2 questions about brewing with cherries and scaling recipes

[philc]

1. So I'd like to put black cherries in a stout recipe that I found online:

here is the recipe:
10lbs Dark dry malt extract

1Lbs Cane sugar

1/3 Lbs Molasses

12oz Crystal Malt

10oz Chocolate Malt

3oz Roasted Barley

3oz Black Patent

2.5 oz Target Hops (bittering)

1oz Target Hops (flavor)

1/2oz Target Hops (aroma)

How would you recommend adding the black cherries? Should I make some sort of syrup and transfer to secondary over the cherries?


Question 2:
If I wanted to make this a 2.5 gallon recipe, how would I do that? Would I just cut the ingredients in half essentially?


Thanks guys!

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Yeah to make a 2.5gallon batch just split the ingredients in half.

As far as fruit addition I believe general concensus is a pound per gallon. As to the method. I would freeze then thaw and purée them. Then rack onto them in secondary. Lots of options out there but that is how I would do it.

 

[philc]

thanks a lot for the response!

 

[sfrisby]

I've done cherries in secondary, I've juiced cherries (pasteurized on stove at 165* for 20 min) and added to secondary, and I've bought the 32 oz bottle of Trader Joes 100% cherry juice, boiled down to about 12 oz or so and added to secondary. The flavor (all the same beer) in each was very close. For that reason, I recommend the trader joes because it makes things so much easier.

 

[woknblues]

Make sure they are *very* ripe, if not overripe, then freeze them, then pull them out, steep them in a couple cups of boiling water, blend them and put them in the secondary vessel and siphon the primary over them. Go ahead in general and just cut the recipe in half. You won't get sweetness from the fruit, but the flavor. Also, you will need a lot of them to get any appreciable flavor over a stout/roasted grain.

To me, that seems like a hoppy (IBU) stout, just sayin'.

 

[philc]

anybody have recommendations for the type of molasses i should use?

 

[Babybatch]

I've done cherries in secondary, I've juiced cherries (pasteurized on stove at 165* for 20 min) and added to secondary, and I've bought the 32 oz bottle of Trader Joes 100% cherry juice, boiled down to about 12 oz or so and added to secondary. The flavor (all the same beer) in each was very close. For that reason, I recommend the trader joes because it makes things so much easier.

I hope that this thread isn't TOO old to be posting in but I saw this and it made me curious. When you juiced the cherries yourself what was the lb/gal ratio?

Reducing the TJ juice seems like a nice and clean option. On a scale of 1-10 where did your cherry flavor land?

1 - Being faintly can taste cherry

5 - Being a a good balance

10 - Being cloying.