Bourbon Barrel Stout with fruit

[Strat6255]

I recently went to Goose Island brewery and went on a tour. I got to try a version of their bourbon barrel stout that isn’t available to the public. It was aged with raspberries and blackberries. I was considering trying to recreate this because I really enjoyed it.

Has anyone tried anything like this? How much of each fruit should I use in the secondary? I was thinking around 1-1.5 pounds of each?

Also, how much bourbon should I use for the stout to soak the chips in and then pour into the secondary?

Thanks.

 

[thehaze]

I think you need a bit more than just 2-3 pounds of fruit, but I could be wrong. As for bourbon, somewhere between 150 and 250 ml ( 5-9 fl. oz ), depending on how much oak chips you are using.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Yeah, I would agree you need more fruit then that. I'm doing a barrel aged imperial stout myself and I'll be using 6lbs of cherries. I would say you need at least 5-6 lbs of fruit if you're doing a 5 gallon batch.

As for the chips, if you want to tone down the wood character a notch, you can boil them for 10 minutes to make them a bit less intense. Then they can sit in the beer a bit longer. I've never done this but I've read of others doing it.

I think just use enough bourbon to cover the chips completely for a few weeks would be enough. When you go to put them in the stout, just put the chips in I think. Don't put all of the bourbon in there, I think that may be overpowering. Again, never used chips but from what I've read, I think the above is true.

Or, call around to some small distilleries and see if they have any 5 gallon barrels they're looking to get rid of. I got mine for $50.

 

[stieg000]

I would add the bourbon at bottling time. Do some experiments in a glass to see what tastes good then scale it up. As for the wood I prefer cubes but chips will work faster. You can add wood and sample with a thief as you go. I typically do about 3oz of cubes for 1-3 weeks.