Cherry Cider Info

[liquidavalon]

Well now comes the time when I need to ask the advice of my fellow cider makers for yet another opinion/question.

I have a gallon batch of hard cider fermenting since Sunday , 01/22 with a SG of 1.070. I checked it yesterday and it was 1.050 so it is working quite nicely. My ingredients consisted of: UV pasteurized juice from a local orchard, 1 cup of sugar ( I won't use that next time as my sg was too high IMHO ) and pectic enzyme.

My goal is to make a sweeter cider and maybe stop primary fermentation around 1.030 to 1.020, maybe even lower?? I purchased a can of Oregon Fruit Products Pitted Dark Sweet Cherries in Heavy Syrup, pictured below ( contents Cherries, sugar and water ) and I was wondering...if any of you were in my place: What would you do from here and how would you do it?

I guess I want it to taste like hard apple cider and cherries...not Robitussin cough medicine or cherry Kool-Aide.

Thank you all who are kind enough to throw in your advice and wisdom!!!

 

[jguy898]

I don't know about adding the can of what you have pictured there. I wouldn't trust it 'not' to leave a cough syrup taste...
If you want to add cherries, add Frozen, Tart, Pie Cherries or add some of this Fruit Wine Base. That is very good stuff, I use it when making meads.
If you attempt to leave it sweet Cold Crashing is about the only way to go during an active fermentation, and then hit it with sorbate/sulfite after it's gone dormant. (I have cold crashed Ciders at 1.014 in the past) Left at an s.g. of 1.030 - 1.020 your cider will be overly sweet, and syrupy. Even at 1.014 a cider can be cloyingly sweet. For a good balance between Cherry flavor and residual apple sugars I would suggest you crash it about 1.010 or 1.012. Believe me that it will be sweeter than you think at that level.

Jonas

 

[liquidavalon]

How should I go about adding the cherries? Rack it onto them before or after cold crashing? Just wondering process and lengths of time ect. Thanks!

 

[liquidavalon]

Believe me that it will be sweeter than you think at that level.

Especially after adding sweet dark cherries in heavy syrup!

 

[brewingmeister]

What size batch are we talking about?
Beer yeast or wine? (please don't say bread)
I really like the sound of this cherry cider. If it was my batch I would let the gravity get down around 1.010 (or lower since there's a bunch of sugar with the cherries) and then add the can o' cherry. A whole can may be a bit much for a single gallon but for 5 it might be alright. Keep me updated, I may want to try making this.

 

[liquidavalon]

What size batch are we talking about?
Beer yeast or wine? (please don't say bread)
I really like the sound of this cherry cider. If it was my batch I would let the gravity get down around 1.010 (or lower since there's a bunch of sugar with the cherries) and then add the can o' cherry. A whole can may be a bit much for a single gallon but for 5 it might be alright. Keep me updated, I may want to try making this.

I am just trying a single gallon batch to test things. I would NEVER use bread yeast...I am using Nottingham Ale yeast. I like that yeast due to the sweetness it leaves behind and that it cold crashes well.

I liked the sound of the cherry cider too...never had one. I will keep updating thread as I progress. Thanks for the advice on the FG!

 

[liquidavalon]

I let it get down to 1.015 and racked it onto a can of dark sweet pitted cherries. If I ever do it again, I will use tart cherries as the dark cherries have a " plum " character I wasn't expecting...no real cherry taste or aroma to speak of. I let that sit and then added a campden tablet...filtered off all the chunks and racked it into a jug and am cold crashing it right now.

Then bottling...pasteurizing and off to balance with age.

: what I learned this batch : leave things alone, use real tart cherries or cherry juice to get a true cherry flavor. Plus I think it will be way too sweet from the dark sweet cherries!!! Oh well, we live and learn...NEXT!!!

 

[dinnerstick]

i have tried twice to get cherry flavor out of cherries and it has never quite worked, once i juiced a load of black cherries and used the juice to prime bottles and that worked ok aside from the huge amount of sediment it generated, and once i racked onto an obscene amount of regular sweet red cherries and you couldn't tell at all in the final cider. i won't try it again unless i can get fresh krieken (local sour cherries)

 

[brewingmeister]

So how big was the can you added to the gal? Then you added compden and crashed immediately? With all the sugars in the can it should come out on the sweet side. At 1.015 it was likely still going since it was a cider which will add to the sweetness.

 

[liquidavalon]

So how big was the can you added to the gal? Then you added compden and crashed immediately? With all the sugars in the can it should come out on the sweet side. At 1.015 it was likely still going since it was a cider which will add to the sweetness.

The can was about 15oz but I only added the juice, left it in there until 1.010, then campden, then crashed it. It has been bottled, pasteurized and is aging right now.

 

[Ninkasi70]

LiquidAvalon -

I made cherry cider last year.

After cold crashing, I racked to secondary, at that time I added sweetened, dried, tart (Montmorency) cherries that you can get at Costco – it's the Kirkland brand. I used 4 packages for 5 gallons, so if you do this again in the future you could probably get by with one package.

I let the cider sit in secondary for about a month (I was out of town, it's possible it didn't need to sit that long). It had a great flavor and a great color. I highly recommend giving this a try.

 

[liquidavalon]

LiquidAvalon -

I made cherry cider last year.

After cold crashing, I racked to secondary, at that time I added sweetened, dried, tart (Montmorency) cherries that you can get at Costco – it's the Kirkland brand. I used 4 packages for 5 gallons, so if you do this again in the future you could probably get by with one package.

I let the cider sit in secondary for about a month (I was out of town, it's possible it didn't need to sit that long). It had a great flavor and a great color. I highly recommend giving this a try.

Great info. I will have to try that...thanks!

Edit: Would this same process be used to make cherry mead?

 

[Ninkasi70]

I've never made mead, so I can't tell you. Sorry.

It was basically the equivalent of tossing 4 big bags of raisins (that happened to be cherries instead) into secondary, putting the airlock back on, shoving it back into its hidey hole and checking back in a month.

It was actually the best cider I've made to date.

 

[liquidavalon]

It was actually the best cider I've made to date.

Well, it sounds good to me. Thanks again.