My friend Jesse, made a Kolsch with chokecherry juice a few years ago and I liked it so well that I set myself to picking chokecherries last August and made a fantastic batch of slightly purple, ruby beer that was absolutely delightful. It took two quarts of juice to make, which is quite a few chokecherries to pick and run through the food mill, so I canned another two quarts of juice to use at a later time. Unfortunately, a terrible hailstorm cleaned out the chokecherries this year and the birds took what was left. It was a down year around here for all the berries and fruit trees even without the brutal hailstorm and I ended up with a fraction of the apples, raspberries, plums, and strawberries of a normal year with cooler summer temperatures. I resorted to the canned juice to remake the memorable kolsch but I ran into trouble when I added the chokecherry juice to secondary fermentation. It seems the heat in the canning process caused the juice to turn cloudy and the beer never cleared to give the beautiful appearance of the previous beer and also imparted a slight nutmeg flavor. Anyhoo, the second attempt is still a good beer but it is lacking the brilliant appearance and overall pleasantness of the first batch. Since chokecherries are not commercially produced I will have to wait until next August to try this one again, but I plan on freezing extra juice instead of canning it next year.If you have chokecherries in your area, this is a worthwhile beer to make and is probably the best use I can think of for the astringent, tart little things.
Specifics:
5.25 gallons
OG 1.053
TG 1.013
SRM 3.3 before juice addition
IBU 19.3
Grain:
9 lbs. Pilsen
1 lbs. White Wheat Malt
.5 lbs. Carapils
 |
| Food Mill |
1 oz Hallertau @ 60 minutes
1 oz Hallertau @ 5 minutes
Yeast:
Wyeast 2565 Kolsch
Extras:
2 quarts fresh chokecherry juice
Notes:
Single infusion mash at 149F. Collected 6.5 gallons of wort and boiled to 5 gallons. Primary fermentation at 65F, transferred to secondary adding 2 quarts of fresh chokecherry juice. Left at room temp for a few more days to let yeast work on juice then put into fridge at 55F for 3 weeks.
Ok thanks for the idea! I just picked 5 lbs of choke cherries and I was thinking about a porter. I'm up and in the air about adding the juice during the first boil or in the secondary, as you did. What do you think? I was planning on about 2 qts of juice in the 5 gal batch. Seems like more flavor might come through if added in the secondary fermentation, but you risk contamination. Also I am hoping that adding to the primary meaning might give a better clarity.
ReplyDeleteRespond here
ReplyDelete