Blueberry Cider

As the title says, I am looking to make some blueberry cider.

At this point I am still researching and would love some help. I searched around and saw a lot of references to blueberry cider, but not recipes.

I have 5 gallons of apple juice, 4 lbs of frozen blueberries, a few different yeasts to choose from, brown sugar, cane sugar, all the spices in pumpkin and apple pies, ect ect.

So who's going to be the first to lend a helping hand?

How many pounds of blueberry should I add?
Primary or secondary for the fruit addition?
If I want a pronounced blueberry flavor, should I even start with a cider base?

I can go get more blueberries and either carry on with the BB cider or make bb wine or mead and just use the apple juice for some of EdWorts own. Haven't made his apfelwein yet, but I wanted to make something a few people have expressed interest in (especially the SWMBO)

Add all the blueberries to the secondary after fermentation. Let sit for 2 weeks.

I used 2 gallons of blueberry juice in my latest batch. It will be 5 months old by the time I get to taste it

Blueberry is a little tough to work with, as it isn't all that strong without some residual sugars. I would use two gallons of cider with three pounds of blueberries in the secondary initially. After fermentation stops, add campden tables to kill the yeast. Add the remaining blueberries and let the steep for a week. The cider will be still.

If you want a carbonated cider, you'll have to use a non-fermentable sweetener.

Any cider, wine or neutral ale yeast would work.

I don't think a non-fermentable sweetener will carbonate cider. Carbonation comes from the CO2 headspace. CO2 is created from yeast fermenting sugars.


Disclaimer: Author bears the right to be completely and totally wrong.

Frost said:

I don't think a non-fermentable sweetener will carbonate cider. Carbonation comes from the CO2 headspace. CO2 is created from yeast fermenting sugars.


Disclaimer: Author bears the right to be completely and totally wrong.

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I think his point was to not use campden tablets and use a non fermentable sugar to keep it sweet while the yeast eat the remaining sugars to create the CO2. While leaving the non fermentables alone to give you the sweetness.

Disclaimer: Author bears the right to be completely and totally wrong.

HarvInSTL said:

I think his point was to not use campden tablets and use a non fermentable sugar to keep it sweet while the yeast eat the remaining sugars to create the CO2. While leaving the non fermentables alone to give you the sweetness.

Disclaimer: Author bears the right to be completely and totally wrong.

Click to expand...

You are right... non-fermentable for sweetener so the yeast can use up fermentables for gas.

If anyone is interested in how this ended up going (since this is a very old thread) here is a link to my real brew thread with the recipe I used and advise, its delicious.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=51277