Montmorency Cherry Cider

Just finished fermenting two 5 gallon batches of cider (store bought AJ only), one with S-04 and the other with Nottingham. I picked up a bottle of Tart Montmorency Cherry Juice Concentrate and I'm trying to decide on how much to add. I saw a post on here a few years back where someone cloned B Nektar's Zombie Killer (honey and cherry cider) and added a good bit of concentrate, but it ended up way more tart than they were expecting. I was thinking of adding 12-16oz of concentrate per keg after stabilizing, and maybe one can of AJC to back sweeten and offset the tartness a little.

Does anyone have experience using Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate with their ciders to add some more flavor depth? I saw yooper comment a little while back that the concentrate ends up with a syrupy flavor if fermented with the main juice/must, which is why I figured adding after fermentation and stabilizing would be a better choice.

This is the specific concentrate I have.

 

I use the tart cherry juice concentrate from brownwoodacres.com & only need 1oz per 1gal post-fermentation for great flavor...

Since it's a concentrate probably more potent.

Cheers & Good luck

 

Sounds good, I'll start with 4 or 5 oz per 5gal and see how it tastes. Have you had any issue with the concentrate settling out in the keg? Ending up with uneven flavor among the pours?

 

I'm not kegging yet...everything I make goes back in 1gal containers & I serve right from there. That said, there is some settling & I always shake b4 pouring.

 

Thanks!

 

My fav combo so far is

Tart cherry, cinnamon & ginger ....using fresh cut ginger left over from a sushi order...lol.

Cheers & good luck!

 

A better method would be to perform a blending trial. You'll have to get something to measure ml. Start with 3 pint glasses of cider. Add 2, 4 and 6 ml of the concentrate to each sample and see what you like. 4ML to the pint is close to 1 oz/gallon. Don't be in a hurry and maybe get someone else to taste it.
Adding the cherry juice concentrate may make the beverage too tart and then you'll want add something to bring the sweetness back up.
Or you can just dump it in your keg, but if you use too much concentrate, you can't take it out.

 

Yeah this is what I'll do, I have several droppers that measure in mls. Thanks for the input!