Berry cider halfway done

[kgressler]

Well It Carbed up real nice like.Threw my pet test bottle in the fridge yesterday morning and had a taste last night. Its a bit sweeter then I like. We've been really enjoying Vander Mill ciders lately and compared then two and my cider is definitely sweeter. Tasted great but just a tad too much sweetness.
Went ahead and bottle pasteurized them just to be safe because I have no idea why it stopped fermenting at 1.010.

Let me know what your berry cider finishes at if you could.

 

[phug]

sure thing. I'll take a sample before adding the berries, and let you know the finishing gravity later on.

 

[phug]

my refractometer and correction math is saying that mine is at 1.006. I haven't added berries yet, since I haven't found the blend I want, but I need to get on that. when I crack it out to add the berries, I'll be taking a hydro reading to confirm.

 

[Maverik]

So you guys are just using frozen blackberry's? Also do you add any sugar? Going to get a batch going tonight myself was just wondering what I need to get

 

[phug]

A mix of blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries, from the frozen section, usually comes as one bag. No added sugar. I'm shooting for something north of 200 g per gallon

 

[kgressler]

I didnt add any extra sugar like phug stated just use frozen berries. I used one bag that was 48oz and it left a pretty good flavor and a slight ruby red color.

This is the second time I've made it once with fresh unpasteurized juice which has been my best cier I've made thus far. And then this current batch was with store juice and it is pretty damn good too.

I also enjoy using raspberries a lot.

 

[kgressler]

my refractometer and correction math is saying that mine is at 1.006. I haven't added berries yet, since I haven't found the blend I want, but I need to get on that. when I crack it out to add the berries, I'll be taking a hydro reading to confirm.

Sohow long do you plan on leaving the berries in? This is going in your secondary correct?

 

[phug]

I leave it in about 10 days, maybe 2 weeks. the last times I did it was in secondary, This time I'm going to add it to the bucket in primary after confirming that initial fermentation is complete and FG reached.

The bucket is purely for ease of berry removal at the end. I'm not going to rack to secondary, I'll just let the berries settle on top of the yeast that has already settled out.

 

[Maverik]

Thanks for the info going to add fruit to the primary tmw let you know how it works out

 

[Maylar]

This thread inspired me to split off a gallon of my current batch and try something different. I found a 12 oz package of mixed berries in the grocer's freezer -

My cider had finished primary at 1.000 (3 weeks with S-04) so I stuffed the thawed berries and juice into a 1 gallon secondary. The next morning it appears to be happy -

Going to let this go a couple weeks and bottle it. I wonder how I'm gonna filter out the seeds?

 

[MarkKF]

My experiment with Barrie's used 1118 yeast and it geyserd the second day. I didn't squish them. I put them in the primary and they were still floating when I racked into the secondary. I found the product very dry and s little bitter. Never did it again.

 

[phug]

I just tossed 2 Kilos of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries into my bucket. SG before the berry addition was 1.002 according to two hydrometers. Refractometer math said 1.004 close enough for me.

So that's 400 grams of berries per gallon. I'll come back to it in 10-14 days, and see how that goes. It did eliminate almost all of the remaining headspace in the bucket.

 

[phug]

update for everyone, I'll add the pictures from my phone after.

My latest batch started at 1.045 from filtered apple juice.
I pitched a packet of S-04 onto 19 litres of filtered juice.
15l Allen's low acid canada choice from concentrate w/ vit c
4l Rougemont mellow low acid canada choice from concentrate w/ vit C

pitch date was 09/03/2015
by 10/26/2015 SG was down to about 1.006 based on my adjusted refractometer readings. more importantly it was stable over about a month.
I added 2kg of mixed berries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, purchased frozen (no name brand) and allowed to thaw before adding directly to the bucket. I need to remember to leave more headspace, as this was pretty well right up to the lid of my 5 gallon bucket, and I had to remove some liquid as the renewed fermentation and berries was forcing cider out the blowoff tube. About 350 ml was all I needed to draw off.

fast forward to 11/09/2015. Siphoned to my bottling bucket from under the fruit, onto a thawed can of AJC. The can of AJC should have contained 108G of sugars based on the nutritional information.

