Sour cherry source?

[PhillyBrewer]

I have a 14 month old Flanders Red which I want to add sour cherries to. Perhaps I'll split the 5 gallon batch in half and let 2.5 gallons of it sit on 5# of sour cherries. I wasn't thinking ahead and AFAIK sour cherries are no longer attainable in my area. Any suggestions on what I should do since I assume I can't get them locally for another ~9 months or so?

[Whitebeard_Brewer]

Check one of these: http://www.alibaba.com/manufacturers/so ... turer.html
This is the manufacturer that most use I believe..... http://www.oregonfruit.com/of.pl?pg=cp

Google Tart Cherry, that's what I did, I know alot of homebrew shops carry the Oregon brand....might be worth checking into.

[Quin]

I had found these folks earlier, but i haven't bought anything from them before.

http://www.cherrybayorchards.com/
http://www.brownwoodacres.com/fruit_jui ... trates.php

[PastNastification]

Gonna take a shot in the dark and guess you're from Philly?

I'm in Chicago and found them in the frozen section at Meijer. Not sure if you have it over in your area. It's kinda like a super Target or super Walmart. They're based out of Michigan and I've seen them all over the midwest and down in Tennessee, I believe.

[Ironman]

I've had great results with dried cherries.

[whiterussian]

Ironman, did you pasteurize the fruit in hot water or flash steam it before adding to the beer? Did you add it to the secondary? In what amount? Basically, looking for any tips on using dried cherries in my Belgian dubbel.

[Ironman]

I made them into a cherry wine. It's a page out of Gordon Strong's book (not literally). It's one idea he uses to make fruit beers. Make a beer and make a fruit wine and then blend. 1 lb of dried cherries equals 6-8 lbs of fresh tart cherries. Make a gallon of cherry wine and then do small scale blending trials till you get the balance you're looking for and then do the whole five gallons.
Sam Calagione has a sour cherry ale in Extreme Brewing that uses 2lbs dried cherries in the secondary. The nice thing about making a wine from the fruit is that you can ferment on fruit pulp for a month and then rack off of it to get a clearer wine with good fruit flavor. I use a few gallon glass jugs so I'll have plenty of headspace.