Radical Brewing Cherry Barley Wine

[bcgpete]

Has anybody made the Mister Boing Boing Cherry Barley Wine from Radical Brewing? I'm doing a completely different recipe for a barleywine, but want to add some cherries where I smoke half of them. I'm just not sure how much to add. This recipe calls for 12 lbs, which seems like a ****ton. I don't want the cherries to shine, but I'd like a little nose/taste from them to blend with the random other **** I'm throwing in there.

Thanks!

Edit: I attached the recipe for anyone who isn't familiar with it, pretty neat looking, I'm just not sure about the amount of cherries/aging time on the cherries (8 months!)

 

[Double_D]

If I'm ever worried about the fruit being too strong I'll just throw them in the primary. Twelve pounds does sound a little much for 5 gallons though. I'd probably do 6. Smoking them sounds like a good idea though.

 

[bcgpete]

If I'm ever worried about the fruit being too strong I'll just throw them in the primary.

How does the primary dull down the flavor? I always use the secondary with good results, but I always lean towards the conservative side.

For this brew I'm thinking I'll do 10lbs of cherries, 5lbs of that smoked sweet cherries and the other 5 sour cherries (hopefully my farmers market will have them in a few weeks when I'm brewing this). If only I had a 6gal brandy port barrel to age it in...

 

[Piratwolf]

How does the primary dull down the flavor?

The answer I generally see is that yeast and/or CO2 blowoff tend to diminish the flavor & aroma of additions in primary. Not sure I've ever seen a breakdown of the science behind that, though....

 

[bcgpete]

The answer I generally see is that yeast and/or CO2 blowoff tend to diminish the flavor & aroma of additions in primary. Not sure I've ever seen a breakdown of the science behind that, though....

Hmm, that's interesting. I think I'd be worried about the reverse happening though: the yeast getting overwhelmed by all the extra crap in the ferment and not performing to the maximum, especially in a big beer like this (I'm shooting for OG ~1.12).

 

[Double_D]

Nice. Sweet and sour cherries. Take a look at this:http://www.homebrewing.org/Used-5-gallon-whiskey-barrel_p_2187.html. It's not a port barrel but it's a great deal. I just bought two.