apples are roughly 50% fructose, 25% sucrose, and 25% glucose.
1g sucrose is equivalent to 1.15g of dextrose for priming, and fructose seems to be equivalent to about 1.3 times the dextrose. so I'm ballparking it at about 2.68 vols of CO2

here's my math.
1 Sucrose = 1.15 dextrose
1 Sucrose = .5 Fructose + .5 Glucose
1 Dextrose = 1 Glucose

so 1 Fructose = 1.3 Glucose/Dextrose.

so the breakdown of the sugars in the AJC in Dextrose equivalents is
54g fructose = 70g dextrose
27g sucrose = 31g dextrose
27g glucose = 27g dextrose

total priming sugar value 129g of dextrose equivalent. This all hinges on dextrose being equivalent to glucose a a priming sugar per gram. I'm basing this on the fact that Dextrose is also known as D-glucose.

please, food scientists step in.

Here's a shot of the hydro sample which had an FG of 1.003
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447091200.914108.jpg

Here's a shot of what was left of the berries. I may want to mush them next time to get better juice extraction.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447091226.851752.jpg

I'm assuming a 2.5 ppg boost from the berry blend. raspberries being 2ppg an blueberries being 3, and blackberries, I don't know.

so final abv on this is about 5.8%

 

[Maylar]

Mine went well too. After a couple weeks on the berries FG was back to 1.000. I figure I'm in the 7% range.

Racked it off the berries and filtered through some cheesecloth -

Left behind some berries and lees-

Topped off with finished cider from the same batch.

Kind of bummed that the color was diluted by the top off, but it does have some berry flavor. This one will age until next Summer and I'll keg it with apple-berry concentrate for sweetener.

Thanks for the inspiration.

 

[MarkKF]

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

 

[Maylar]

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

I added them to a secondary jug. Cider had already finished at 1.000 and I broke off one gallon for this experiment.

 

[phug]

Do you add the berries at the start or after primary fermentation?

After fermenting the cider

 

[MarkKF]

Interesting. I always added my fruit along with the yeast. The yeast is gonna eat even the sugar in the fruit either way. Unless you cold crash rack & sulfate before adding the fruit.

In Connecticut a commercial cidery can't add the fruit to the primary unless it's also licensed as a winery.

 

[phug]

Adding the fruit after fermentation is finished is more to give you a baseline to know when the fruit has been fermented out and to let you control exactly how much time to leave it in

 

[phug]

Pretty happy with the flavour from this batch. Colour is good too I thinkView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1448578673.005556.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1448578782.171350.jpg

 

[Maylar]

Looks awesome. Any residual sweetness or is it really dry?

I'm going to let mine ride for a few months.

 

[phug]

there's an impression of sweetness and a tartness. i'd say it tastes sweeter than the fg would have you think

 

[Maverik]

Getting ready to rack my berry cider to secondary used 3lbs of frozen berries in primary what s a good next step just rack and let it be or rack onto more berries these are 6 gal carboy

 

[HB_in_Subic]

Looks great! I love the glass too!

 

[phug]

Getting ready to rack my berry cider to secondary used 3lbs of frozen berries in primary what s a good next step just rack and let it be or rack onto more berries these are 6 gal carboy

Give it a taste. If you don't think there's enough berry flavour, I would maybe add some more berries, another lb or two? Then let it sit for a week or so, maybe ten days?

 

[phug]

Looks great! I love the glass too!

Thanks! The glass was a Christmas gift last year from my bro-in-laws.

 

[maxtpower]

Hi phug thanks for inspiration. Here's my berry cider in the secondary View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1456810458.381284.jpg

 

[phug]

that looks great. I think I see some strawberries in there too. let us know how it turns out

 

[Maylar]

I'm glad this thread has been revisited, as my berry cider is scheduled to be kegged in the next week or so. Pics to follow...

 

[maxtpower]

that looks great. I think I see some strawberries in there too. let us know how it turns out

Yep. 4 berry cider - blue black straw and raspberry. Will update the thread. Cheers.