mixed fruit cider

redser7

chris2286 wrote: »

i appreciate the different ways to activate the yeast but it starts really quick when i have near the fire place roughly roughly 3-4 hours

Cool. Just a tip to save on the yeast. In fact in wine recipies, whether it's one gallon or 5, 1 tsp is a constant as the culture just multiplies till either the sugar is gone or the alcohol gets so high it kills it

Khannie

chris2286 wrote: »

nice one and how long are you goin to leave it bottled for?

I try to leave it as long as I can, but the minimum would be 2 weeks before I'd consider it drinkable. When I started out I was trying a bottle basically every day and I could actually taste it getting better by the day at the time.

chris2286 wrote: »

it doesnt really matter when to add tanning does it?

Pretty sure you can add it any time.

chris2286 wrote: »

im surprised you didnt add any water and sugar to it as i find the cider stays a bit too appley from the juice alone but you said its your fav way so hope all goes good and thanks for sharing

Yeah, I like the appleyness of it but I add a reasonable amount of sweetener to it. The raisins do add quite a bit of sugar to it. I reckon it finishes up around the 6.5 - 7% mark.

chris2286

good to hear everything is goin well hopefully soon we'll have some samples tested and reviewed looking forward to it

Khannie

So slight change here.....I thought I'd be able to get some cheap kits from that lad on adverts but he's stopped replying to PM's so I'm going to keep the apple I have for just drinking. I have a 2nd kit which I got from him, a pear cider, and I'm going to use that with the berries and see how I get on. It's not ideal, but greedy friends are destroying my apple cider store and I don't want to run out over Christmas.

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

So slight change here.....I thought I'd be able to get some cheap kits from that lad on adverts but he's stopped replying to PM's so I'm going to keep the apple I have for just drinking. I have a 2nd kit which I got from him, a pear cider, and I'm going to use that with the berries and see how I get on. It's not ideal, but greedy friends are destroying my apple cider store and I don't want to run out over Christmas.

ha ha i understand what ya mean i have that prob every weekend but this weekend i have no ready made brew so some will be disappointed and the stuff i have brewing will be ready next week for the testing with the berries

Khannie

Well I gave this a whirl tonight. Bit of a pain. I'll give details when I'm not on the phone. its bottled anyway.

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

Well I gave this a whirl tonight. Bit of a pain. I'll give details when I'm not on the phone. its bottled anyway.

well mate hope all is good and look at what i found http://www.homebrewwest.ie/on-the-rocks-cider-mixed-berry-limited-edition-2711-p.asp and for 20 quid it be worth a go i say

Khannie

Nice one. I might give that a spin alright. Thanks for the pointer.

So here's what I did: I got about 10L of pear cider (from kit) and added half a kilo of mixed berries (fruits of the forest from lidl) and about 300g of blueberries and 80g of raspberry syrup. Getting the juice out of the berries was fairly hassle-ish. I used a gold coffee filter like this one:



and mushed them with a spoon to get the juice out (I had defrosted them first). That was a fairly slow process and didn't result in much juice tbh.

Anyway, in the end I got it bottled and primed. It tasted fairly thin but I'm holding out hopes. I reckon you need about 1.5KG of berries per 10L, give or take.

I'm going to kick off an apple batch this weekend and prime it with raspberry juice when the time comes. I'm going to just blend a heap of them with some of the cider and pass it through the same filter to remove the seeds etc. Yes it'll introduce some oxygen (bad) but the raspberries are full of anti-oxidants (good) so hopefully it'll just even things out.

Sure it's practically one of your five a day. :pac:

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

Nice one. I might give that a spin alright. Thanks for the pointer.

So here's what I did: I got about 10L of pear cider (from kit) and added half a kilo of mixed berries (fruits of the forest from lidl) and about 300g of blueberries and 80g of raspberry syrup. Getting the juice out of the berries was fairly hassle-ish. I used a gold coffee filter like this one:



and mushed them with a spoon to get the juice out (I had defrosted them first). That was a fairly slow process and didn't result in much juice tbh.

Anyway, in the end I got it bottled and primed. It tasted fairly thin but I'm holding out hopes. I reckon you need about 1.5KG of berries per 10L, give or take.

I'm going to kick off an apple batch this weekend and prime it with raspberry juice when the time comes. I'm going to just blend a heap of them with some of the cider and pass it through the same filter to remove the seeds etc. Yes it'll introduce some oxygen (bad) but the raspberries are full of anti-oxidants (good) so hopefully it'll just even things out.

