Porter racked on Dark Cherries secondary

[tschafer]

I'm splitting a future batch of Robust Porter.

One half is going to get racked on Dark Cherries and Cherry Wood.

The cherry wood is going to be in the secondary for 6 week.

Question is the Dark Cherrie Puree time:

How long should the Puree be in the secondary?

Not looking for the Dark Cherries to be overwhelming, or saying "look at me! i'm all cherries". Just want a good aroma, add background depth, slight/moderate cherries flavor.

 

[oconnorshomebrew]

Honestly, it's a lot more likely for you to get too much wood flavor than it is for you to get too much cherry flavor. I'm guessing that your yeast will consume all the sugar from the cherries within the first week, and after that, I can't imagine the cherries adding more flavor over time. However, in my experience with using oak cubes, the flavor only continues to build and can become overpowering quickly.

 

[tschafer]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Further explanation. This would be in secondary.

Can't imagine the yeast would eat the majority of the sugar in the cherry puree at that time

So are you recommending the wood time to be shorten? Say to 4 weeks?

Increase the cherry time to a full 6 weeks?

 

[plankbr]

I just made a cherry stout and only kept the stout on the cherries for 2 weeks. A 2ndary fermentation will occur (not as big as the primary but definitely noticeable). After the 2 weeks the cherries were pinkish/whitish in color and that's when I decided to bottle. I think there's a lot to be said about bottle aging the porter also as the tartness of the dark cherries will mellow out over time and let the porter be the front runner again.

 

[chuckstout]

It seems like you may want to mash at a touch higher temp if you plan on adding cherries they may dry the body a touch or maybe just back off on the carbonation.

 

[tschafer]

thanks ya'll for the replies

plankbr - so you suggest 2 weeks in secondary.

Chuckstout - Mashing @ 155, and I've got almost a 1lb. of lactose @ 5mins to counter act the possible dryness.

Alittle concerned about the possibility of astringency due to the cherry skins, but for the most part just trying to judge the various time frames for dark cherries in secondary and the amount of flavor everyone has experienced.

 

[plankbr]

thanks ya'll for the replies

plankbr - so you suggest 2 weeks in secondary.

Chuckstout - Mashing @ 155, and I've got almost a 1lb. of lactose @ 5mins to counter act the possible dryness.

Alittle concerned about the possibility of astringency due to the cherry skins, but for the most part just trying to judge the various time frames for dark cherries in secondary and the amount of flavor everyone has experienced.

2 weeks, maybe a couple of days shy of that. When the cherries look like they are on their deathbed, you'll know. My batch tasted very tart so I am not even going to open a bottle to test until around Thanksgiving. I know it will mellow out by then and even more so by Christmas.

 

[Cider123]

Yeah, fruit can be surprisingly not what you expect.

I think a lot of folks add things like raspberries or cherries thinking if they let it sit for a while, they will get an awesome cherry flavor like you might taste in a ice cream flavor or a soda, etc. Well, much of that flavor you have in your head comes from the sugars that are present in the fruit. Most of those sugars will be eaten up by the yeast. What you get in the end is sometimes a slight hint of the flavor and if the fruit had any tartness to it, you get a lot of that.

I learned this from a raspberry wit I made this past summer. I was expecting the raspberry flavor you get in a commercial beer. What I got was tartness and no berry sweetness or "goodness". I think an option with some fruit additions is to add a little lactose sugar that will not ferment and give a little sweetness to the fruit and beer.

BTW, cherry wood does not taste like cherries at all. It tastes like wood.

Just a hint of caution.

 

[plankbr]

I am expecting the tart to drop off over time and for the stout to take back over with a 'hint' of cherry flavor. Is that a false expectation?

 

[tschafer]

Appreciate all the up front info y'all.

Really don't want a tart flavor in a porter, possible option is a water based extract? But I've heard horror stories, 'tasted like cough syrup'. Anyone tried that with optimal results?

Cider - I'm aware of the Cherry wood. To say wood is going to give a huge cherry flavor, and not a wood flavor would be silly. But i'm intrigued is the description the Cherry Wood and the varies notes it'll produce: Butter brickle, ripe cherry, fresh grass, meringue, light fried bread/Belgian waffle.

Have you used Cherry wood, Cider? Did it not produce those character notes?

 

[tschafer]

plankbr - tartness or astringent tartness would be the skins of the Dark Cherry. I'm under the impression that it will most definitely mellow out with time, but if any sweetness is/was there, that to will mellow out and dissipate.

 

[Cider123]

Well, I've tasted a number of beers that have had different varieties of wood soaked in them or they came from a barrel aging. Same with some liquors. I will say that I am unsure if any of them were actually soaked with cherry wood, so I will take back that statement. However, every time I've tasted a drink soaked in some type of wood or a food cooked on a wooden plank or a whiskey soaked in a wooden barrel or a wine aged in a barrel, all I've tasted is the flavor of wood. And some varieties of wood taste different from others, but I've never got the flavor of a fruit or nut that grew from the wood of that variety. Not with my taste buds anyway. Perhaps there are some folks that can pull all those flavors you mention from a specific type of wood. So go for it. You won't know till you try.
When it comes to actual fruit, you stand a better chance of getting a fruit flavor from that, but some folks will add an extract on top of the fruit addition to heighten the flavor. I agree that cherries are tough because cherry extract tastes often tastes more like cough syrup than real cherries.
Let us know how it comes out!

