Cherry Oatmeal Stout

[Fuggled Mind]

Hi everyone

I spent quite a happy afternoon yesterday harvesting cherries from a friend's cherry tree. There are tree's not far from my house but it's much easier if someone has their own tree and the ladders to reach the riper cherries growing close to the top. All in all, I collected just over 3kg of cherries.

The cherries are sweet but with a good tart finish and I plan to put this in an oatmeal stout. Has anyone ever tried this combination? If not, could someone check my oatmeal stout recipe and give me some feedback

Here's what I have so far

Cherry Oatmeal Stout

3.7kg Weyermann Pale Malt (71.57%)
.450kg Vienna Malt (8.7%)
.450kg Rolled oats (8.7%)
.230kg CaraMunich III (similar to regular British crystal malt) (4.45%)
.230kg Chocolate Malt (4.45%)
.110kg Roasted Barley (2.13%)

Hops
20g Fuggles (60 mins)
20g Sovereign (60 mins)
20g Williamette (60 mins)
14g Goldings @ flameout

Mash 90 mins @ 66°C

Yeast: US-05

And now the complicated part.
Once the boil has finished, I'm tempted to drain the boiler immediately to remove all the hop debris, clean it out and then return the boiled wort back again and bring it back to the boil (to ensure that it is sterilised). Once I've reached the boil, I'll switch the boiler off and then add the cherries and Goldings aroma hops. These will steep for 30 minutes before I begin the transfer to the FV.
Having read up on Charlie Papazian's Cherry extract brew (Cherry Fever Stout), he recommends transferring everything from the boiler to the FV (pulp, stones, aroma hop debris and all). I just hope it doesn't clog my boiler tap (just a drilled bit of copper piping for a filter).

Cheers

Jason

[Rookie]

You'll get more cherryness in your beer if you wait to add them until after primary fermentation is done.

[Fuggled Mind]

You'll get more cherryness in your beer if you wait to add them until after primary fermentation is done.

Thanks Rookie

I collected a few more today and though I haven't weighed the second batch, I reckon I've got around 4kg. I guess that means I can add them at both stages.

Cheers

Jason

[seymour]

Sounds like a great idea. I think your proposed recipe and techniques will work well. I've tasted several cherry stouts, and I agree, those tart dark stone fruit notes are definitely complimentary.

I don't think you mentioned your target strength, but I'd say the bigger the better, and age it as long as you can stand. With regards to the cherries you add to the primary, the Belgians add them whole and by the end of the lengthy aging, the cherries have dissolved entirely, pits and all, lending a nice almond/amaretto layer as well.

[Fido97]

I would add half the cherries to the boil and add the rest to the primary after say 2-3 days (sterilise the cherries in advance though). I guess everyone has their own modus operando but this works for me - have done this successfully with figs in a brown ale and apples in a saison. Your recipe looks very good by the way, the results should be fantastic.

[Fuggled Mind]

Sounds like a great idea. I think your proposed recipe and techniques will work well. I've tasted several cherry stouts, and I agree, those tart dark stone fruit notes are definitely complimentary.

I don't think you mentioned your target strength

You're right. I'm aiming for a target gravity of 1.060 but anything around 1.057 will be enough. I want 19L in the FV and Will probably age it in the primary for around a month before racking to the secondary. I'll be using two FVs I'm happy to let be used for nothing but bottle washing afterwards as I'm certain 2kg of cherries will stain the plastic. I'll also have to think how to transfer to the secondary as I'm sure the stones will cause problems.

Brew is scheduled for Saturday

Cheers

Jason

[floydmeddler]

I spoke to a brewer who says he allows his fruit to ferment first in a separate FV then adds it at the end of the boil. Not sure if he allows it to naturally ferment or if he uses commercial yeast. Sounded interesting, I thought.

[Fuggled Mind]

It's amazing how many different approaches can be taken to brewing with fruit. It makes me wonder which one really is the best. I hope adding to the boiler at flameout, the transferring will be enough to get those cherry flavours coming through.

Cheers

Jason

[jock128]

I'm really interested to see how thus works out, it sounds like it's going to be a fantastic brew and one to be remembered. Looking forward o seeing the updated!

