Adding Cherries to secondary question

[BrewNinja1]

So in primary right now I have a basic american wheat. I plan on racking it onto some whole frozen cherries (I will thaw them first obviously). Two questions. First is how much? I was thinking 4 lbs...too much?

Second, I plan on puree'ing them first. Is this what people usually do with whole cherries? Thanks!

 

[Oldsock]

I actually like whole fruit, puree is messy and it's hard to separate out once you are ready to bottle. 4 lbs is medium-low, which should be fine for a balanced American wheat.

 

[BrewNinja1]

Do you crush them up a bit first or something to kind of break them open or just go with them the way they are?

 

[jessup]

2lb/gal is the standard. i wouldn't puree them since you'll be damaging the pits and the pits are good for a "woody" flavor. if you blend or puree you'd just be asking for trouble come time to rack with all the bits and pieces of pits throughout. Just crush them the best you can and toss 'em in. FWIW i don't do anything but throw them in whole.

 

[BrewNinja1]

Good to know! Unfortunately Im a little late in the year to the party so all I could find was pitted frozen cherries. I cleaned out one store and 2 others were sold out as of this weekend. I got one other store to look at tonight to try and find another pound or two it sounds like. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Oldsock]

Do you crush them up a bit first or something to kind of break them open or just go with them the way they are?

The freezing actually does a pretty good job breaking up the cells walls. That said, I don't do many fruit beers that aren't based on sour beers (which get a couple months on the fruit).

 

[MBasile]

Last time I added frozen cherries the recipe called for them at flameout. I'll be adding them in the secondary this time, so how do I make sure they are sanitary? Or does freezing kill everything?

 

[Oldsock]

Freezing doesn't kill everything. If you are worried you can give them a quick dip in star-san before freezing, that should do the trick.

 

[xeerohour]

How long can a beer sit on fruit in the secondary? Curious about this one, as I have a quad that's been sitting on a can of pureed cherries in secondary for almost 2 months at this point.

 

[MBasile]

Freezing doesn't kill everything. If you are worried you can give them a quick dip in star-san before freezing, that should do the trick.

I ended up taking the safeway bags of frozen cherries and steeping them for 15 minutes at ~170˚, hopefully that'll work out. The beer is also ~6.5% ABV that they went into

 

[Oldsock]

How long can a beer sit on fruit in the secondary? Curious about this one, as I have a quad that's been sitting on a can of pureed cherries in secondary for almost 2 months at this point.

I've gone over a year with sour beers on whole fruit without issue. I don't see why something similar wouldn't work with a clean beer, but I've never tried it.