Apple Cherry Cider?

At a recent Beer Tasting, my wife got to try an apple/cherry cider (I think. I was busy sampling the great beers!) and I thought maybe I would try to brew up a batch of something like it for her.

I'm guessing it was a fairly sweet, kind of fizzy, apple cider with cherries added. Any idea how to produce this? I've made Apfelwein before, and it didn't go over too well. She doesn't like tart or dry wines.

I was at a cidery last fall, and they had some cherry juice, but they said it was awful tasting to ferment. So your guess about being apple cider with cherries added is probably correct.

You might make a lower alcohol applewine, stablize it, and then add in cherry juice. It will give it flavor, sugar, and reduce the alcohol. It really needs to be stable so that it doesn't start fermenting again when you add the cherry juice.

Have you had Red Branch Hard Black Cherry Cider? It is made by Rabbit's Foot Mead out of California.

real cherries + apples = tart. There are some apple/cherry ciders that arnt tart because the cherry is either not real, or added as juice after fermentation.

I made my cider with 4 gallons local cider, 3.5#'s brown suger and S-05. It gave it a little more residual sweetness and maybe you could try the same concept but substitute the cherries for some of the brown sugar.

Homercidal said:

At a recent Beer Tasting, my wife got to try an apple/cherry cider (I think. I was busy sampling the great beers!) and I thought maybe I would try to brew up a batch of something like it for her.

I'm guessing it was a fairly sweet, kind of fizzy, apple cider with cherries added. Any idea how to produce this? I've made Apfelwein before, and it didn't go over too well. She doesn't like tart or dry wines.

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If you can force carb, I'd either make regular dry apple cider, & either cold crash or filter (or stabilize), then backsweeten with cherry juice: http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/just_juice/just_black_cherry
or concentrate: http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/concentrates/black_cherry

Or add the cherry juice or concentrate to your primary, then backsweeten with unfermentable sugars/sweeteners like lactose or splenda. This can be bottle conditioned with standard priming.

That's my 2 cents worth, hope it helps. Regards, GF.

EDIT: I suppose you could also prime with the cherry juice or concentrate, but you'd have to do the math on the sugars they contain. GF.

gratus fermentatio said:

If you can force carb, I'd either make regular dry apple cider, & either cold crash or filter (or stabilize), then backsweeten with cherry juice: http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/just_juice/just_black_cherry
or concentrate: http://www.rwknudsenfamily.com/products/concentrates/black_cherry

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother with cold crashing if you backsweeten with cherry juice. I mean, cherry juice has a reputation of being like cough syrup if it is too sweet, so let the apple juice go dry, then use the cherry juice as flavoring and as a sweetener for a lot less work.

Thanks for the help and sorry for not responding in a timely manner.

I picked up a bottle of the stuff that I think she had at the tasting, and she was very excited when I showed it to her. She doesn't really "drink" (ok, except this past weekend), so it's hard to find something she likes.

My guess is that I should make a dry apple cider, and then backsweeten with cherry juice after killing the yeast. I am planning on kegging it, and either put it on tap, or just bottle off the keg.

Either way, I think the sweet cherries will be best unfermented. That way the cherry flavor remains intact and the finished beverage is still pretty sweet. I may have to experiment to get a good balance.

This will give me a good excuse to build that cider press I have been meaning to build for 2 years. (as if I need another project!) Lucky for me we have LOTS of apple trees around and live a short drive from "The Cherry Capital of the World". I'm wondering which type of cherries to use; Sweet, or Tart, or a combination?

I did have luck using Cherry Concentrate which is basically a syrup you dilute, which I used to backsweeten a cherry mead.

Since you have a keg - this should be much easier to get a carbed sweet cider. What's the ABV of the drink you bought? If so, you can pretty easily match that using a calculator.

I'd probably just do 5g of straight juice, maybe nottingham yeast. Once it's "finished" - Cold crash the yeast out and do a secondary with either fresh cherries or some cherry concentrate (I used cans of Oregon cherry puree + the concentrate).

Damnit, now I'm going to have to get some AJ and start something up...

I've made apfelwein twice and did not enjoy it either time. Neither did anyone who tried it. Perhaps it was my inexperience, but I mean, it's not very hard to make, right?

Hopefully this one will turn out better with the backsweetening. I don't know what the ABV is off the top of my head, but I will look into it when we crack it open. I will probalby try the concentrate first, if I can find it. Might be easier and cleaner than using real fruit. Then again, a friend of mine will probably give me flack for not using "the real stuff"...