My son wants to make cider

[iamwhatiseem]

My son has a blackberry bush that produces tons of blackberries. They are a pretty tart variety.
He has an idea of making a peach-based cider with blackberries added.
I am a loooong time homebrewer, however I have never made cider. I have read through several threads here, and I get too much conflicting statement (not meant as a negative statement really, everyone swears by different methods just like beer making)
So this makes it pretty hard to figure out the basics.
In making beer, I, as well as most of you, can pretty easily write out the basic steps in making beer.
I would very much appreciate that. Just the basics of Step 1 - Step 2 kind if thing. (Or point me to a thread that has this, not seeming to find one?)
I would seem to prefer to freeze the fruit to get juice, rather than cooking. But that is a pretty hard habit to break!

Thank you!

 

[fluketamer]

peached based cider is not really cider more of a fruit wine.
do you mean apple cider with added fruit ( peach and or black berries)

IMO adding too many fruits can complicate a cider. i would stick with apple cider with peach added
or blackberry cider ( apple cider with blackberries added.)

in that case a really easy one is to take grahams cider. then ferment it dry and add blackberry juice (or peach nectar) to taste and color. (and sugar for sweetness).
will you be kegging or bottling your cider ?. i am still trying to work out bottle carbonated semi sweet cider without using artificial sweeteners.


blackberrys can be a little difficult cause they are so tart as you mentioned and it can be challenging to make a very tasty must without it being too puckering. as with pomegranite and cranberry.



another better option IMO is blackberry wine . you could make it light like 8 percent so it would be close to a cider.

i would try red or white grape juice with the juce of many pounds of black berrys.

i bet that would ferment out great.

good luck and please let us know what you guys decide.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

This looks interesting...
https://www.allgrains.net/2012/11/the-small-ciderhouse-blackberry-cider.html

 

[madscientist451]

Both peaches and blackberries don’t make a very good beverage if you ferment them, because the sugar in them balances the acidity. If you ferment out the sugar, the resulting flavors are not in balance. My 2 cents: experiment with making tinctures with the fruit and vodka to draw out the flavor. Then make a cider with apple juice from the supermarket, it will come out somewhat bland. When it’s done perform some bench trials adding small amounts of your tinctures to measured amounts of the cider and dial in the flavor you are looking for.

 

[lumpher]

I just made a cider with fresh blackberries from my back yard. Started drinking it a few days ago. I wouldn't combine peach with it. If you want to come up with a very tasty blackberry apple cider I can help your boy with that.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

I used to do a lot of beer/wine/cider with my blackberry and raspberry bushes. Here are my thoughts...

1. Fill carboy with 4 - 4.5 gallons apple juice (Kirkland is great!)
2. Add sugar to reach desired OG
3. Top up 1 lb of crushed blackberries
5. Pitch cider yeast and let cook for a couple weeks
5. Bottle or keg after two weeks or until FG is reached
6. Backsweeten with non-fermentable sugar (Truvia is my favorite)
7. Enjoy after carbonated (if carbing cider is your thing)
8. Wonder why I skipped 4 and did 5 twice

 

[Chalkyt]

Yep, all of the above is correct... Yooper's post above on Cider for Beginners is a good place to start. The simple1-2-3 steps are:

1. Get your juice and add yeast (S04 is a good well-behaved yeast to start with but as Yooper points out it can stop at SG1.004 which leaves a touch of sweetness a bit like 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee. This is because it is highly nutrient dependent and may run out of nutrients in the juice and simply stop fermenting, but this doesn't always happen because different apples have different YAN (Yeat Assimilable Nitrogen, or "nutrient") levels. Also consider sanitising the juice with sodium metabisulphite (often sold a campden tablets) to kill off any unwanted wild yeasts and pathogens. These comments apply to apple juice but at least theoretically would be valid for other fruit juice.

2. Ferment in a closed container with an airlock to let the generated C02 escape but stop O2 getting in to oxidise the cider. If it completely ferments, you will probably end up with 6.5%ABV and a very dry, tart cider as all of the sugar will be gone.

3. Add the blackberries to the apple cider (if you are taking this approach) when the turbulent fermentation has settled but beware that any sugar in them will also be consumed. The end result can be a very dry-tart cider without much blackberry taste.

So, if a bit of sweetness is wanted, one option is to add a non-fermentable sweetener (xylitol, stevia, etc). Adding sugar will just give the yeast more food so it will all be eaten up. Another option is to heat or chemical pasteurise when the taste is right (Pappers' post at the top of the forum is a good guide to heat pasteurising, and simply heating the bottles in a tub of hot water at 65C for 10-20 minutes will achieve the same result).

If you aren't making a still cider, bottling to retain some carbonation is a whole different world so some more research on your part will be needed if you aren't kegging.

Sadly, my experience with adding blackberries is blagh!!! (it seemed like a good idea at the time) if it is fully fermented so that no sweetness remains.

Good luck and have fun.

P.S. looks like I overlapped with the previous post while I was writing this one

 

[jnesselrode]

Sounds more like fruit wine is in order, and that's kind of a different path. Certainly worth exploring and there are a lot of resources for that. Good luck.

 

[JAReeves]

Just reiterating what a lot of people already said here.

Apple juice without sulfites or preservatives is a good base.

If you are shooting for a specific volume like 5G, throw in your fruit, then juice to top off. Add pectic enzyme and metabisulfite for 24 hours before you pitch yeast.
Check your gravity. Assume it is going to end close to 0.000, so you can estimate how much sugar to add if that alcohol percentage is too low for you.
If adding sugar, make sure you are mixing it with water, boiling it to kill unfriendlies, and then adding the cooled solution to the juice.
Pitch the yeast and keep at the appropriate temp, however that works for you.

If you want to go wild, the metabisulfite can be eliminated.

I hope this helps.

Peace,

Reevesie

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Bottled yesterday.
The result, as many of you noted, was not cider. But a "fruity wine".
After the initial fermentation, waited another 2 weeks and then took about 8 cups of blackberries that we picked and froze.
Put them in a pot with about 3/4 cup sugar and mashed and brought the temp to about 180.
Then strained it down to just liquid. It made I would say about 4 cups of juice.
Put it in the carboy. The yeast fired back up and it built a 2nd krausen.
Waited another 4 weeks.
I am not a wine drinker, my wife drinks it as does my son and his wife.
They all thought it was pretty good "fruity wine"
I used S04, which produced a moderate/long fermentation that finished at 5.4% ABV
The lowest alc wine I have ever heard of.

They like it. It isn't not going to be my thing, just don't like wine.
I plan on putting the bottles up till December and see what eventually taste like.