A noob attempt at Cranberry Cider

Hey everyone,

Friday afternoon I put together a batch of what I hope will become Cranberry Cider.

Ingredients:
4 lbs Fresh Cranberries
2 lbs Dextrose
4 gallons Cranberry Juice
1 gallon CranRaspberry
5 gram packet of Lavlin K1V-1116

Recipe:
I didn't have any campden tablets for the berries, so I took one gallon of the Cranberry Juice along with the 4lbs of berries and brought it just to a boil in a clean stockpot. Then I gave the mix an ice-bath to bring the temp down.

While the berries were heating, I mixed the 2lbs of Dextrose into several of the Juice bottles and shook them thoroughly to mix and aerate.

Finally, I funneled it all into a sanitized 6 gallon carboy and pitched the yeast.

Comments:

I chose a wine yeast because I want this to be pretty dry when finished.

It took about 24 hours until I noticed airlock activity, and it's been steadily bubbling since then. At about 30 hours I started to notice some foaming on the top of the berries.

I'm sure that someone will chime in to tell me how I broke several of the commandments of cider...but I'm tossing this out there to chronicle this little project. I'll update it as it goes along and let you know what becomes of it.

Pic at about hour 36, just before I changed to a blow-off tube:

that is gonna be very very tart... but it alost might be quite tasty... nice recipe

Cheers

Going to be EXTREMELY tart, but definitely should be tasty. Wine recipes I posted this past week for cranberry were 3 lbs of cranberries or 1/2 gallon of juice for 1 gallon of wine. Was this 100% cranberry juice, or "cranberry" juice that's mostly grape/apple juice with some cranberry for flavoring, aka ocean spray cranberry or similar.

etp777 said:

Was this 100% cranberry juice, or "cranberry" juice that's mostly grape/apple juice with some cranberry for flavoring, aka ocean spray cranberry or similar.

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It was definitely a juice mix. Locally, that was all that I could find.

angrysparrow said:

It was definitely a juice mix. Locally, that was all that I could find.

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thats fine its not gonna hurt anything... infact it will help balance things out and ferment more evenly... Cranberry juice doesnt keep well on the shelf because of its high acid content it doesnt support chemical preservatives and the acid in cranberries is Vitimin B and isnt as good as a preservative as Vitimin C... So they add alot of other juices to make it last longer and more palateable... Did you cut with any water or anything??? if you didnt then holy crap... I would love to do a bottle swap when this comes ready just to see how it taste.

Cheers

BrewinJack said:

Did you cut with any water or anything??? if you didnt then holy crap... I would love to do a bottle swap when this comes ready just to see how it taste.

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Nope, the recipe stated is all that I used. I'll be happy to send you a bottle when it's ready.

I've had a batch like this going for a couple months (started 11.04.08). Mine was 2 lbs of frozen cranberries, 5 gallons of cranberry juice, 2 lbs dextrose, and Red Star Montrachet yeast.

It's been pretty slow going. I sampled it the other night and it was down to about 1.012. It was mouth puckering but delicious. I'm going to let it sit for another month or so and then bottle it and age it for a while. I'm probably going to carb it, but I haven't decided for sure. Maybe mine is just slow, but in any case be prepared for a long wait.

mine was real tart also. I had 1 quart of pure cranberry in 3 gallons of cider.....I had to add some sugar and raspberry to sweeten it up. It really came out nice. Good Luck

Update - still going nicely. The foam pushed quite a few small pieces of cranberry up through the blowoff tube, but it has since calmed down.

I like the color:

That is a beautiful color. The Kolsch I made came out with a nice purple hue, when I saw the white foam I started to think maybe there was some kind of funk in there. Its good to see that its standard with fruit. Sadly this forum contains my only brewing friends So I dont get to see other peoples brews in person. They only other friend I have that brews works at the LHBS and He only likes me because I live 45 minutes away and I have to go in there and blow some good cash because it would be pointless to drive that far and not. whats going on in the syrup Jug? Looks dangerous:rockin:

Where do you live? in a cabin?

RGH said:

whats going on in the syrup Jug? Looks dangerous:rockin:

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That's a batch of JAOM that I just started.

RGH said:

Where do you live? in a cabin?

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Something like that.

Angrysparrow, any notes on how that cranberry cider turned out?

I would be interested as well. I have done one cranberry (very small batch) that turned out wonderfully. Used a mix of apple and cranberry juice with a cinnamon stick. Let it carb up good and it was delectable. Not very tart, but again it was a mix, not pure juice.

If you find it has a hard time clearing that may be because you probably set some pectins boiling the juice and cranberries. You can rack and add 1 teaspoon of pectic enzyme per gallon and in 2-3 weeks it will be crystal clear. this also helps you filter out the cranberry bits before you bottle.

I thought it came out great. Light tart flavor. Slightly fizzy. So good!

@angrysparrow I'm thinking of also doing something similar - how did it turn out, you never updated this