I've seen some folks looking for a cherry cider recipe. This one did me well and is pretty simple... the tricky part is finding a nice apple juice to start with.
I used 5 gallons of Martinelli's apple juice (comes in 1 gallon plastic jugs). It was fermented with Nottingham yeast for three weeks at 65-68 degrees in the primary.
Then I racked it on top of Vintners Harvest Cherry Puree and let it sit for two more weeks.
Then I took it off the puree and oaked it with 2oz of Hungarian medium toast oak cubes for two weeks. I soaked the oak cubes in Jameson... for perhaps too long. I really didn't get much oak flavor so you could probably skip this step.
Then I went straight into the keg; no back sweetening.
The color (as you can see below) and body are awesome! There was just the right amount of cherry aroma and flavor. I bet you could do this with a bunch of the purees and come out with some pretty nice ciders. I'd stick with the sweeter purees though.
I used 5 gallons of Martinelli's apple juice (comes in 1 gallon plastic jugs). It was fermented with Nottingham yeast for three weeks at 65-68 degrees in the primary.
Then I racked it on top of Vintners Harvest Cherry Puree and let it sit for two more weeks.
Then I took it off the puree and oaked it with 2oz of Hungarian medium toast oak cubes for two weeks. I soaked the oak cubes in Jameson... for perhaps too long. I really didn't get much oak flavor so you could probably skip this step.
Then I went straight into the keg; no back sweetening.
The color (as you can see below) and body are awesome! There was just the right amount of cherry aroma and flavor. I bet you could do this with a bunch of the purees and come out with some pretty nice ciders. I'd stick with the sweeter purees though.