Sure it's practically one of your five a day. :pac:

i had the same problem today with the berries but i only used 1 pack of mixed berries from tesco used my blender then added it to a pot with a cup of water brought to a boil dont ask why i just thought it be a good idea to have a watery syrup well i added them straight to half of my cider that i mentioned before and tasted it straight away and man apart from it bein lumpy from the berries i thought it was quite nice and it was very close to what i was looking for i must that coffee filter should do the trick thanks for that.

over all my second attempt only took 3 weeks so im prity happy with the out come well i hope they put this thread as a sticky cause theres loads of very useful info here and great ingredients

Khannie

chris2286 wrote: »

from it bein lumpy from the berries i thought it was quite nice and it was very close to what i was looking for

That's all you want then really. Mine wasn't that great, but I have high hopes for the apple and raspberry one. Don't forget though, if it was the right sweetness now, it'll be very dry when it's finished fermenting out. You'll need to add some sweetener to it to get it back to tasting nice.

redser7

I don't know if this will help with cider making but for wine making with fruit you would also ferment on the pulp. So freeze/defrost/add pectolaise (helps with juice extraction), and ferment away on top of this. Then strain the pulp out after a few days and continue to ferment out to dryness
The other thing you can do which is cleaner, is put the fruit pulp in a square of muslin cloth and make a giant tea bag out of it. Leave a thread/string out the edge of the bucket. The just pull the lot out and squeeze when you think the cider is fruity enough.

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

That's all you want then really. Mine wasn't that great, but I have high hopes for the apple and raspberry one. Don't forget though, if it was the right sweetness now, it'll be very dry when it's finished fermenting out. You'll need to add some sweetener to it to get it back to tasting nice.

i stopped the fermentation at just over 5.1/2 % and just added the berrie juice syrup and have it in litre bottles the more i taste it its like strawberry bulmers without the fizz but thats easily sorted i would recommend removing the strawberries if ya want that real berry flav the strawberries make it a bit too sweet

chris2286

redser7 wrote: »

I don't know if this will help with cider making but for wine making with fruit you would also ferment on the pulp. So freeze/defrost/add pectolaise (helps with juice extraction), and ferment away on top of this. Then strain the pulp out after a few days and continue to ferment out to dryness
The other thing you can do which is cleaner, is put the fruit pulp in a square of muslin cloth and make a giant tea bag out of it. Leave a thread/string out the edge of the bucket. The just pull the lot out and squeeze when you think the cider is fruity enough.

i heard of this method before and its very helpful thanks

Khannie

Well....bad news.

I kinda forgot about this as the reason not to prime with the berries. I'd seen it before when adding them into primary. There's a heap of gick (official term ) in the bottles as you can see from this pic.



I'd say you're gonna see the same Chris. When I got it before with the apple and raspberry in the bucket, I just got rid of it when I was batch priming. Not sure what this is going to be like now. I might pass it through a filter like the coffee filter or a sieve on its way into the glass. If I'm really lucky (and I doubt this because the stuff in the bucket before was quite "floatey") it'll fall to the bottom.

Khannie

chris2286 wrote: »

i stopped the fermentation at just over 5.1/2 %

How did you do that?

chris2286 wrote: »

and just added the berrie juice syrup and have it in litre bottles the more i taste it its like strawberry bulmers without the fizz but thats easily sorted i would recommend removing the strawberries if ya want that real berry flav the strawberries make it a bit too sweet

I actually had a bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer but decided against using them. So do you not use any sweetener in yours? How do you prevent it from continuing to ferment in the bottle (losing all the sweetness) and not turn into bottle bombs?

redser7

You could strain it through a piece of muslin cloth. Hickeys on Henry street sell it for 3 euro per meter, and it's a meter wide. I use it for making the giant tea bag during primary.

I'm picking one of these up ...
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/better-brew-beer-and-wine-strainer-1321-p.asp

and maybe one of these (much cheaper) - see the funnels with strainers towards the bottom of the page ...
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/stirrers-funnels-jugs-196-c.asp

redser7

Would you not stop ferment in cider making with CT and sorbate like in wine making? Tesco have both.

Khannie

You'd be fizz-less then though. Flat cider? Not for me.

Thanks for that link. It's given me an idea. I could probably get the same with the coffee filter thing and a funnel (both of which I have).

redser7

ah right No worries

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

How did you do that?

