Secondary Fruit Advice

[karakedi]

Hi, I am brewing my third batch, a cherry stout. It put it into primary Sunday at midnight, and after a pretty vigorous two days, it seems fermentation is pretty much complete. I plan to rack to secondary on Sunday 12/16.

I would like to try using real cherries instead of the flavor extract. I will only be around for the first 5-6 days of secondary, then gone for two weeks, so am seeking advice on what would be best

My options as I see them are:
1. Rack to secondary, and use cherry flavor extract at bottling time
2. Buy frozen cherries, most likely pitted and split. Puree or cook down into a mush. Rack beer on top of this in 6.5 gallon carboy
3. Buy frozen cherries, dump into carboy (either 6.5 gallon glass or 6 gallon plastic), rack beer on top

With 2 or 3, I think I will need 6 lbs?
For 3, will I need to be push the cherries down into the beer after the intial 6 days?
For 3, I should probably go with the wider mouthed plastic carboy.

 

[Kolenka]

The cherries will remain at the bottom of the fermenter, even as a puree. The yeast will setup shop on top of them and eat their way down.

6 pounds in a 6.5 gallon carboy sounds perfect. You will want this stuff at room temperature though before you rack onto it. So doing a pasteurization may be in the cards. Making a puree yourself, and then pasteurizing that would be fairly simple, in my opinion.

You can also use a store-bought puree from a can that's meant for this sort of thing. Not as cheap as doing it yourself though.

I've used the can variety, and making a pasteurized mush myself. Both will work fine. Just make sure you have a blow off tube ready if you don't already.