Adding Secondary fruits

[Canadianjen]

Hey everyone! I’ve been playing around for about a year now with adding second fruits to my cider (ie Raspberry juice and other juices, concentrates and fresh berries etc). I normally ferment my apples in primary as normal and add juice or fruit once I’ve moved it off the sediment into secondary. I have always done this out of habit and from reading a book on cider.

So my question: do you all normally add your other fruits or juices at the beginning with your apples to ferment? Or do you add it in secondary like me? Anyone done both and found a big taste difference?

I am happy with my results so just curious!

 

[Chalkyt]

Pretty much the same as you. Transfer to secondary at around 1.020 then add fruit. I mostly do cherries... frozen in summer because that is when they are ripe then added to secondary in Fall because that is when the apples are ripe and I make cider, at roughly 15% (i.e 650g of cherries to 4-1/2 litres of cider).

The quantities are what they are because a 5 litre ferment yields about 4.5 litres of cider into secondary and I simply top up with cherries to minimise head space in the secondary carboy... nothing clever than that, but it works.

 

[Canadianjen]

Pretty much the same as you. Transfer to secondary at around 1.020 then add fruit. I mostly do cherries... frozen in summer because that is when they are ripe then added to secondary in Fall because that is when the apples are ripe and I make cider, at roughly 15% (i.e 650g of cherries to 4-1/2 litres of cider).

The quantities are what they are because a 5 litre ferment yields about 4.5 litres of cider into secondary and I simply top up with cherries to minimise head space in the secondary carboy... nothing clever than that, but it works.

Nice! Cherry cider sounds amazing. Do you mash the fruit and mesh bag it or juice them?

 

[CKuhns]

Fruit in secondary - Freeze them then place in a sanitized mesh bag and pull after 10 - 14 days. (Or when you hit the flavor you like,)

 

[Chalkyt]

The cherries sort of self mash by being frozen. I do squish them a bit, but putting in a mesh bag would help although trying to get it through the neck of my secondary carboy might be a bit of a mission. Typically, by the time secondary fermentation has finished I just siphon to a bottling bucket leaving the cherries and other trub in the bottom of the carboy. BTW I put it in a clear bottle because the colour is so good!