Using store bought juice blends

[natureboy68]

Not sure why I haven't seen this addressed, but how would a cider turn out using juice blends? i.e. apple/cranberry, apple/raspberry, apple/pomegranate, etc...simple ingredients, just the juice and some cane/brown/organic sugar and/or honey/maple syrup to up the OG...yeast suggestions? I would guess an ale yeast wouldn't work, perhaps D47? Champagne yeast? Just noodling around some ideas...

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Sure, more than a few have tried this. Cranapple/crangrape, blueberry/pomegranite, peach/passionfruit, etc...
I remember one guy even tried fermenting tropical punch.
It's all here somewhere, I'm sure a search will turn up something pretty quick.
Regards, GF.

 

[501irishred]

Just be careful that your getting real juice. A lot of the blends are primarily sugar water with a little flavoring. A good combo for some jailhouse hooch.

 

[hunter_le five]

Juice blends are fine, but make sure you are using 100% juice, not sugar water with artificial flavorings and 15% juice or whatever.

Make sure there are no preservatives. Should be water and juice only, although if it also contains abscorbic acid (vitamin c) that is fine. Juice from concentrate is fine.

Bottom line, read the ingredients listed on the packaging label.

Also, Ale yeasts absolutely will work. I've had good luck with neutral ale yeasts like Nottingham, and with hefe ale yeasts like WY3068.

 

[yarghble]

I've done a handful of batches with random juice blends that happened to be on sale(or just looked interesting), or with random juice concentrates. As the others said, just make sure they're not loaded with preservatives(the refrigerated stuff is often a safe bet), and you should be good to go.

I generally do 3-4 gallons of apple juice, 1-1.5 gallons of whatever other juice, 2 cups of cane sugar(if any, I aim for 1.05-1.06og with these), and safale-04 or safbrew-06. That makes a simple 5-7.5% cider with some not-overwhelming fruit flavors.