I actually had a bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer but decided against using them. So do you not use any sweetener in yours? How do you prevent it from continuing to ferment in the bottle (losing all the sweetness) and not turn into bottle bombs?

with wine fermenting stopper you can still get a bit of fizz if you add a bit of apple juice or sugar but it be too sweet cause the berries made it very sweet already then bottle in plastic flagons put near a fire for about 4 hours feel the bottle and if rock hard then put straight into fridge and that stops the bottles from exploding but be careful when opening i found nothing wrong after i poured it through a siv into my pint and even tho you can still see tiny bits floating about you actually cant feel em when drinking so i think a job well done

Khannie

I checked some other bottles today. All the gick had sunk to the bottom, so good news. I'm gonna leave them 'til Christmas day at least to test.

evolving_doors

Some Tescos do the muslin cloths btw (one near bushy park!)..

Just wondering what the story is with sugars and quantities...?

say you were going to use

Demijohn- bout 4 litres applesaft
Defrosted berries mixed!tea bag muslin style in initial ferment..
Raisins
Dextrose

Anyone care to specify amounts for an average 6% cider? Just waiting to try this but trying to fit in days away from house first...

chris2286

Armelodie wrote: »

Some Tescos do the muslin cloths btw (one near bushy park!)..

Just wondering what the story is with sugars and quantities...?

say you were going to use

Demijohn- bout 4 litres applesaft
Defrosted berries mixed!tea bag muslin style in initial ferment..
Raisins
Dextrose

Anyone care to specify amounts for an average 6% cider? Just waiting to try this but trying to fit in days away from house first...

well mate after adding everything together take a reading i normally add sugar to the 0.050 mark and that regularly gets me 4 and 1/2 to 5 and a 1/2 after 2 weeks. i used a full bag of mixed berries after i stopped a 11 12 litre fermentation and was very sweet if your into that. raisins are normally for nutrients but apples have plenty already and the tea bags for tanning which you dont need aswell so eveything i said before that should help you on your way i hope

Khannie

Me and Chris have a fairly different brew process. I ferment mine out fully (so that there's no sweetness left / it's very dry), then batch prime and add some unfermentable sweetener to it (usually splenda or a saccharine based sweetener). I like this for a few reasons but mostly because it keeps the calories low and is predictable.

The batch prime that I do adds about another 0.5% abv as best I can tell. I like it reasonably fizzy so that's 5g sugar per 500ml for priming / 10g per litre. So if I was aiming for a 6% finish I would aim for an OG of around the 1045 mark. The lidl cloudy apple juice has around a 1040 OG if I'm remembering correctly. Shouldn't be too much sugar to make it end up around the 6% mark though.

Khannie

Well....good news and bad news. I opened two bottles of this over yesterday and today.

bad news:
I'm not sure if I over-primed one of them or of the stuff at the bottom caused a lot of fizz but the first bottle went *everywhere* when I opened it. I opened it by mistake. Thought it was apple cider I was opening.

good news:
I stuck the second bottle in the freezer to kind of "relax" it a bit. It spent a tiny bit too long in there so it had a few ice crystals in it. On the plus side there was no explosion and it tastes absolutely mega. Really delighted with how it turned out. The freezing helped with keeping the "gick" down the bottom too. Tastes a lot like kopperberg berry.


Overall I'm well pleased. I'd say I'll do this again but next time I think I'll brew it out fully, then add the berries for secondary, then batch prime. That way there's no gick in the bottles.

Khannie

chris2286 wrote: »

im surprised you didnt add any water and sugar to it as i find the cider stays a bit too appley from the juice alone but you said its your fav way so hope all goes good and thanks for sharing

So I took a leaf out of your book and added some water and a few extra raisins this time. I added another 10% water on top of the juice just to see how it works out. I did two batches of apple, one for making just apple and the other for making apple and raspberry. I'll let you know how it goes.

I left the tea bags in the fermenter this time too. We'll see how that goes.

chris2286

Khannie wrote: »

So I took a leaf out of your book and added some water and a few extra raisins this time. I added another 10% water on top of the juice just to see how it works out. I did two batches of apple, one for making just apple and the other for making apple and raspberry. I'll let you know how it goes.

I left the tea bags in the fermenter this time too. We'll see how that goes.

from experience you'll love it if you like linden village mine turned out like not totally dead flat cider but it had a bit of life to it and after 2 and a half weeks it tasted like linden