Cherry Cyser recipe

Hello all,

I'm planning on making a Cherry Cyser with the following recipe. It should come in at about 13% ABV. Volume 6g.

10lbs Wildflower Honey
4g Apple Juice (no preservitive)
1g Black Cherry Juice
1pkt Red Star Côte Des Blancs Yeast


Any input would be great...nutrients required? is this enough yeast? etc, etc...


Thanks,
Paul

are you squeezing your own cherry juice? if not would you mind sharing where you found 100% black cherry juice?

I've seen it at Costco, and believe it is very sweet I think it had an OG >1.08

I just started a gallon of similar stuff (not enough honey to be a mead, I suppose)- 32oz 100% Black Cherry juice, 1 lb honey, 100% AJ to 1 gallon, KV-1116 yeast. OG was 1.083. I found the black cherry juice in the organic section at Shaw's, though it's fairly expensive- I think I paid five or six bucks for the quart.

I got the Cherry juice from Costco...last 2pk of half gallons they had. It was pretty cheap compared to other stores, I think $9 or so. At Meijer its like $20/g (in 32 oz bottles)!! I'm hoping to find more come next summer and make an all cherry wine, but no at $20/g.

The gravity comes in at around 1.041 for the cherry juice (25g sugar per 240mL). The apple is like 1.047 (28g/240mL).

Bjornbrewer said:

Hello all,

I'm planning on making a Cherry Cyser with the following recipe. It should come in at about 13% ABV. Volume 6g.

10lbs Wildflower Honey
4g Apple Juice (no preservitive)
1g Black Cherry Juice
1pkt Red Star Côte Des Blancs Yeast


Any input would be great...nutrients required? is this enough yeast? etc, etc...


Thanks,
Paul

Click to expand...

Looks good, I'd add a dose of yeast nutrient/energizer, or go with staggered nutrient additions.
Regards, GF.

Thanks GF.

Although I am no mead expert this sounds good Bjorn. Where did you get the no preservative apple juice? I have about 10lbs of extra honey laying around and might try this.

Costco! The only preservative is Ascorbic acid (vit C).

I'm sorry, I'm just starting out with homebrewing, but could you explain the process of how you would make the cherry cyser? I'm about to start a couple fruit wines, would it be a similar process or completely different? Thanks!

Wines and Cysers are nearly identical is process. With wines you start out with fruit or juice, add water if needed to your desired level of volume, then add sugar to your desired gravity and finally add in additives then yeast. That may include using sulfites and then waiting 24 hours before pitching yeast. With a cyser putting it together is exactly the same but you use honey rather than sugar. The only real differences I make from wine to meads is I don't normally use acid blends or additional acids like malic or citric because honey is naturally acidic. Also I normally don't use sulfites before pitching yeast. I will use them while racking to prevent oxidization but it is generally not needed to halt initial infections or wild yeasts because honey is naturally anti bacterial in nature.

Hope that helps.

Toss some nutrients in there too!