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Hey everyone! I'm looking to make a gift for a friend of mine, and he recently mentioned that he was a big fan of a pineapple cider he once had. Does anyone here have a decent recipe for a pineapple cider?
 
This is a bit out of left field, but It is a rainy day here so just for fun I thought I would put my mind to how I might make a pineapple cider from first principles. I must stress that I have never made a pineapple cider, but have done something that might be similar by adding cherries to cider.

I guess the first question is what is pineapple cider. Do you want to make a fermented 100% pineapple juice beverage (and call it pineapple cider?) or an apple cider with added pineapple (also called pineapple cider)?

It is a bit hard to get much information about pineapples, but what I did find is that the juice is somewhat similar to apple juice in that the SG is around 1.050 – 1.060. However, it is a lot more acidic (citric) at TA of around 11. The acidity table that I found had no dimensions but you can probably assume that it means pineapple TA is 11 g/L (or 1.1%). A TA of 11g/L is where most really high TA apples sit.

So, what does this all mean? I guess that you can surmise that pineapple juice will behave a bit like apple juice when fermented.

Because of the high TA, I expect that a fermented pineapple juice would probably start tasting a bit ordinary once the yeast had converted much sugar into CO2 and alcohol making the acidity more noticable. Maybe stopping fermentation at say1.020 would leave 50g/L of sugar ( about 2-3 teaspoons per glass) and wouldn’t taste too bad. It would be a case of “suck it and see”.

Doing a mix of apple cider and pineapple juice might also work since they would both ferment in more or less the same way. Perhaps fully fermenting the apple juice, then adding pineapple juice (or crushed pineapple) to taste, plus a bit for carbonating then bottling, would let the sugar in the juice enhance the pineapple flavour and provide priming sugar for carbonation (i.e. a carbonated slightly pineapply cider).

To do this I guess that you would need to hot water bath or chemical pasteurise to stop fermentation when the flavour is right. I have done this successfully by adding 20% crushed cherries in the secondary vessel. When bottled, I let it ferment for another four gravity points (using the soda bottle “squeeze” technique to know when carbonation is O.K.) then hot water bath pasteurised to stop any further fermentation.

Be aware that with both approaches, either stopping fermentation well above 1.000 where less sugar has been converted to alcohol, or diluting with unfermented pineapple juice would probably result in a mid-alcohol beverage in the order of 4% - 5% ABV. Anyhow, if you have a rainy day, some pineapples or juice, and some apple juice or cider, the above approach might provide some entertainment.

In the meanwhile, others might come up with some more sensible suggestions… Cheers!
 
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Sorry to dominate the replies, but something was rattling around in the back of my head about a pineapple cider post some years ago. I found it by searching "pineapple". See a post by Gene Daniels 1963 on April 29 2019... it might be what you are after.
 
A couple of years ago I made two batches of pineapple wine using the recipe from the EC Kraus website (now homebrewing.org). The result was a decently pineapple-y white wine. I suppose you could tweak this recipe and make a lower alcohol sparkling version. Not quite pineapple cider (as in pineapple infused apple cider), more a low alcohol sparkling pineapple wine!
 
My guess is that pineapples lack tannins and will make a very bland "hard cider". I guess that is why tepache is made with pineapple peel and rind.
 

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