Peppered Strawberry Cider

[thehesitantchef]

Hey,

I've been mauling this idea over in my head the last little while. One of my favourite summer snacks is peppered strawberries so I think it would be nice to try and recreate it in cider form. I have two questions.

1. How much Black Pepper do you think I would need to put into secondary? From the research I've done most people say to use 2-15g of it in beer recipes. Cider is different so I was thinking that maybe 1g might be enough?

2. I was thinking of using 1 kg of frozen strawberries in secondary. Does anyone know if that would be enough to get a pronounced flavour? Should I use more? Less?

Thanks!

 

[TandemTails]

This isn't an exact match to what you're planning but I have a mango + peppercorn mead in secondary right now that I think is going to be great.

It was a 2 gallon batch with 2 lbs of frozen mangoes and 3/4 TBSP of roughly crushed black pepper. I added both the mangoes and the black pepper to primary, then at secondary I split the mead into two 1 gallon carboys added 1 pound of frozen mangoes to one of them and left the other alone.

I think this amount of black pepper was pretty good and compliments the mangoes well. I feel like strawberry is a more mild flavor so you might want to try a little less pepper so it's not too overwhelming?

The mead was in primary for 3 weeks. The pepper definitely seemed too strong at first but as primary went on, the mango flavor developed more and paired well with the pepper.

 

[buMbLeB]

I've been mauling this idea over in my head the last little while.

I'm honestly not being a jerk, I just think this is the greatest construction, intentional or not, and I'm stealing it.

 

[thehesitantchef]

I'm honestly not being a jerk, I just think this is the greatest construction, intentional or not, and I'm stealing it.

Haha totally a typo. You are welcome. It's much more aggressive!

 

[thehesitantchef]

Ok, thanks. I will take that into consideration. I'll be making this in the next couple week and let you know how it goes.

 

[bembel]

Try using pink peppercorns

 

[vegas20s]

This sounds interesting...

I think you are on the right track. In my experience flavors go a lot farther in a cider since the flavor of ciders are not as strong as beers.
I would speculate that the pepper flavors would come straight through the process, unlike some spices that seem to change when fermented. People said pink and green pepper corns have more subtle flavors. For me I think if I was going to make this I would want to make sure I got some good pepper flavor without over doing it. I think I would go with around .5 TBSP (about 3 g) of black pepper corns for a five gallon batch.

The thing I would wonder about the strawberries is what tastes will be left after the sugar in them is consumed/converted. Berries tend to leave a tart flavor after they ferment out. So, personally I would want to make this would be more on the sweet side. For me that would mean back sweetening with lactose (this is due to my methods/equipment/preferences/limitations). Whatever your sweetening preferences might be you should probably be thinking about it for this recipe.

Just my thoughts. Please let us know how this turns out and what you end up doing.

 

[thehesitantchef]

Ok, thanks! That's a great help! I'll take your suggestion and will see how it goes.

I was thinking that I would put the strawberries in secondary for maybe a week? Should I consider going longer?

I'll be starting this in the next week or so, as soon as I find apple juice on sale. haha

I'll let you know how it turns out for sure.

 

[bembel]

With cider I find you can control the final result with much greater accuracy if you add the adjunct spices at the very end before legging or bottling. So first make your cider straight, no additions. then when it's finished add the berries in a fine mesh hop bag and rack onto them. ( less mess) 2 lbs frozen will give a lot of flavor and sugar, so be prepared for additional fermentation. If you want a sweeter cider, stabilize the base cider before you rack to the secondary with sorbate and sulfite for a few days AFTER YOU RACK IT, then add the berries. They will add all their color and flavor within a week. Now make a tea out of the crushed peppercorns, 2 grams in 50ml of boiling water, and get out a bunch of small sample glasses and fill them all with 100ml of your cider, and then add various amounts of the peppercorn tea to each sample, for 100ml cider adding .5-1ml of tea will be a good start. Decide what level of spice you like and then do a little 8th grade math (had they told me in school that I would be using algebra in my 40s to make cider, I would've done more homework) and calculate how much tea you'll need to add to the whole batch. Scale up your tea recipe accordingly and add to the whole batch and your done. Generally, I get best results at about a 1 to 100 ratio for pink pepper, black pepper is stronger, a 5 gallon batch has just under 19,000 ml of cider, so 190 ml of tea which is about 6.5 oz. looking back at the original tea amount you'll need perhaps 8 grams of peppercorns. A $10 digital scale is a worth while investment. Get one that has a 1-100 g range with an accuracy of .1g and you will be all set

 

[thehesitantchef]

Alright, here's the finished product with pictures and everything!
http://www.thehesitantchef.com/cider/peppered-strawberry-cider

 

[bmd2k1]

Curious if your iterations of this have progressed to a point where you're 100% happy with the final cider?

 

[johnnyseko]

This sounds good. Going to have to put this recipe into the mix and make a gallon batch soon.