Chocolate Cherry Stout

[Thure]

Hia,

I have a base recipe for a good stout, but I was wondering how much cherry and choco I should put in to make an impact on the taste. The cherries I got are picked somewhere in southern France and fairly sour and the coco-powder I was planning on using was Dutch generic coco-powder.
As far as the cherries goes, I think I read in "Radical Brewing" that 1 pound pr gallon was adequit, anyone have expirience with that?

Brew Strong

[noremorse1]

Do you plan on adding the cherries to your secondary and racking the beer from your primary on top of them?

[Thure]

Yeah... Well actually I was thinking of making sap out of the cherries and then add that to the secondary to avoid to much fruit gung. Not sure yet because I could imagine that it could be a good idea to add the whole cherry without stones to the secondary as well.

[straight cash homey]

i made a cherry stout last summer that was the best beer i've ever made, I added about 8 lbs of wild sour cherries to the boil at flame out and left them in the primary (stones and all, but don't crush the stones) for two weeks. i'm gonna make another batch soon with different cherries (chokecherries, much more bitter) and add them to the secondary. gonna use 6lbs for 5 gallons. also gonna try them in a dubbel.

[Andy]

Jamil's Black Forest stout recipe from Brewing Classic Styles has 8oz cocoa and 6lbs of cherries for a 7 gallon batch. Apparently it's a prize winner so should be well balanced. I split my 6 gallon batch of stout into 3 gallons straight stout and 3 gallons Black Forest. I'm using half those amounts in the 3 gallon secondary and already my wife loves it...and she generally hates beer. I found some European sour cherries in a 3lb jar at a little Russian market and pureed them, and used about 4 oz of plain old Hersheys cocoa powder. So far so good.

[Thure]

Well Im going to transfer the coco stout tomorrow from the primary and have a taste and see if I could put cherries in it or if the coco flavor is too strong... Got a little generous with it I think
But thanks Brothars!

[SacoDeToro]

i made a cherry stout last summer that was the best beer i've ever made, I added about 8 lbs of wild sour cherries to the boil at flame out and left them in the primary (stones and all, but don't crush the stones) for two weeks. i'm gonna make another batch soon with different cherries (chokecherries, much more bitter) and add them to the secondary. gonna use 6lbs for 5 gallons. also gonna try them in a dubbel.

Where did you get your wild sour cherries? Do you know what specific variety they were?

[Thure]

I have no idea what variety they are. My brew friends parents have them growing on their land in southern France and they are organic, that all I know.

I transfered the cococ stout to secondary and tasted the brew. It tasted like stout and then with a very robust background of coco like that good 70-72% coco you can buy in the fancy stores. "She who must be obayed" loves it so I'm splitting the batch and doing one coco stout and one coco cherry stout. Really looking forward to see how that turns out!