 

[tschafer]

Sounds good. Brewing this Saturday. I'll posted on the way the cherries and wood are added and their time frame.

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE***

Brewed the Porter 11/16, hit 1.060 OG.

We left the Carboy in the garage for 6 days expecting 63-66 degree temp....We'll it got cold 42-46 degrees.

Hydrometer read was 1.028...we want a minimum of 1.018 after primary.

Good news is that we made a very healthy starter for this Porter and we move the carboy into the house and within 12 hours, the yeast woke up and started thumping every 12-15 seconds.

So we have to put off the secondary racking till the 28-29th.

At that time, we are going to split the batch, and with all the advice we received, decided to add the cherry wood and sit for 4-6 weeks.

On week 4, we will take 3lb of sweet cherry puree (possibly strain it into the carboy to remove any skins), and then rack the porter from the secondary into a tertiary carboy for 1-2 weeks. Possibly remove the cherry wood if necessary during this transfer.

 

[Cider123]

Funny, my porter was in my basement where it got down to the 50's. Still quite cold for the yeast I was using. My FG was still kind of high so when I brought my fermenter into the 60's yesterday, it took off bubbling again also.

Since I can't leave well enough alone with a good porter recipe. I have 2 vanilla beans in bourbon that I'm gonna dump in mine. Good luck with your cherry flavor!

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE***

Racked to secondaries 11/27

Porter drop to 1.022 after primary. Tad disappointed with that. But my ABV should now hit 5% instead of 6%; and after brewing a Pumpkin and Winter Warmer on the 8.3 & 8.6% ABV range, i'll take it this 5% ABV

Hydro taste: Smooth, medium body, chocolate, bready, bit of roast, and sweet, no astringency. 1lb of lactose was add late in the boil, and left over sugar from moderate fermentation is the produce of that sweetness.

For the Smoothness - Cold steep the dark malts over 24 hour. Very happy with that result. Highly recommend that process.

It'll not hard, it'll decrease your Post-Boil gravity a bit (Est=1.066, Measured=1.060), so whatever your dark grain bill was, add to it.

Split the primary: 2.5 gal on Hard Maple, 2.5gal on Cherry Wood. This will sit for 4 weeks.

The hard maple wood dropped after 1 day, the cherry wood was still floating.

Optimistic: The sweetness should hold up to the cherry puree's tartness in the 2.5g cherry wood batch. And the other 2.5gal - Hard Maple wood w/graham crackers.

Back in 4 weeks.

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE***
12/26/13

Racked the 2.5gal Cherry wood porter on to 3lb of Sweet Cherry Puree from the LBS in to another carboy. Poured the puree into a large sanitized bag; tide so dental floss (sanitized) around the knot, so that we can drain this come bottling time. This will make the tertiary racking for this one.

For the Hard Maple 2.5gal porter, we added 1tsp of graham cracker extract in secondary. No tertiary needed.

We didn't taste any of these or take a Hydro reading at this point.

Both variations will sit for 2 more weeks. Then we will a fining agents (probably gelatin), cold crash and then bottle.

This batch is taking quite some time...looking forward to the result.

Back in 2 weeks.

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE***
1/12/14

Bottling day.

tasted Hydro for both.

Sweet and tasty.

The cold fermentation I experienced for 6 days in Primary, left me with a high FG of 1.024.

This most likely has impacted the sweetness of the porters. Could be good or bad thing.

We'll wait 30 days for carb, and conditioning, and then final tasting notes.

So far - i really couldn't taste 'wood' in both batches.

For the Cherry puree, w/cherry wood. Sweet, and not sour puckering.

Graham cracker w/hard maple wood. Really nice, graham cracker notes, without medicine taste.

Both really smooth, chocolate, dark malt character without astringency.

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE***
1/29/14

Tasted the Hard Maple/Graham Cracker version.
Beginning to carb nicely, wonderful graham cracker on the nose.

Slight chocolate malt, smooth and fairly sweet.

No really wood character. May add more wood next time.

Due to the f-ed primary fermentation temp. this batch never reached it's proper FG, giving it some esters and possible off-flavors not intended. Mind you, this is really drinkable and enjoyable.

Will it win awards? Is it a true Robust Porter? Hell no, but it's good.

Will try this again next year and make sure that I have a safer place to ferment and pay more attention to the ever changing weather.

I'll try the Cherry wood/Cherry version later this week or next week.

 

[tschafer]

***UPDATE*** 2/26/14

Ha! One week turned into one month.

I've had 2 of these since then.

Cherry wood/Cherry puree did not turn out well at all. The cherry is just overpowering. Not to sweet, not to sour. Drinks like a dark medium-sweet wine or port. Just not good. No malt or porter like flavors. Probably will not revisit anything cherry related anytime soon. This beer cost quite a bit to make, so not happy with the results. I'll just hold on to this beer for marinating roast and vegetable…hmm

Still stand by the cold steeping of dark grains and will make this base recipe with graham cracker again, but pay more attention to the fermentation temp next year.