Cherry Pomegranate Apple Cider "Sweet n' Cheap"

Want to start by saying this was carbed via keg and back sweetened. You could sweeten and bottle carb and pasteurize but you will need to look on the forums for those instructions. You could also try to stop this early but a.)it will be cloudy and 4.) 1118 yeast can be basically frozen before it will stop working.

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ingredients:

5 gallons motts cider from costco/bjs/sams or whatever
lalvin 1118 champagne yeast
1.5lbs brown sugar
yeast energizer
yeast nutrient
3 cans Old Orchard Cherry pomegranate concentrate
Sulfite
Sorbate

Put the containers of juice in the fridge to cool them down. Once they are cool take a little off the top of each of them and pour it into a pot (about an 1/8th out of each bottle will work) and put them back in the fridge. put the 1.5 lbs of brown sugar in the pot (a 2 or 3 gallon pot works). Put the heat up to medium-low and do not boil, stir and disolve the sugar into the juice. While this is working make sure to rehydrate the yeast in a small glass bowl using previously boiled and cooled to 80 - 90f water. just sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and cover with foil. Set a timer for 15 minutes as when that goes off you will stir with a sanatized spork and pitch into the fermenter.

Pour the juice/sugar mixture from the pot into the fermentation bucket/carboy and add 1 tbsp yeast nutrient and energizer.

Take the cooled bottles of juice and shake each one of them vigorously and then pour into the fermenter one by one. Once you have rehydrated the yeast and stirred pitch into fermenter and place in 70-72f dark area with an airlock on it.

I let this stay in primary for a month and didn't have to use secondary. Basically just let it finish fermenting and go clear..it most likely finished earlier than that but i didn't have time to keg it until around 30 days.

I kegged at 20psi at 40f on top of 1/6tsp sulfite and 1 tsp sorbate and the 3 concentrate cans of cherry pomegranate juice.

It came out pretty damn amazing Cheers!

Starting another batch of this tonight as we kicked this one 2 weeks ago. I had 2 friends over to make some beer and gave us all mugs and free reign on it. By the time the girlfriend got home we were all smammered and stumbling. to quote one of them a few days later (it was like drinking soda...i didnt even think about it until it was too late)

hey i seen your recipe and wanting to give it a try this weekend. I am pretty new to brewing but.

My question is you didn't use the cherry pom. concentrate until you keg i haven't stated kegging yet. So was wanting to know what your suggestion would be to when i should add the 3 cans of concentrate.

blair2512 said:

hey i seen your recipe and wanting to give it a try this weekend. I am pretty new to brewing but.

My question is you didn't use the cherry pom. concentrate until you keg i haven't stated kegging yet. So was wanting to know what your suggestion would be to when i should add the 3 cans of concentrate.

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I would add it to the bottling bucket with your carbing sugar and then use pappers bottle pasteurizing method here : https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

One warning with this cider, it will get you rocked very fast and if you don't hydrate before bed you might want to die

That being said my friends usually polish off a keg of this every two weeks or so.

this sounds awesome!

however, i have a problem...

Alchemy said:

stir with a sanatized spork

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do we have to use a spork? if we use a spoon will it sour the drink?

just playin! looks great!

Rivenin said:

this sounds awesome!

however, i have a problem...

do we have to use a spork? if we use a spoon will it sour the drink?

just playin! looks great!

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If you do not have a spork you need to appease the cider gods by doing the magical booze dance (kind of like the electric slide but with less shame) then scream out FREEEEEDDDDOOOOMMM while you are pouring in the cherry Pom concentrate. (or whatever concentrate you are concentrating on)


Should be good then......maybe.

Alchemy said:

I would add it to the bottling bucket with your carbing sugar and then use pappers bottle pasteurizing method here : https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

One warning with this cider, it will get you rocked very fast and if you don't hydrate before bed you might want to die

That being said my friends usually polish off a keg of this every two weeks or so.

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I have only done one batch of cider so far and it was a quick simple one.

But my question one how long should i let it bottle carb. before pasteurizing.

blair2512 said:

I have only done one batch of cider so far and it was a quick simple one.

But my question one how long should i let it bottle carb. before pasteurizing.

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There are a lot of variables to determine that. Temperature, yeast attenuation, residual sugar, what carbonation level you want.

Most people say about a week, if you wait too long you will get bottle bombs. You can pop one every day or so and see or you can fill a plastic 20oz plastic bottle and tighten with a screw cap. You can test carbonation levels with that and you will know how much co2 has been produced by squeezing the bottle for firmness.

Well i just started my first batch today...Looking forward to this one?

Well i started my batch last Friday and it was fermenting really good and now when i look at the air lock I'm only getting a bubble about one ever minute or so is that ok or is something not right.

blair2512 said:

Well i started my batch last Friday and it was fermenting really good and now when i look at the air lock I'm only getting a bubble about one ever minute or so is that ok or is something not right.

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That's normal. Simple sugars ferment quickly. However, be patient. Even though it might finish fermenting, cider gets much better with time.

ColbyJack said:

That's normal. Simple sugars ferment quickly. However, be patient. Even though it might finish fermenting, cider gets much better with time.

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What he said

Give it about a month in primary. I chose not to do a secondary with this but i keg so anything that settles out while i am conditioning comes out in the first first seconds of pouring from the tap.

Since you are bottling moving to a secondary for two weeks or so would reduce sediment in the bottles. If you can cold crash that secondary before bottling that would be even better and give you clarity like what is in the picture i posted.

