Berry cider halfway done

My experiment with Barrie's used 1118 yeast and it geyserd the second day. I didn't squish them. I put them in the primary and they were still floating when I racked into the secondary. I found the product very dry and s little bitter. Never did it again.

I just tossed 2 Kilos of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries into my bucket. SG before the berry addition was 1.002 according to two hydrometers. Refractometer math said 1.004 close enough for me.

So that's 400 grams of berries per gallon. I'll come back to it in 10-14 days, and see how that goes. It did eliminate almost all of the remaining headspace in the bucket.

update for everyone, I'll add the pictures from my phone after.

My latest batch started at 1.045 from filtered apple juice.
I pitched a packet of S-04 onto 19 litres of filtered juice.
15l Allen's low acid canada choice from concentrate w/ vit c
4l Rougemont mellow low acid canada choice from concentrate w/ vit C

pitch date was 09/03/2015
by 10/26/2015 SG was down to about 1.006 based on my adjusted refractometer readings. more importantly it was stable over about a month.
I added 2kg of mixed berries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, purchased frozen (no name brand) and allowed to thaw before adding directly to the bucket. I need to remember to leave more headspace, as this was pretty well right up to the lid of my 5 gallon bucket, and I had to remove some liquid as the renewed fermentation and berries was forcing cider out the blowoff tube. About 350 ml was all I needed to draw off.

fast forward to 11/09/2015. Siphoned to my bottling bucket from under the fruit, onto a thawed can of AJC. The can of AJC should have contained 108G of sugars based on the nutritional information.

apples are roughly 50% fructose, 25% sucrose, and 25% glucose.
1g sucrose is equivalent to 1.15g of dextrose for priming, and fructose seems to be equivalent to about 1.3 times the dextrose. so I'm ballparking it at about 2.68 vols of CO2

here's my math.
1 Sucrose = 1.15 dextrose
1 Sucrose = .5 Fructose + .5 Glucose
1 Dextrose = 1 Glucose

so 1 Fructose = 1.3 Glucose/Dextrose.

so the breakdown of the sugars in the AJC in Dextrose equivalents is
54g fructose = 70g dextrose
27g sucrose = 31g dextrose
27g glucose = 27g dextrose

total priming sugar value 129g of dextrose equivalent. This all hinges on dextrose being equivalent to glucose a a priming sugar per gram. I'm basing this on the fact that Dextrose is also known as D-glucose.

please, food scientists step in.

Here's a shot of the hydro sample which had an FG of 1.003
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447091200.914108.jpg

Here's a shot of what was left of the berries. I may want to mush them next time to get better juice extraction.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447091226.851752.jpg

I'm assuming a 2.5 ppg boost from the berry blend. raspberries being 2ppg an blueberries being 3, and blackberries, I don't know.

so final abv on this is about 5.8%

Mine went well too. After a couple weeks on the berries FG was back to 1.000. I figure I'm in the 7% range.



Racked it off the berries and filtered through some cheesecloth -



Left behind some berries and lees-



Topped off with finished cider from the same batch.



Kind of bummed that the color was diluted by the top off, but it does have some berry flavor. This one will age until next Summer and I'll keg it with apple-berry concentrate for sweetener.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

MarkKF said:

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

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I added them to a secondary jug. Cider had already finished at 1.000 and I broke off one gallon for this experiment.

MarkKF said:

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

Click to expand...

After fermenting the cider

Interesting. I always added my fruit along with the yeast. The yeast is gonna eat even the sugar in the fruit either way. Unless you cold crash rack & sulfate before adding the fruit.

In Connecticut a commercial cidery can't add the fruit to the primary unless it's also licensed as a winery.

Adding the fruit after fermentation is finished is more to give you a baseline to know when the fruit has been fermented out and to let you control exactly how much time to leave it in

Pretty happy with the flavour from this batch. Colour is good too I thinkView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1448578673.005556.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1448578782.171350.jpg

Looks awesome. Any residual sweetness or is it really dry?

I'm going to let mine ride for a few months.

there's an impression of sweetness and a tartness. i'd say it tastes sweeter than the fg would have you think

Getting ready to rack my berry cider to secondary used 3lbs of frozen berries in primary what s a good next step just rack and let it be or rack onto more berries these are 6 gal carboy

Looks great! I love the glass too!

Maverik said:

Getting ready to rack my berry cider to secondary used 3lbs of frozen berries in primary what s a good next step just rack and let it be or rack onto more berries these are 6 gal carboy

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Give it a taste. If you don't think there's enough berry flavour, I would maybe add some more berries, another lb or two? Then let it sit for a week or so, maybe ten days?

HB_in_Subic said:

Looks great! I love the glass too!

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Thanks! The glass was a Christmas gift last year from my bro-in-laws.

Hi phug thanks for inspiration. Here's my berry cider in the secondary View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1456810458.381284.jpg

that looks great. I think I see some strawberries in there too. let us know how it turns out

I'm glad this thread has been revisited, as my berry cider is scheduled to be kegged in the next week or so. Pics to follow...

phug said:

that looks great. I think I see some strawberries in there too. let us know how it turns out

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Yep. 4 berry cider - blue black straw and raspberry. Will update the thread. Cheers.

