buying bulk juice or concentrate

i've been looking for someplace to buy cheap bulk juice to mix with local pressed cider. Anybody ever buy IBC totes or 50 gallon+ barrels of juice or concentrate? I'm not picky about the brand really. it will be used just for blending with some local pressed cider apples. I usually buy frozen concentrate locally and mix with my cider. But am looking to upscale and do larger batches.

Treetop has something sold in bulk called heritage juice which is meant for fermenting. It comes in 5 gallon concentrate pails and larger. I wish I could get a smaller amount to give it a try as it supposedly has some tannin in it.

VasDeferensly said:

Treetop has something sold in bulk called heritage juice which is meant for fermenting. It comes in 5 gallon concentrate pails and larger. I wish I could get a smaller amount to give it a try as it supposedly has some tannin in it.

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I wonder where you can buy it. I did a quick Google search but didn't see any info on where to buy.

yeahfairly said:

http://foodingredients.treetop.com/apple-juice-concentrate-for-hard-cider-making/

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Yeah, I found that, but it doesn't say where to buy. I was wondering if anyone knew a place to buy it before emailing Tree Top. I haven't heard of this before but would like to try it out.

VasDeferensly said:

I wish I could get a smaller amount to give it a try as it supposedly has some tannin in it.

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There's a sample request form here: http://foodingredients.treetop.com/sample-request/

The Heritage cider blend is listed under "styles"; I just submitted a request myself but haven't received any additional info yet.

TreeTop products are carried by Brewcraft USA. Adventures in Homebrewing here in Michigan sell Brewcraft products so I gave them a call yesterday. I got a message back and a five gallon bucket of the heritage juice is $179.99 plus tax and plus whatever shipping would be if you can't find somewhere local to pick it up from.

It says on TreeTop's sample request page; "Please note, Tree Top products are packaged in industrial quantities and are subject to minimum order quantities." So even if someone gets a sample, good luck meeting their min order requirement.

Does Tree Top guarantee what juice blends are in their "Heritage" blend(s)? $179.00 for 5 gallons plus shipping sounds like a lot of money... The Tree Top 3 juice blend is $5.38 a gallon at Wally World and their house brand concentrate is $1.18 per 12 ounce can.

Edit: 5 gallons of concentrate is a different story, but 5 gallons of Wal mart concentrate is only $63.00.

Yes, it is a concentrate. I think it would make 33 gallons (six 5.5 gallon batches) of 1.052 base. That is just off the top of my head from doing some calculations yesterday. I think some directions I read said dilute it 7:1, ferment it out dry, and then use their finishing juice concentrate to back sweeten.

When I worked it out it wasn't any cheaper than buying fresh cider ($5.50 a gallon) from one of the local orchards here so I didn't order it. It may be interesting to try since it probably has more tannin than the cider I buy now, but for $190 (price with tax) and a two hour one way drive to pick it up, I decided not to.

I bought some concentrate from an outfit in the UK called Lovebrewing

I bought the Ciderworks kit, which ships with concentrate intended for fermenting.

http://www.lovebrewing.co.uk/cider/cider-kits/

Right now I finished up about 40l of cider and bottled it. When it went into secondary I was not overly impressed with the taste but it is developing as time passes.