Using jelly/jam as a base for cider

[alphakry]

I have a local friend that makes a very tasty jam out of guava. It's incredibly thick and sweet and got me thinking... can I use this as a base for a fruit cider?

My thought was to take 1 jar of jam (probably about 500ml, a standard mustard jar refilled) and boil it into about 4 gallons of water. So far this experiment is based on guess work, so I'm not sure how to properly determine how much water would be sufficient nor if I should look into adding anything else into the mix. I thought to split it into 1 gallon batches with slight modifications to each such as added sugars, more jam, and different yeasts.

I'll speak to her to try to get an idea of her recipe to know what she adds and how much. In the mean time, if anyone has suggestions on how to make something like this work, I'm quite excited to try! Thank you!

 

[madscientist451]

Fermented Guava Jelly isn't going to taste anything like the original fruit.
Too much added sugar will provide a "rocket fuel" alcohol note that some will notice more than others.
You can get guava paste in the grocery store, but 500ml of Guava jelly in 4 gallons of water isn't going to provide very much alcohol.
There are some commercial beers that use Guava as an ingredient, they are probably using commercially prepared puree or adding flavor extract at packaging.
Here's a Guava "cider" recipe that uses 5kg of Guava and 10 1/2 cups of water.
The Guava is juiced, and it doesn't say what the yield is:

http://www.pepper.ph/brew-guava-cider-fermented-right-home/

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

1 jar in 1 gal might work, but even then I don't think you will have enough residual quava taste. A better route would be to make a gal of regular cider, then do a secondary by racking the cider over the top of the guava jam. That should give you a pretty fair amount of guava taste in the finished product.