First Post/Description of Weekend brewing. Comments?

[Dietrich]

Hello! I threw together a batch of ... something... this past Saturday. Here is a short description, sent to a friend earlier. I'm curious what folks here think of my use of canned fruit (well, the juice anyway). Skal! ~D.

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When I got home I took my 4 gallon glass jug and cleaned it. Then I took down the six cans of fruit I’ve had in the cupboard for several months. My step-mom buys me interesting and exotic canned fruit when she visits, and I was saving these for something special.

I had two cans of Mango, two cans of Lychee, one can of Jackfruit and one can of Papaya. Each label read “Ingredients: Fruit, Juice, Water, Citric Acid.” Pretty simple stuff I think.

I poured all the juice into the glass jug, then soaked the fruit in water, in a large bowl. The “rinse” from the fruit was also really sweet and I mixed that with some water which I’d boiled ginger root in. It was very gingery! This also went into the glass jug.

Then I added two gallons of apple cider (from the Market that day) and a package of Red Star Champagne yeast. (note to brewers on this forum: Local cider, cloudy-brown, no preservatives)

(today/Monday this is fermenting pretty steadily. It smells great, I've made many meads and ciders before and this seems to be doing what it should be doing.)

Any thoughts on the crazy canned fruit juices?

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

I think that you might end up with a cider mutt. Mutts are always the most loyal though. It's hard to say which fruit might stand out the most. (I don't even know if I've ever tasted jackfruit before)

In the end, you might wish you hadn't wasted 2 gallons of apple juice...or you might spend the rest of your life trying to recreate this recipe...haha

 

[Dietrich]

Yep, a 'mutt' indeed! I wonder if Lychee, Jackfruit and the rest have ever been in the company of apple cider. Not exactly something my European ancestors would have brewed... (I used to try to be more traditional)

I wanted to eat the canned fruit (separately) but I knew that I could do something with that sweet juice! The local apple cider is great, but fairly inexpensive for the amount I purchased, so I won't lose much on this project if it all turns out badly. But based on what I've seen and smelled so far, I think it will be great. Yeah, that's a big assumption but I'm hopeful. I will check back in a few weeks.

 

[Dietrich]

Well, after a week+ of very warm weather, I decided to rack from the primary. The following week I tasted... Next time I believe I will use an ale yeast or...? The champagne yeast certainly worked, but I cannot taste any of the unusual fruits or the ginger, and the apple is much more evident in the nose than in the mouth. Not a bad product, but not the exotic experience I was expecting.