Cider

FXRS

After a gap of about a year or more I have decided to get back to brewing. I have a red wine fermenting right now and looking forward to getting it completed.

I am now looking at a cider, maybe Magnum Apple Cider. In an effort to enhance the flavour I would like to add apple juice rather than sugars. I understand this is an alternative way of doing a cider?

If this is possible how much apple juice do I add? For example, if the sugar requirement is 1.3kg and the apple juice has, say, 28 g per liter, thats in excess of 45 liters of apple juice! Is that right?

Grateful for some guidance on this and any other suggestions regarding which kit to use.

All the best

HBO_Staff

Welcome back, adding some additional flavour to a brew such as cider is not uncommon and can be done by adding juice or cordial. If adding fruit juice it is hard to say what amount to use, you would probably need to use a hydrometer and check the original gravity reading to establish how much sugar is in the liquid before it ferments so you had an idea of how strong the finished brew would be. If using apple juice it is best to use one without stabilisers in if possible so it ferments properly. One thing people sometimes do is to add a concentrated cordial as this adds flavour but not necessarily any or much sugar, also different flavours can be used if wanting to make it fruit flavoured.

If you do decide to add apple juice instead of water then it would be advisable to take the original and final gravity readings so you know what strength you end up with, you could use some apple juice instead of water but may need to add some sugar too, a hydrometer reading will tell you the initial reading so you can alter it before fermenting if needed.

The Magnum are popular as are On The Rocks and John Bull, these all need sugar adding. Alternatively there are the premium kits which need no sugar adding such as the new Bulldog range, these have more ingredients included to give them more flavour instead of needing to add sugar to ferment

Tech

FXRS said:

After a gap of about a year or more I have decided to get back to brewing. I have a red wine fermenting right now and looking forward to getting it completed.

I am now looking at a cider, maybe Magnum Apple Cider. In an effort to enhance the flavour I would like to add apple juice rather than sugars. I understand this is an alternative way of doing a cider?

If this is possible how much apple juice do I add? For example, if the sugar requirement is 1.3kg and the apple juice has, say, 28 g per liter, thats in excess of 45 liters of apple juice! Is that right?

Grateful for some guidance on this and any other suggestions regarding which kit to use.

All the best

Have you ever make a cider based on rise?