Cascara?

[TheBeerNut]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with cascara (coffee cherry pulp). I know a couple of commercial breweries have made bitter with it, like Nøgne Ø here.

I've been given a kilo to play with and am thinking of doing a bitter and also a turbo cider as well -- I think the tannins would work really well. But I'm in the dark as regards methods and dosage.

Any pointers would be hugely appreciated.

[lancsSteve]

Would that be:

Cascara Sagrada means "sacred bark" in Spanish. Long used as a laxative by Native American groups of the northwest Pacific coast, chitticum bark or Cascara Sagrada was accepted in medical practice in the United States in 1877, and by 1890 had replaced the berries of the European Buckthorn (R. catharticus) as a commonly used laxative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhamnus_purshiana

Oooh - laxative beer

[TheBeerNut]

Would that be

No, it would be coffee cherry pulp, bullet point four on Wikipedia; totally different from bullet point one.

"Cáscara" just means bark or husk in Spanish. The English word "cask" derives from it.

Looks like I'm flying blind for this experiment. I'm going to start with the cider. 5L of juice, 100g of cascara infused in 500mls of water. What could possibly go wrong?

[lancsSteve]

[
No, it would be coffee cherry pulp, bullet point four on Wikipedia; totally different from bullet point one.

phew... sounds interesting rather than terrifyingly explosive

[TheBeerNut]

interesting rather than terrifyingly explosive

My brewery has a new motto. Thanks!

The cider is in primary now and I'm starting to think about the ales. I think I'll do them in a vaguely American style, with Chinook and Casade: if they're a disaster otherwise at least there's a chance the hops will save them. Two 5L batches at about 1.055 made from DME, 100g of light crystal and then one with 100g of cascara, the other 200g, chucked in whole at 0 mins.