CHERRY wheat, weizen, witbier

[Gjuro]

hi guys,

i'm a rookie brewer planing to make my first cherry beer. i want a beer with cherry power of a kriek, i want to really taste the cherry, not just get a note of it, but will not be making a lambic as it is too complicated at this stage in my homebrewing career. so it's gotta be a wheat ale, weizen or most likely a witbier with a strong cherry taste of a kriek!i will put the cherries in the secondary!as a beginner, i have a couple of questions:
1. how much cherry should i get for the desired taste(in kilos per liters or lbs per galon)?
2. i'll freeze the cherries but do i need to pasterize them before/after the freezing?
3. i read people add water into the secondary.how much should be added (litres per kilo of cherry)?and can i use the water from the cherry pasterizing?
4. finally, how long should i leave the cherries in the secondary min/max/opt?

 

[Boo-urns]

1) They say the rule of thumb is 1# per gallon. I did that in a cherry wheat last year, and I didn't get much cherry if at all in a 5gal batch. So i'd ramp it up twice as much however not much room left in the carboy then.

2) I only pitted and froze the cherries and chucked them in. This year i'm going to try to pasteurize after frozen.

3) I'm not sure why you would be adding water.

4) As long as needed. I went 10 - 14 days don't recall exactly. I ended up having to use 2oz of cherry extract. Don't use too much extract if you go that route as well it will end up like cough syrup.

 

[dozer5454]

I make a basic PM cherry wheat for my mother all the time. I have used frozen cherries that I pasteurized. (Crushed 5# of cherries to get the juice out while pasteurizing in the pot, cooled and tossed in the secondary). I have also used the 3# of pureed cherries. By far the 5# gave me more of a cherry taste. They were crazy juicy when I bagged them so that may have been a factor. I also used them in the secondary. Use a blow off valve. (Trust Me).

 

[Gjuro]

Thank you guys for great answers!

i plan to use real cherries, i never use extract of any kind!anyway, i've read in a number of posts that brewers add water along with the cherries in the secondary to counteract the extra alcohol that comes from the cherries fermenting. it does make sense to me and i want to try that too, but i can't find the recomended amount of water!any ideas?

 

[Boo-urns]

I'm not sure how much water you would add. I see the argument, I just let the cherries do their thing and I didn't get much if any flavor out of them. Which is why I had to use some extract. I froze my cherries differently this year so I'm hoping that will help.

 

[Gjuro]

right!so i took a kilo fresh sweet cherrie and half a kilo of sour cherries for my experimental 5 liter batch, froze them for a day or two, kept them at 70 degrees celsius for half an hour and made a puree!put the puree in my secondary and racked the weizen on top of them!
didn't really have a look at it all until a week later!the cherry bits are everywhere!if it al doesn't fall to the bottom, it's gonna require a lot of straining!also there's a lot of yeast sediment on the bottom as if it was still in the primary!don't know really what to think of that?hope there's not a lot of alcohol in it!!