[Tfwebster]

I'm thinking about my holiday beer,  a cherry chocolate stout, and - as the title suggests- I have questions for the hive mind:

1. I'm adding a pound of dried cherries per gallon.  I've never fruited a beer. Best time to do it? Do I need to sanitize fruit if on cold side? If so, how?

2. I don't have room in my lager freezer for another keg, and I was wondering about carbonating in some champagne bottles I have. In the past, I've not had great luck getting stout to carbonate in bottle.  Anyone ever added yeast in this case? Tips?

3. I don't have a corker. Bottle caps fit the champagne bottles, but I wonder if they'll hold a vigorous secondary fermentation. Thoughts?

With inquiry in my heart,  I thank you in advance.

[erockrph]

1. I have added fruit in the primary at the tail end of fermentation, or racked onto the fruit in secondary. Both ways work, although there's a lot more sludge to deal with at the end when adding fruit to the primary fermenter. I generally use frozen fruit (or fresh fruit that I froze myself) in my fruit beer, and I've never run into an issue from not sanitizing. I don't know if dried fruit pose any extra risk that fresh/frozen doesn't, but I'd just toss it in. If I was feeling paranoid for one reason or another, then I'd just toss the fruit with some 151 rum or a high-proof bourbon before adding to the beer.

2. I've never run into an issue with stouts carbonating myself, but there's no harm with adding a small amount of dry yeast to each bottle if you want some insurance.

3. I don't think I'd want a stout to be highly carbonated like a champagne, and I would never want a "vigorous secondary fermentation" in a bottle for fear of bottle bombs anyways. I think a low-to-moderate carbonation level (2.2-2.4 volumes of CO2) is best for something like a chocolate cherry stout, so that's what I'd target at bottling if it were me.


You mentioned that you were using dried cherries. Make sure you check to see that no preservatives were added (that may affect fermentation), and you probably don't want it to be sweetened, either.

[reverseapachemaster]

1. You can add at either time. You can remain in primary as long as you have space to accommodate the extra fruit and some headspace for more krausen. If not, rack to a new vessel. Dried fruit you buy tends to be slightly oiled for the drying process and then treated for packaging so they should be sanitary enough to add directly. If you feel the need to sanitize, a quick dip in any 80 proof or higher alcohol will do the trick. This is cherry season so depending on where you live you may be able to find fresh cherries locally.

2. Depending on the final ABV you may have difficulty getting the beer to carb up. High ABV beers and aged beers can sometimes be difficult to naturally carb due to less CO2 in solution. Vigorous primary, warmer than typical fermentation and loss over time can start you at a lower amount of CO2 in the beer than priming calculators suggest. Of course, the higher the ABV the more likely you need to add reinforcements at bottling to make sure you have healthy yeast available to ferment out the priming sugar.

A great option if you have an open keg and a bottling gun is to carb up in a keg and then bottle carbonated beer. You can still use champagne bottles but as long as the beer is fully fermented before packaging, you could use any bottles you wish. That is the best way to dial in carbonation and make sure it is ready to drink hen you're ready.

3. I don't think of stouts as a style that benefits from high carbonation. If you are adding fruit, you want to let those fruit sugars ferment out before bottling so you don't have too much carbonation or worse, explosive bottles.

True champagne bottles are thick and heavy and they are generally safe to 6 vol or more of carbonation. Many of the bottles used for beer, force carbonated sparkling wines (like prosecco), or sold at homebrew shops tend to be thinner but still safe for 4-5 vol. If you opt for champagne style bottles, check carefully for the size of the mouth. Most champagne style bottles use 29mm caps rather than the usual 26mm for beer. Some of the brown champagne style bottles are 26mm but I don't think I've seen any green ones that size.