Cherry Wheat

[Big Port]

I think I am going to try my hand at a Cherry Wheat this weekend. I have done a lot of looking into when to add the cherries and I think the secondary is going to be my best bet. I am wondering if it would be beneficial to dump my cherries into a bucket with a little pectic enzyme to break them down before adding to the secondary, and maybe just use the juice at that point. Any thoughts on that?<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

 

[masta]

I have made a Cherry Wheat and used Oregon Cherry Puree which is sterile and added it in the secondary. You definitely want to add in the secondary since wheat beers tend to ferment quickly and foam up a bit and the sugars in the cherry would be too much for the primary.


If using fresh cherries an option would be to cook them on the stove to help break them down and kill off any bacteria from the heat, then cool and add to secondary.

 

[Big Port]

If you heat them, will you loose any juice or do you just pour the whole mess, water and all, into the secondary?

 

[masta]

Are they fresh cherries?

 

[Big Port]

Frozen fresh...same as I used in my Cherry Wine. Edited by: Big Port

 

[masta]

I would still put them in a saucepan and heat slowly to a simmer to help break them down and kill any bacteria then pitch into secondary.

 

[Big Port]

Will do. Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know how it turns out.