Choke Cherry Wood Question

[Izzie1701]

Has anyone tried this or have any thoughts on this. I have recently started to turn into a bit of a mad scientist with homebrewing. Been watching a lot of the show brew dogs and realized there really is no wrongs or rights with brewing and almost anything can be done. Might not taste great but what's the fun if you don't experiment. Laying in bed last night I was hit with a bit of an idea. I have started to love sour cherry sours. Kettle soured to lambic I like them all. I am originally from Saskatchewan and there are tons of wild chokecherry there. My grandparents cabins lot is covered with them and we are constantly cutting them back. My idea was to try a spontaneous fermentation started with the wood cuttings of the choke cherries then once fermented out age on the berries themselves. The wood is a hard wood and a lot of people use it for smoking meat here but never heard of anyone using it as a "barrel wood". Question is do you think it will have enough yeast and if so yeast that will be palatable. Also not sure about not trying and toasting it first. Maybe some raw to get fermentation going then toast so to later age on it. Any ideas, opinions or comments?

 

[oli-aus]

Your idea sounds great, here's an article which has info on what temp to toast your wood as well as a brief paragraph on other woods in beer. http://www.homebrewfinds.com/2015/03/guest-post-toasting-your-own-wood-chips-by-matt-del-fiacco.html

I really like the idea of using different woods but just haven't got round to it. Jesterking do a mixed ferment saison on cedar wood which is really nice.

In terms of the yeast, I would be tempted to put the wood in a small amount of fresh wort and build up the population that way (you will get a white later at the bottom of your vessel after fermentation which is your new yeast). Then you can just pitch the whole jar: wood, beer and yeast into your beer.