Kreik, colour and flavour

[JCsbrogues]

Hello Chaps and Chappessess,

This is my first post on a brewing forum, although I have already been re-assured several times by reading some of the topics already posted here (thanks everyone!).

I'm fairly new to homebrewing. I made a batch many years ago that was awful and put me off until recently.

I am currently conditioning a Woodfordes Great Eastern and a Muntons Wheatbeer (nothing to drink as yet ), neither of which I was able to get down to the suggested finishing gravity, but reading elsewhere on various noticeboards this doesn't seem unusual.

This morning I have bottled a Brewferm Kreik kit. I had a little taste (as you do) before bottling. Now I am sure that I have had 'official' Kreik before which tasted very strongly of cherries and had a distinct redness about it. At the moment mine has a very slight hint of cherries and is a straw colour. My question is; will the beer become more 'flavoured' over the next six to eight weeks while it is conditioning and will it's colour change? I'd be a bit disappointed if it doesn't change significantly but perhaps I'm expecting too much.

Thanks

[Chris The Fish]

ive not done a brewferm kriek kit, however brewferm kits are normally very good, and vastly improve over time (months).

the 'off the shelf' kriek ive tried has been very sour, cherry and red, however that is only one style and not to be taken as the be all and end all to kriek id wait and see what happens, i imagine the colour will remain the same but expect the taste to change considerably.

Id be interested to hear how it turns out, ive done plenty of breferm kits but never a kriek!

[arturobandini]

Commercial "Kriek" style and most other of these "berry" flavoured white beers (thinking Fruli) are usually distinctly red. I read somewhere that you get a load of cherry juice with the "Kriek" Brewferm kit or that a stated amount of real cherries are used in the making of it?? Did you forget to add your juice or just not given any with your kit? If there was a distinct lack of juice then you're probably heading for a rather (fingers crossed) tasty white beer I would imagine.

If this comes across as patronising, given my zilch homebrew experience, asking if you left out the juice then feel free to give me a slap.

[JCsbrogues]

Thanks.

No extra juice that came with it, but it did say on the label that a substantial amount of cherries had gone into the kit (I can't remember how much it said).

I'll leave it as long as I can before drinking and keep my fingers crossed.

[sparky Paul]

No extra juice that came with it, but it did say on the label that a substantial amount of cherries had gone into the kit (I can't remember how much it said).

IIRC, it says there's 3Kg of cherries in it.

I was looking at doing that one myself, OH likes the commercial Kriek and I'm interested how this turns out for you. It sounds like it could be quite a bit different to the bottled stuff from the shop... the Brewferm kit is also quite a bit higher ABV. The flavour will improve, as CTF says, but it doesn't sound like it will ever give the strong hit of cherry the commercial stuff does.

[arturobandini]

I went into my local homebrew shop today and picked up my two cans of Diabolo. They didn't have any candi sugar and it didn't sound like he was keen to order any in either so that's probably an online job. I did have a close look at the Kriek cans with this thread in mind and I think I misread the brewferm website in that the juice is already in their can! Oops! Going off the colour of their photograph you'd definitely assume you were getting a deep red fruli-esque colour. Weird. Is there some sort of natural additive you can add to the beer at bottling/kegging so you can maybe inject a bit more flavour/colour into it that anyone knows about?

[batarang]

Started one of these kits about 10 days ago and mine seems to be the same, ie straw coloured and just a very slight hint of cherries.
I doubt though that the flavour will get any more cherryish over the weeks or months. A couple of months ago I added 3-4Kg of fresh raspberries to a Milestone Crusader kit. Looking into the FV you would have thought it was a jam making session. Amazingly the beer now only has a slight pinkish tinge to it and only a hint of a raspberry taste! Where did all that colour and flavour go?

