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Red ale recipe
After some discussion with family, I'm looking to make a chocolate/cherry brew. I'm going to use my red ale recipe (which is quite malty) for the backbone. For economic and laziness reasons, I purchased a 16 oz bottle of "cherry concentrate." The bottle says ~12 1/2# cherries are used to produce. Is this too much to chuck into a 5 gallon batch? I'm assuming it would go into the secondary, as if I were using whole berries. Any idea how much cocoa powder I should use to balance with the cherries? How about adding lactose, and how much to this menagerie? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Skylar
From a slightly disappointing brew that I'm drinking right now, what I found adding fruit to red ale was that there really needed to be a little bit bettering hops. Not sure how the chocolate will influence this (especially if you use a bitter baking cocoa), but my raspberry-maple red ale hardly tastes like beer- it's not bad, just needs a stronger core beer character. The maple, incidentally, was worthless - no maple flavor at all, I wonder if it's strong fermentation helped cause the lighter flavor as well.
Adding that much in cherries, you may want to slightly jack up the bettering hops to retain the beer flavor.
Thanks
Simon
Being the new kid to the site, I'm still getting my brew legs. What are bettering hops? and what is a demijohn?
thanks!
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