Christmas Stout Recipe Help

[Ninjabeer]

I purchased a recipe from my local home brew store named winter wonderland stout. the recipe is as follows:

8.4lbs LME
1lb. special roast, 1lb. flaked oats, 1/2 lb. roasted barley
1oz. cluster hops
Wyeast 1028

I thought it need a little spicing up so I would appreciate some feedback since this is my 4th brew and my first time really diverting from the recipe.

-Adding 3 cinnamon sticks to the secondary for a week
-Adding 2 vanilla beans in secondary for a week

And I'm thinking about adding dried cherries to the wort. I haven't found any really clear instructions on how to go about this online. From what I'm guessing should I add 1 and 1/2 lbs of cherries to the last 15minutes of the boil??

Thanks again for your feedback. Plan on starting this delicious brew in about a week.

 

[Ninjabeer]

I've looking on the other posts on a lot of chocolate cherry stouts and I'm still confused on exactly how to add cherry flavor to my beer.

I'm thinking about 2.5lbs of smashed cherries in the secondary and then racking my beer on top and then adding the cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans.

Appreciate your replies

 

[butterpants]

Brewing Classic Styles has a 'Black Forest Stout' recipie towards the back. I'm actually making it next week. The authors advice is to use 3-6lbs of cherry puree (any LHBS should have it... most likely in a 3 or 12lb container) and add the fruit to your secondary fermentor... then rack the beer on top.

I've had limited success mixing real fruit flavor with Brewers Best flavoring.... much better than flavoring along in my opinion.

 

[butterpants]

 

[Ninjabeer]

Ok great thank you so much for you help Ill be sure to try that out.

What did you mean by "I've had limited success mixing real fruit flavor with Brewers Best flavoring.... much better than flavoring along in my opinion."?

What is flavoring along?

 

[butterpants]

Ok great thank you so much for you help Ill be sure to try that out.

What did you mean by "I've had limited success mixing real fruit flavor with Brewers Best flavoring.... much better than flavoring along in my opinion."?

What is flavoring along?

along = alone

Spelling error. I think flavor extracts have come a long way but there can be a certain chemical-ness/fake flavor from using them all by themselves. To contrast using fruit alone can not be a potent enough flavor profile. I've seen in my mead that a little from both works well.... probably 75% real and 25% extract.
I'll be doing the same with the Stout I mentioned above.