____________________________

Brewing : Woodfordes Nog Porter
Brewing : Brewferm Kriek
Conditioning : Scammonden Dark
Conditioning : Hoegaarden clone v3
Conditioning : York Stonewall Bitter
Conditioning : Milestone Crusader w 3Kg Raspberries
Drinking : Muntons Smugglers
Drinking : Brupaks IPA
Drinking : Hoegaarden clone v2
Drinking : Woodforde's Admirals Reserve

[JCsbrogues]

Thanks again people. Batarang's post has at least re-assured me that I haven't done anything major wrong. I'll let everyone know how things eventually turn out.

[loffler]

I made one of these kits a few months back and also had the same results. A very pale, light cherry flavoured beer.
I even used light candy sugar to try and give an authentic flavour but was a bit disapointed with the outcome.
Having said that, it is one of my clearest and most refreshing beers and is definitly getting better with time - been over 2 months now and only have about 8 bottles left.
I had heard that these came with syrup to enhance the flavour but mine didnt.

I have since switched to all grain so dont think i will do another belgian kit, but have bought some cherries in a jar from Lidl and may do my own cherry beer one day and get a real red colour and cherry flavour - prob next summer.

Sure you will be happy with it, enjoy!

[arturobandini]

Hey guys, after reading this post I emailed brewferm and asked them about the Kriek and what experiences they have had and what feedback they have received on it regarding colour and flavour. He very kindly, and pretty promptly, returned with this email I've posted below....

Dear Sir,

During maturation beer can become somewhat darker, but the red color
should be there already when bottling. We know that the cherry taste is
not exactly like the commercial cherry beers. We are continuously trying
to improve our range of beers. We also do tests and the last test we did
with this kriek kit was OK. Could you please inform me about the batch
number of the package? This is the number marked onto the can. I know
that everyone throws this immediately away, but unfortunately I only can
check everything out with this number.

With kind regards,
Dirk De Kelver

There you have it then. If you've still got the can then if you post the number I'll send a reply to M. De Kelver and see what he comes back with. Sounds pretty clear cut that they expect it to be red but the cherry taste is less pronounced than commercial Krieks. I'm quite impressed with his response as he seems genuinely interested to further the discussion. Nice to see a company listening to it's consumers rather than just ignoring them.

[BlackBag]

Here here.
Unlike bloody Munton's.

[keithm]

I've just bottled A BrewFerm Kriek kit 21 pints (OG 1054 FG 1013 at 20C 5.5% ABV) mine is exactly the same as described above - light straw colour and a hint of cherries in flavour - In the absence of Candy Sugar (I did order it from Easybrew.co.uk - but they clearly didn't have any so sent Dextrose - they took a rather long time too!) I used 500 grams of 250 g spray malt/250 g Dextose mixed - so taste will suffer I guess not having the caramel flavours from the Candy Sugar.... I'm pleased to see BrewFerm responding - but if they think it should be red - well it ain't. An explanation does spring to mind: is Cherry Colouration an acid indicator like many fruit colours (Red Cabbage juice goes blue in alkaline solution) is the colour compromised by slightly high pH? All the bought in Cherry beer I've had was distinctly pink - as was the head - and the cherry flavour astringent and nice. The price of the Factory-brew was what prompted my interest in the kit!


_____________________________________________________________________________________
Drinking Coopers Wheat Beer and Youngs Lager
Conditioning: Wherry and Kriek
Brewing (next): Coopers Mexican Cerveza and more Wheat beer

[Marts]

It doesn't solve the fundamental problem, I know, but one solution could be to add some of this black cherry extract at the priming stage. I would think it would give the sour cherry taste and more of the colour you are expecting.

They also do a raspberry version

[arturobandini]

I was also thinking perhaps you could prime with something cherryish* to get a deeper colour and add a more distinct cherry flavour to the beer. My first thought was adding a sugar syrup in the style of the French cordials you mix with water like the ones made by Teisseire. Not sure the availability of these in the UK though and you'd have to work out the specific sugar content of them to avoid over priming. Probably what Marts has suggester is better as it seems more directly brew related. The fact that Brewferm are even making these extracts suggests there is room for improvement on their fruit beers range.