Specialty Fruit Beer Chocolate Cherry Stout

[WildGingerBrewing]

I have an update for you! As insaid last week gravity reading after 2 weeks was 1.029. And the taste was not good. Went ahead and racked to secondary and pitched another packet of S-05. I am not one to say "did i screw it up" ive been brewing for years and no better. But when i posted the update last week, i really thought i had done something wrong. Fast forward to today. I took a reading just to see. Gravity is still at 1.029. Then it hit me. When i mashed in, i was way hot. Took a few minutes to cool it down. It is possible that the higher temp mash for a short time broke down enough enzymes to create unfermentable sugars. I then tasted it. Wow. Not bad. Actually pretty good. With a heavy chocolate aftertaste. Very interesting. No cherry flavor though. So i am cold crashing it for a few days then i am going to bottle half of it and rack the other half into some mini kegs i have. It may turn out better than i thought. I have already tweaked the recipe and made some changes and i think i am going to brew this again on Nov 3, the next brew day. I'll keep you posted.

 

[D_Nyholm]

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

 

[DagoBrewer]

My mash held at 153-154. My FG was 1.018.

 

[OCBrewin]

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

158-160 seems really high to me, I'm not surprised that.you can't get below 1.030 with the amount of unfermentables you produced in that high mash.

I forgot what the OP mashed at, but I rarely exceed 155 if ever. I think I mashed at 154 for my last porter and it was awesome.

Question to you all - where are you finding this concentrate? I've looked at my three closest stores (Vons, Albertsons .and Ralphs) with no luck. Do you think they just don't stalk this product in SoCal? Any tips?

 

[D_Nyholm]

Yeah, I was actually asking wildgingerbrewing since he seems to be stuck where I am. I should have mashed at 155 but my new thermometer was off and I didn't check it before using it. I have 2 batches that were mashed at this temperature and I hope I am not screwed.

 

[OCBrewin]

Yeah, I know you were asking wildginerbrewing, but oh well...

I've had the same thing happen to me when a thermometer when crazy... took me about three batches to notice, but mine was the other way around and I kept getting beers that finished at like 1.005 or so.... not bad, but just not what I was looking for - now I use like 3-4 different thermometers for the mash and always compare them to one that I really trust and know is calibrated.

 

[D_Nyholm]

Yeah, I know you were asking wildginerbrewing, but oh well...

I've had the same thing happen to me when a thermometer when crazy... took me about three batches to notice, but mine was the other way around and I kept getting beers that finished at like 1.005 or so.... not bad, but just not what I was looking for - now I use like 3-4 different thermometers for the mash and always compare them to one that I really trust and know is calibrated.

Lol, I may have to start doing that. You would think these things would be more accurate! My old one read almost a full 10 degrees too high!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

I honestly don't remember. Mostly I remember that my strike water was waaaaay high, so I know that my mash was. I heated the strike water, checked the temp and it was about 195*. So i was letting it cool down. I got busy doing something for about 4 minutes and then remembered that I needed to add my strike water, not thinking that I was supposed to be letting it cool. It was a rough brew day. So I dumped it in and just as I was emptying the pot, I remembered it was too hot. I dumped some ice in but it took close to 10 min to get down to 158*. So I'm pretty sure this was my issue. I usually mash at 152-154. So I would bet that is your problem as well.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

158-160 seems really high to me, I'm not surprised that.you can't get below 1.030 with the amount of unfermentables you produced in that high mash.

I forgot what the OP mashed at, but I rarely exceed 155 if ever. I think I mashed at 154 for my last porter and it was awesome.

Question to you all - where are you finding this concentrate? I've looked at my three closest stores (Vons, Albertsons .and Ralphs) with no luck. Do you think they just don't stalk this product in SoCal? Any tips?

I got mine at my LHBS. It's not the same as what the OP used but it works. It's for wine making. It was a cherry puree basically. It came in a 3 lbs, 1 oz can. I have no idea how many fluid ounces it was.

 

[hopyard]

I got my concentrate at Sprouts grocery. They only had 3 of the 8 oz bottles so then I got the Lakewood organic black cherry 12 oz bottles.

 

[promontory]

Hopyard, any idea on the gravity of that cherry concentrate? I need it to calc my abv...

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

The OP said his was 1.094. The one I bought had it listed on the side as 1.092-1.115. Hope that helps.

 

[promontory]

thanks so much

 

[DagoBrewer]

I bottled this last thursday and seriously could not wait... So i chilled one and popped it a bit early. It was hardly carbonated at all but, oohhhhh baby!!! Im gonna have to brew 20+ gallons of this stuff to make it thru winter!!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

I bottled this last thursday and seriously could not wait... So i chilled one and popped it a bit early. It was hardly carbonated at all but, oohhhhh baby!!! Im gonna have to brew 20+ gallons of this stuff to make it thru winter!!

