (there are a heap of other spices)
butthe cola nut is a good start.

alternatively, you could just drink jim beam and coke.... ;)
 
the Blurb from the bottle
"cherry cola dunkel, a boundary bending, trans-style take on the classic German dark lager. Spiked with citrus, spices, cola nuts, vanilla and whole sour cherries, the result is a rich dark brown, effervescent and refreshing brew somewhere ambiguously between beer and a classic soda. It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, but it's all the more enjoyable for it. Brewed using 100% ethically sourced, fair trade cola nuts from our friends at Karma Cola. Cheers!"
 
A lb of candy was over kill i just got hyped.but could there be to much cherry in a kriek? I would say cola nuts are the wsy to go.

i have 3 gallons "brett fruit punch" atm its 7 months old there is a half gallon of cherry juice in that ratio and i hardly taste the cherry.Although its half sweet half tart cherry juice so that may be the reason.

i'm all ears please share what you would do differenty
 
so i have been toying with this idea for a while now and i think this weekend im going to give it a shot so here it goes
7 gallon batch- 90 min boil
9.75 lb Rahr 2-Row
4 lb - Munich
7 oz - Aromatic Malt
7 oz CaraCrystal Wheat Malt
7 oz Special B
7 oz Dry Malt Extract - Wheat
2 oz - CaraRed
1 oz - Black Malt
1.5 oz styrian golding at 60 mins
4 liters(15 mill)worth of homebrew cola extract
1 quart tart cherry juice 1 quart sweet cherry juice added directly to carboy from new unopened bottle.
1 tablespoon acid blend 
1/2 teaspoon tanin w/ the juice.Maybe pectic enzyme at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon but this will be sitting for at least 6 months so i dont think i need to worry about haze.
Primary on cola nuts but i dont know how much yet
 
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So i just got my kola nuts today i didnt realize they had no flavor.I was under the impression they would taste like cola or have some sort of pleasant flavor/smell.
 
so i have been toying with this idea for a while now and i think this weekend im going to give it a shot so here it goes
7 gallon batch- 90 min boil
9.75 lb Rahr 2-Row
4 lb - Munich
7 oz - Aromatic Malt
7 oz CaraCrystal Wheat Malt
7 oz Special B
7 oz Dry Malt Extract - Wheat
2 oz - CaraRed
1 oz - Black Malt
1.5 oz styrian golding at 60 mins
4 liters(15 mill)worth of homebrew cola extract
1 quart tart cherry juice 1 quart sweet cherry juice added directly to carboy from new unopened bottle.
1 tablespoon acid blend 
1/2 teaspoon tanin w/ the juice.Maybe pectic enzyme at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon but this will be sitting for at least 6 months so i dont think i need to worry about haze.
Primary on cola nuts but i dont know how much yet
i was just going threw my old post and relized i never updated this.
The recipe i went with
7 gallon batch
9 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (58.1%)
4 lb - American - Munich - Light 10L (25.8%)
8 oz - American - Aromatic Malt (3.2%)
7 oz - American - CaraCrystal Wheat Malt (2.8%)
7 oz - Dry Malt Extract - Wheat (2.8%)
6 oz - United Kingdom - Crystal Rye (2.4%)
4 oz - German - CaraRed (1.6%)
8 oz - Cane Sugar (3.2%)
1 quart tart cherry juice
6.5 ml home-brew cola extract
imperial yeast- sour batch kids yeast
It was split into two 3 gallon batches one got sweet cherry juice and bootleg biology yeasts

So this is hardly two months old but i just gave it a taste just cuz.
so far so meh. it taste like someone left diet cola out for a few days. i know its super early and the yeast hasnt had a chance to do anything but i just decided to secondary on fresh sweet cherries with additional flanders yeast from white labs. and another 6.5 ml home-brew cola extract
 
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so this beer is over 6 months now and today i will bank yeast and move into secondary on top 1 more quart tart cherry juice. i will add an additional 7 ml of cola extract if the flavor i want is not there. and it will get another 2-3 months before i bottle it up.
 
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So its pretty damn amazing. I would add maybe 3 more ml cola extract. The cherry is there but no where near as strong as it is in cherry cola. I added another quart of tart cherry juice. i hope this gives more cherry flavor and not more wine flavor. This recipe is pretty righteous for the "cherry cola flanders"it needs just a few srms to be cola colored right now its more resembles cola that had ice melt in it.
I would say a bit thin for a traditional flanders. If or when i brew this agin i will up the amount of Munich and aromatic malt. 97% attenuation with omega labs "sour batch kidz" not a bad sour bug but i have not tried the bootleg biology half of this brew to compare it to.
i will make one more bump on this in 2-4 months when i bottle this.
 
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