The Belgians have a lambic beer called Kriek, containing cherries. It was, therefore, only natural that when I chucked a load of cherries into my beer fermenter, the result would be Kroak.
Kroak nearly went down the drain at bottling time, reeking of aldehydes. However, I bottled it and left it for some months - actually having forgotten that I had made it. When I "found" it again, in the shed, I tasted and was quite smitten with it. It did not take long for the Kroak to disappear.
Today, I brewed up again, but with a revised recipe. As my beers tend to sit in the fermenter longer than the usual homebrew (like up to three months), it will probably be Christmas before I actually get to try today's batch.
Here's what went in it:
- 2.5kg Munton's light DME
- 0.5kg Munton's dark DME
- 870g cherries - pitted and frozen a while back, when they were being sold off cheap.
- 30g Saaz hop pellets, made into hop tea
- 5g Saaz hop pellets, straight into the fermenter
- 20 litres rainwater, filtered to 1 micron (mesh, then charcoal)
- ½ packet Safale S04 yeast
The original gravity was about 1058.