How was your cherry flavor? My sample didn't have any cherry flavor. Since I have it in secondary, just aging a little, I am considering adding another can of cherry to it. Can't hurt anything.

 

[DagoBrewer]

How was your cherry flavor? My sample didn't have any cherry flavor. Since I have it in secondary, just aging a little, I am considering adding another can of cherry to it. Can't hurt anything.

I actually just used a 4oz bottle of raspberry extact from my LHBS in secondary. The vanilla beans and rasp together coming thru that chocolatey coffee is amazing!

 

[hopyard]

For calculating the gravity from adding sugar I did a search and came up with this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/how-do-i-calculate-g-effect-sugar-additions-249672/

Basically, you take the sugar you add from the Nutrition Facts on the label of the juice concentrate and convert it to lbs.

1 lb of sugar disolved in 1 Gal. of water gives you a gravity of 1.046. But you have to convert it to the amount of liquid you are adding it to. In my case I came up with a gravity addition of about .014. So i just added that to my OG.

 

[DagoBrewer]

9 days after bottling this beer tastes absolutely amazing!! Although i changed the recipe a little bit from the original on this thread, its still a very tastey brew thats gonna be awesome for cold winter nights!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

I think im going to rack mine into my mini-kegs this weekend. Then, if it does come out bad, at least i didnt waste hours bottling it. And if it is good, it will be the first beer in my new mini-kegs and that will be cool.

 

[kaisetti]

Brewing this today. Really looking forward to trying it. I couldn't find cherry juice concentrate though. Do you think cherry puree is an okay substitute?

 

[hopyard]

Just a quick update:

I have been drinking this for a couple weeks now. The taste is growing on me but my initial reaction was "too much sweet cherry." I have only been brewing for a year so my experience is quite low. There are some things I have learned lately that would influence how I would do this beer differently the next time.

I should probably start by saying that I did not follow Magno recipe exactly and I am sure his batch turned out different/better than mine. I am very glad he took the time to post this because it is a great beer.

Next time I would use around 40 oz. of cherry concentrate. It was a little too pronounced in mine. I would also concentrate more on getting a good fermentation going in the first place. Make a good yeast starter and oxygenate better before pitching the yeast. Mine ran out of steam too early on. The gravities were ok, but I think I could have done better. I also think I would have used more of the cocoa powder during the mash. I ended up not putting it in secondary and instead kegged it straight from primary. I did not want to do a secondary just for the cocoa so I left it out.

On the other hand, my neighbor came over for some free beer last night. After 3 pints Chocolate Cherry Stout, I was feeling like Superman. So it is good and drinkable as is.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Brewing this today. Really looking forward to trying it. I couldn't find cherry juice concentrate though. Do you think cherry puree is an okay substitute?

Puree is what i used. Bought from the wine making section of my lhbs.

Racked mine into the mini-kegs today. It tastes so much better than i thought it would after the first sample. The cherry is still pretty much non-existent and the chocolate is not as overpowering. Aging definitely does this beer good. I have already played with the recipe and procedure for the next batch, which is probably not far off. I will give it 2-3 weeks before tapping one if the kegs and report back. Magno, thanks again for the great idea!

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

Two weeks after racking into the mini kegs i couldnt wait any longer. Tapped the first one today. Found a leak. Its not carbed but it tastes awesome! Im drinking it now. Hopefully the other 2 kegs will carb. I am still going to make a few tweeks, but damn good recipe Magno. Cant wait to brew it again!

 

[infamouz-X]

do you have a pic the Chocolate Cherry Stout.. love 2 see how it lookz

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

do you have a pic the Chocolate Cherry Stout.. love 2 see how it lookz

I can take one but its just black. Not much to see. Looks like a stout.

Mine had no cherry flavor but the chocolate was very pronounced. Its really good. If the next keg has a leak and didnt carb i will probably transfer it to bottles. I really want to taste it carbed.

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

So i racked the remaining beer from the first keg into bottles and added some carb drops. We'll see what happens. I only got 8 bottles. Tells me i drank at least 6 bittles worth of this beer flat! Ha i put another keg into the fridge this afternoon. I'll tap it friday and see if it carbed.

 

[06vmi06]

I am giving this a go this weekend. I had all the ingredients for an Irish stout but after reading this I am adding the coco cherry and vanilla beans!!! I can't wait to see how this turns out!!

 

[DerekV]

A couple questions I may have missed.

1) Did you boil the juice to sanitize it before putting it into the fermenter?
2) The juice is just being added directly to the primary with the existing yeast, correct?
3) What temperature are you bulk aging at?

I have my base stout recipe in the primary now, going to add the cherry this weekend then rack onto vanilla and cacao nibs when primary fermentation is finished. Looking forward to this one.

 

[bribo179]

Juice is pasteurized for shelf life. You don't have to do anything to juice but add it.

 

[DerekV]

Thanks! Makes sense...