Birra Corvo Cherry Stout

Put Crystal Malt, Roasted Barley and Black Patent Malt in a grain bag and put it into a pot containing 1.5 gallons of cold tap water. Apply heat until the solution reaches around 190F and remove the grain bag, squeezing as much of the malt juice out as possible. Bring the remaining pre-wort to a boil and as boiling commences, add the malt extracts. At this time, add the two oz. of Northern Brewer's hops and 1/2 oz. of the Willamette hops to the boiling wort. If, like me, you have little room in your wort pot, be especially watchful for boil-over at this time. Boil your wort for 60 minutes. While the wort boil continues, put your cherries into a large bowl and crush them fairly thoroughly by hand. I did this in a food processor for my second shot on this recipe and it chopped them too fine so during racking, I kept getting my siphon tube clogged with tiny cherry bits. At the end of your boil, remove the heat source from the wort and add the cherries. After fifteen minutes, add the remaining 1/2 oz. of Willamette hops and begin cooling your wort. I use a bath of ice water in my kitchen sink. Once you have cooled your wort down to a reasonable temperature, add the whole mess to a mess of cool or cold water in your primary fermenting vessel. At this point, you should have your wort down to 70F or below. Take your O.G. reading...mine was 1.060 at 70F. Pitch the yeast, close it all up and add a fermentation lock. After a few days, you might want to rack this mess into a secondary fermenter...I use a plastic pail primary and a glass carboy secondary. Here's where not pulverizing the cherries comes in handy. After racking into the secondary, you might want to let this puppy go for a long while before bottling. I waited nine days and successive readings yielded no change in S.G. so I bottled at 1.022 F.G. @ 78F(Ah, the joys of brewing in Texas summers). Now one background note, I was on the wagon to train for a bicycle ride for two months after I bottled this batch. When I finally got to taste the brew, it turned out to be my best effort in two years...YMMV because of personal tastes in styles of beer.

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