Hey everyone,
Have a 4.5 gallon batch of cider that turned out great (put in secondary about a month ago). A friend gave me a ton of dried elderberries, and I want to give her a six-pack of cider with elderberry flavor added as a gift (and to experiment for myself). Ideas on how to do this?
I'm thinking I could just boil the dried elderberries in a pot to make a strong tea and add it to the batch, yes?
I don't usually backsweeten my ciders, and I'm sure these elderberries have some sugar. No idea how much, but I can use the hydrometer for that, right? How do I do the math to figure out whether the amount of sugar would put me in bottle bomb territory?
Or should I pasteurize the cider before bottling so that the yeast is dead? I could also do the stovetop pasteurization method on the bottles if I added the elderberry tea right before I capped, right?
Thanks for the help.
Have a 4.5 gallon batch of cider that turned out great (put in secondary about a month ago). A friend gave me a ton of dried elderberries, and I want to give her a six-pack of cider with elderberry flavor added as a gift (and to experiment for myself). Ideas on how to do this?
I'm thinking I could just boil the dried elderberries in a pot to make a strong tea and add it to the batch, yes?
I don't usually backsweeten my ciders, and I'm sure these elderberries have some sugar. No idea how much, but I can use the hydrometer for that, right? How do I do the math to figure out whether the amount of sugar would put me in bottle bomb territory?
Or should I pasteurize the cider before bottling so that the yeast is dead? I could also do the stovetop pasteurization method on the bottles if I added the elderberry tea right before I capped, right?
Thanks for the help.