I read through this thread but I'm still confused about a couple of things.

I'm planning on making some hard cider with 4.5 gallons of apple juice and 1 lb of corn sugar. I have 3 lbs of mixed berries I'd like to include.

Has anyone ever tried adding all their berries to primary? I'm a little concerned about storing the berries for more than a month in the secondary, won't they start rotting? Or does the alcohol prevent that?

How did you guys sanitize your frozen berries?

Any tips would be appreciated.

the berries were kept frozen until added to the secondary. No sanitation was done on the berries as they were store bought frozen berries, you may want to wash yours prior to freezing, if they are fresh. wash, dry and then freeze on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper if that's what you're doing.

I added them to secondary for 10 days before bottling. no concerns about it.

phug said:

the berries were kept frozen until added to the secondary. No sanitation was done on the berries as they were store bought frozen berries, you may want to wash yours prior to freezing, if they are fresh. wash, dry and then freeze on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper if that's what you're doing.

I added them to secondary for 10 days before bottling. no concerns about it.

Click to expand...

Thanks I'll do the same. I have frozen fruit. I'm a little concerned about sanitation in terms of contamination with wild yeast & bacteria, but it seems like it worked out for you so I'll give it a whirl.

Do you see of any downside to heating it up to 160 with a little water for 20 minutes prior just to be on the safe side?

The frozen fruit will be clean enough.

heating will likely result in setting of pectins resulting in a haze that is difficult to get rid of. If it came from the store frozen, just pitch it straight in. I have also done this with fruit from my garden, washed, frozen, and then pitched in about a year after harvest. No issues.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458871319.011615.jpg
Here is the finished 4 berry cider one week after bottling. Had some carbonation even after a week. I added a kilo of sugar prior to pitching (rookie mistake) so the cider is quite potent (9.7 Abv) which takes away from the flavor.

Thanks Phug.

bosster01 said:

I read through this thread but I'm still confused about a couple of things.

I'm planning on making some hard cider with 4.5 gallons of apple juice and 1 lb of corn sugar. I have 3 lbs of mixed berries I'd like to include.

Has anyone ever tried adding all their berries to primary? I'm a little concerned about storing the berries for more than a month in the secondary, won't they start rotting? Or does the alcohol prevent that?

How did you guys sanitize your frozen berries?

Any tips would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Interesting thread. I am adding berries in the primary, but not right away as that can lead to some of the aromatics being blown off by fermentation. I am using 450gm of mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries), along with 2 over-ripe bananas for body, in 4L of apple cider. It is my first time trying berries. My process is a little different than others in this thread. I started the cider and yeast (Lalvin 71b-1122 wine yeast) off on day 1. On day 2 I thawed the berries and bananas, mashed them in a bowl, and added a Campden tablet to prevent oxidation and sanitizes the berries/juice; that's the point I am at now. In 12 hours I will add pectic enzyme, to help it clear and extract more juice, then at the 24 hour point pour the macerated fruit in a sanitized mesh bag, add some sanitized marbles to weigh it down, and throw it in my fermentation bucket on day 3. I have read on winemaking sites that you shouldn't leave the fruit in too long as it will rot and extract more tannins; some say 3-5 days is good. Given the amount of fruit I've used, I think I will just leave it for 3 days. I intend to rack to secondary on day seven, and bottle when it is a month or so old. I plan to back sweeten with xylitol, prime, and bottle condition. Fingers crossed. Cheers! -Christina.

PS I just re-read your post and see you plan to add 3lbs of fruit. Wow, that is as much as they use in wine making....but they would macerate it. What are you going to do: leave it whole? In any case, with that much fruit you might have to let it age for a while. Make sure you punch the fruit down twice a day too, so it doesn't start growing mold on top. I've had that happen to a fruit beer I made. Anyway, good luck!

So, my berry cider started back in October and was racked off the berries in early November. Been aging in secondary for almost 6 months and I just got around to kegging it.



Sweetened the gallon to 1.010 with frozen apple-berry concentrate. It has a complex flavor profile that I really like. Apple tartness up front, with a berry finish. I'll do this again.



Thanks for the inspiration, phug.

Regarding frozen juice concentrate, I belong to the Ciderworks Google forum.Some very knowledgable people there. I read that there are some pernicous spoilage bacteria that can survive freezing. Apparently it not recommended, although you could pasteurize it I suppose.

Picked up a 33 with this one at a local comp. didn't place though. One thing that held it back was some higher alcohols, and I absolutely agree. Have to keep the temp in check with this one. If I remember I did this last during the summer using s-04. Both judges picked up some malolactic fermentation characteristics and felt that the berry overpowered the cider a bit. I can probably reduce the berry addition slightly and go with higher acid apples/ juice.

This wasn't the batch that you documented back in November?

Mine is quite different. The berry flavor is subtle, you taste it on the back end. I'm thinking it needs more berries - but if too much berry is a flaw, then maybe I'll leave the recipe alone. I'd like to save a couple bottles for comp at the end of the year, but I doubt they'll last that long...

Yeah, same batch