[Fuggled Mind]

I keep getting cold feet. I was wondering whether to just go with oatmeal stout but I have everything I need to brew at hand. I'd be a fool to not do it.
There is 3.1kg of cherries in the freezer which I heard can inhibit wild yeast.
I was going to do the brew as normal but now I'm wondering if it would increase the cherry flavour if I added a kilogramme to the mash and put the remaining 2kg in the primary.
I will sterilise the cherries by simmering at 80°C for 15 minutes then add them to the boiler at flame out.
I've given this a lot of thought but still don't know what to expect. I'll do my best to do a brew-day write up but hope no one laughs at my primitive set-up.

Cheers

Jason

[floydmeddler]

Good on you sir! We need more experimentation around here!

[naturals]

Good on you sir! We need more experimentation around here!

Absolutely 100% do it! Cherry Oatmeal sounds like pretty much the most appealing beer I've ever heard of. As they say, it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't.

[Fuggled Mind]

Well the brewday is almost here. Absolutely no turning back now.

Tomorrow I'll be brewing the cherry oatmeal stout I've spent a week obsessing about. Having read up a bit, I know how I'm going to do this.

Cherry Oatmeal Stout
19L
Assuming a brewhouse efficiency of 68% (because I've never used oats in such quantities or ever added cherries to the tun before)

O.G. 1.057
F.G. Who knows - I'm brewing with fruit and all those extra sugars might do something
3.7kg Weyermann Pale Malt (71.57%)
.450kg Vienna Malt (8.7%)
.450kg Rolled oats (8.7%)
.230kg CaraMunich III (similar to regular British crystal malt) (4.45%)
.230kg Chocolate Malt (4.45%)
.110kg Roasted Barley (2.13%)
1kg cherries in the mash tun (I was initially worried that the cherries would do something weird in the tun but the American's put pumpkin in their mash tuns all the time when making pumpkin ale)

Hops
20g Fuggles (60 mins)
20g Sovereign (60 mins)
20g Williamette (60 mins) Was not sure whether to emphasise the hops - maybe the cherries need some balancing.

14g Goldings @ flameout
2kg cherries @ flameout
Mash 90 mins @ 66°C

Yeast: Brewferm Top (not the most exciting ale yeast - it's quite neutral but it means I can use my US-05 for something more hop accented)

Once 60 minutes is up, I'll drain the boiler, scrub it out to get rid of any hop debris and crud, then transfer the wort to the boiler and bring back to the boil.

Bring the wort to the boil should take a bit of time so I'll add the remaining 2kg of cherries to 1 litre of water and simmer gently at 80°C for 10-15 minutes.

As soon as the wort comes to the boil, I'll turn it off and add the post boil hops and cherries and the water in which I simmered them (should make up for evaporation during the boil. I reckon steeping the cherries for half an hour should do the trick. I'll then transfer the cherries to the FV and drain the boiler. No doubt there will still be a lot of trub and break material and I'll try and leave as much behind as possible. If not, then I wouldn't worry too much, this beer will be racked to a secondary FV.

Well that's enough of my ramblings. For anyone interested in using fruit in a brew, I found this an interesting read
http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/679-f ... techniques

Cheers
Jason

[jock128]

Wow, seriously excited to see how this turns out!

[Fuggled Mind]

Well I did it!

Long long brew day. Mind you, I did mash for 3 hours because I promised my partner we'd get the groceries and drop off the recycling (the recycling centre is fine - I often find the German/Dutch style flip top bottles in the open containers they have for recycling bottles).

Cherries in the mash seemed a pointless exercise. No colour or flavour in the wort but as I tranferred to the boiler the bubbles on the surface had rainbow reflections just like washing up liquid bubbles. I assume they are head destroying fatty essential oils. Let's wait and see.

Simmered the cherries in 2 litres of water for 20 minutes. Boy did they reduce! Added to the tun and steeped for almost an hour (well the football is on isn't it). Now draining the boiler and the beer has a great red tinge. I hope the flavour is as good as the colour. However, when I tasted the juice from the simmered cherries, it wss quite sour and very tannic.

I don't have a wort chiller so its in a bath of cold water.

Cheers

Jason