Cherry Juice Concentrate Addition

[Plymouth Backyporch Brewing]

Hello all!

I am going to brew a cherry sour with lactose. I have purchased a bottle of tart cherry juice concentrate to add at secondary fermentation. I am wondering about how much to put into a 5.5 gallon batch to have the cherry flavor come through. The bottle instructs putting two tablespoons in 7oz of water for an 8oz serving. Should I put that amount at the same ratio for 5.5 gallons? I have never brewed this recipe before so I plan on working on it further with trail and error but wanted to get some input on how to conceptualize the addition with this first batch. Thanks in advance of any input!

 

[Minbari]

Interested in this. I always use actual cherries

 

[jschein]

I always use extract flavorings, actually only one for a chocolate raspberry stout, and add it to either the bottling bucket or keg. It adds a great aroma and not much taste.
What brand concentrate?

 

[Plymouth Backyporch Brewing]

It's actually from the farm near Traverse City where they grow the cherries. The company is called Traverse Bay Farms and here is their website:
Cherry Juice Concentrate. Even though it is tart it still has some sugar in it so I expect it to activate some fermentation when i add it to the beer. I want to be sure its done fermenting before bottle conditioning.

 

[jschein]

Bottling could be an issue depending on the sugar content. It’s a sour so just adding to the fermenter would be best

 

[Plymouth Backyporch Brewing]

Did some searching in the Zymergy archives and found an article on adding fruit to sours. For sour cherries it gave a range of .25-2 lbs of fresh fruit for every gallon of beer. The ratio for using concentrate is .3 giving .075-.6 per gallon. Of course the bottled stuff I have is measured in fluid ounces so I won't know how much volume to add until I open it. I think I am going to add on the high side of that amount and see how it goes. If anyone has any other ideas about it, I would love to hear them. Thanks for all who have responded thus far.

 

[Donoroto]

Hello all!

I am going to brew a cherry sour with lactose. I have purchased a bottle of tart cherry juice concentrate to add at secondary fermentation. I am wondering about how much to put into a 5.5 gallon batch to have the cherry flavor come through. The bottle instructs putting two tablespoons in 7oz of water for an 8oz serving. Should I put that amount at the same ratio for 5.5 gallons? I have never brewed this recipe before so I plan on working on it further with trail and error but wanted to get some input on how to conceptualize the addition with this first batch. Thanks in advance of any input!

Well, I think you have an answer, but flavorings can be estimated by adding a drop at a time into a glass of (water? Beer?) and tasting. Once you have a reasonable result, scale up drops to ounces and go.

 

[Zambi]

I would also check if any preservative has been added.
Ascorbic acid is no problem, some of the others could be

 

[Plymouth Backyporch Brewing]

Great suggestions, Thanks! Did check the bottle and it looks like it only contains cherry juice with not mention of any preservatives.

 

[GDubs]

I did a cranberry wheat ale last fall using the little concentrate bottles they have at the local homebrew shop. I used the whole bottle (4oz?) in a 5.5g batch. I was hoping for a subtle "what is that fruit taste", instead I got a weird cough syrup taste. that being said, the beer improved dramatically after a couple months in the bottle. I would recommend treading lightly on the first batch and adjusting in later batches.
Next fruit beer I make, I will use 1/3 of the bottle.

 

[Bigbre04]

I have brewed with a lot of fruit. I almost always use aseptic purees, but i have used fruit juices(orange, lemon, lime, pineapple etc.) from the store.

cherries are hard, they can quickly become "medicinal".

I would pitch the fruit during fermentation. if you are bottle conditioning, you want all of that fruit sugar gone.

Tasting the juice with beer helps when dosing post fermentation, but if you ferment most of the sugar out of it, it will taste very different. I would say go heavy at mid fermentation and see how it tastes at the end. you could always dose more in in secondary instead of some of the sugar.

I dont bottle condition so that could make a difference.

I would also add a small amount of vanilla and some lime juice post fermentation. they both really help with rounding out the flavors of sours. for reference I put 76 gal:250ml of wort:vanilla. you cant taste it, but it really helps to round out the back of the tongue flavor and makes the beer a lot better. same for the lime juice, it adds a little bit of complexity without being overly sour or perceived at all.

 

[Plymouth Backyporch Brewing]

Thanks for the suggestions. I did go on the heavy side of what I found in a older Zymurgy article (Zymurgy: May/June 2015 Sweet & Sour: Adding Fruit to Sour Beer By: Kevin Wright) about fruit sours. I did taste it with varying degrees of cherry concentrate additions and it did taste better on the higher side (the beer was a day or two past active fermentation). I was concerned that I was not going to get a renewed fermentation of the cherry concentrate sugars but it did restart and I have very active fermentation again. I will see how it tastes when fermentation is complete and consider some of those other additions with the next batch. Really hoping I don't end up with five gallons of cough syrup!

 

[Zambi]

Cough syrup can be useful too