Either way you already have cider and it will be just fine

I understand that you kegged this at 20 psi, what did you use as serving pressure, new to kegging just wondering if I can serve this at the same pressure as my beer.

harrisds9880 said:

I understand that you kegged this at 20 psi, what did you use as serving pressure, new to kegging just wondering if I can serve this at the same pressure as my beer.

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I did a "quick keg" at 20 psi by shaking it up for 5 minutes with pressure on. I then threw it on 12psi and served at that. You can serve lower if you want, im sure it will be fine.

Thank you will be starting this, this weekend

Do you use apple juice or split cider

Meant apple cider

harrisds9880 said:

Meant apple cider

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I use whatever is cheap at bj's/SAMs club. Usually comes out to around 20 dollars a keg.

Ok think something may have went wrong. I stated fermenting on 5-5 and fermenting was done in about a week or so. Its just been setting and it still isn't wanting to clear its still a dark cloudy color. What could be the reasons for this?

Don't worry, just give it more time to clear. If you want to speed up the clearing process you can cold crash it in a fridge or ice bath. You can also search up using gelatin to clear. I usually just leave mine for a month and it is clear by then

This looks great!
How's the flavor? Do you get a lot of cherry/Pom?

How much do you suggest for priming sugar for bottling?

Did you take a SG and FG?

Thanks again. Hope to start this soon

Sounds delicious!

djelemenohpee said:

This looks great!
How's the flavor? Do you get a lot of cherry/Pom?

How much do you suggest for priming sugar for bottling?

Did you take a SG and FG?

Thanks again. Hope to start this soon

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The cherry Pom is the dominant flavor in this for sure. I never took a sg or fg on this but if I were to hazard a guess I would say sg around 1.080 and fg (before back sweetening) completely dry.

I have never bottled this so I am not sure how much sugar to add but you can search on these forums for that...I think the usual is around a cup and a quarter for a 5gallon batch but don't quote me on that

Thanks Alchemy! cant wait to get this one started

so basically apfelwien back sweetened with cherry pom? hmmm this is actually temping.

I got a carboy going of apflewien right now. while the idea of bottle pasturizing 50 bottles doesn't sound well "fun" maybe i'll do a a 1/3 cherry pom or maybe even blueberry pom.

also looking at the recipe its a 1/2 lb less sugar than apflewien, so my guess is its 7.5%ish strength

So I took a SG @1.059, transfered to secondary to help clear as my keg system is not set up yet, keep finding to many projects to do, took a gravity reading @ transfer and I am @ 1.00.

I am new to home brewing. You mentioned Sorbate, is that the same as Potassium Sorbate? For Sulfite, are you able to use campden tablets.

Yes. Potassium sorbate is commonly referred to as sorbate, and campden tablets are the most common type of sulfite.

Where are you finding your concentrate? I'm in San Diego and haven't found it at the stores by my house. This is my last ingredient before getting started

You should be able to find it in any local grocery store. Out here Kroger stores carry it, but I would think that Safeway, Ralphs, or Stater Bros should carry it in the frozen juice isle. Been a while since I lived in California not sure what stores are out there.

I too have had no luck finding the concentrate. I live in Mississppi and we have koger here but no concentrate. I want to make this really bad as my first cider. Do you have and advise as to using beer yeast instead of using champ. or wine yeast. Also if i still cant find the concentrate what else would you recomend. I seen pomegratne juice and black cherry juice but i dont know the ratio of juice compared to concentrate. Thanks and CHEERS

stalewater said:

I too have had no luck finding the concentrate. I live in Mississppi and we have koger here but no concentrate. I want to make this really bad as my first cider. Do you have and advise as to using beer yeast instead of using champ. or wine yeast. Also if i still cant find the concentrate what else would you recomend. I seen pomegratne juice and black cherry juice but i dont know the ratio of juice compared to concentrate. Thanks and CHEERS

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I don't really know the ratios would be either. You should be able use mostly any concentrate. As far as regular juice you could just do it by taste. never made the cider using beer yeast but it wouldn't hurt to try

Alchemy said:

I don't really know the ratios would be either. You should be able use mostly any concentrate. As far as regular juice you could just do it by taste. never made the cider using beer yeast but it wouldn't hurt to try

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I have never made a cider and this grabbed me, I dont like dry ciders, and i read on here to use ale yeast for a sweeter cider. you say any concentrate would work what did you mean. I can't find and cherry or pomegrante concentrate.

Question. This is in my primary. I want to bottle it but also want to back sweeten. How does the back sweeten mix with the priming sugars? Procedure? Help!

You would need to pasteurize to stop fermentation before the bottles explode.

There are a few good writeups on the forums on how to back sweeten and bottle that can better explain it than me.

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i couldn't find the OO cherry/pom within 200 miles of me. so... i got the cherry/pom from pom. only issue i have is it is not quite sweet enough (it's dry but still very tasty). if using this, maybe add 1/2 pound of sugar/brown sugar?

thoughts?

I would either do that or use half a can of what you did get.

Key is to add small and taste and make small adjustments when sweetening

What temp is recommended for a quick and efficient (1 month) primary fermentation?

I would stay within the middle ranges of the yeast you choose. In the case of ec1118 it can ferment anywhere from 50f to 86f but the higher the temperature the more off flavors such as fusel (very hot alcohol tastes) and diacetyl (buttery flavor) yeasts will create so I try to stay in the mid to lower range for the yeast.

So under 70 but above 60 should be good for ec1118. Keep in mind these are not ambient temperatures but fermentation temperatures which can vary depending on the size of the batch. If you do not have temperature control just try to keep it under 65 ambient and in my experience it will come out tasty, if you go above that no worries it just might require a bit more time to age.