Cherry beer

[tubby_shaw]

As the new year has started so has my quest to make acceptable fruit beers

As the favourite beer of both the wife and I is Liefmans Kreik Cherry is the first fruit to get the nod.
I know that this is not going to come close to Kreik but if it is drinkable and tastes of cherries it's a step in the right direction

The recipe was,
1kg DME
140g crushed crystal malt
4 jars morello cherries
14g Saaz hops

The crystal malt was placed in my grain bag and in the boiler as 15 litres of water was brought to the boil, the crystal malt was removed and the DME dissolved in the water at 75 C.
This was boiled with the hops for 45 minutes, cooled with the immersion coil, transfered to the primary on top of the cherries and syrup.
The yeast was taken from the slurry of a light ale brew.
I collected 12 litres at an OG of 1042.
It's fermenting away happily already and it's red, so at least it's the right colour
Next step if all goes well is all grain and wyeast belgian lambic blend yeast

[mysterio]

Excellent, i'll be interested to know how it goes with the lambic blend yeast. It's my understanding that the Belgians use deliberately old hops so they get more of their preservative qualities and less of the bitterness, might be useful for those bits and pieces of hop detritus that gather at the bottom of the freezer

[tubby_shaw]

The cherry beer experiment has gone into the secondary and has dropped to an sg of 1008 already and it's still fermenting merrily
I had to taste the contents of the hydrometer trial jar as I didn't want to pour it into the secondary or waste it
So far it has a distinct cherry flavour, which I hope will develop as it matures, it also has a slight sweetness which I hope will drop as the sg drops and the taste of hops isn't too powerful.
My quest for a lambic blend yeast will mean that I have to order it and wait six weeks
I am much too impatient for that So the next blend will get inocculated with a bottle of lambic This does beg the question, does anybody know which lambics are unpastuerised?

[tubby_shaw]

The cherry beer is now in bottles.
The sg had stayed at 1008 for 3 days and it was clear and I needed the fermenter it was occupying so it went into bottles
I did the obligatory QC check from the hydrometer trial jar and first immpressions are
1, it needs more cherries
2, it needs more body
3 it needs more sweetness.

But it wasn't unpleasant
So next experiment will be, full mash at 69ºC to up the body and residual sweetness and a 25% increase in cherries.
Although that may change after the bottles have conditioned and matured

[StrangeBrew]

Flavour and body might well come through with maturity!
Let us know how it turns out.

Good to see another Carp Angler getting his priorities right with the brewing!

[Mr blue]

Saw this recipe on byo website for Cherry Witbier

http://www.byo.com/recipe/30.html

[tubby_shaw]

Well the cherry beer has had 15 days conditioning in the bottle. Time for a QC check


and the head colour


It's a pity my fat head got in the way of the light on the head picture but it is pink.
It is surprisingly getting better
I still don't think that I used enough cherries, and it's not a Liefmans by any stretch of the imagination, but, it's not bad
Next QC check in 1 weeks time.