additional flavors in cider

[artyb]

i have a ''few'' gallons of cider,
some is sharp/dry......which is not bad as we do like some sharp tasting drinks,

what i would like to also have some different fruit flavoured ciders,

does anyone have a flavour they could recommend.... :hmm:

 

[Wraeccan]

Tesco do a pear drop, sugar free squash. About an inch to the bottle makes a fair kopperburg clone. Or add a drop of caramel syrup when serving (from the coffee isle) for a Brothers Tofee Apple Cider clone. Or experiment with good quality squashes (elderflower, apple etc) :thumb:

 

[shocker]

A mulled cider spice mix would be nice.....you wouldnt have to drink it hot either .Just heat up a lire or so and ad the spices ,let it infuse ,cool and return to the bulk .Then you could have a spiced drink cold or warm up with a hot poker (get medieval on its ass) or zap in the microwave . Regular cheap from-concentrate apple juice is a nice addition to an over sharp ,or dry cider .Or added just for varieties sake .

I make an apple based brew and include crushed root ginger ,whole cloves and cinnamon in the FV - I imagine that lot would be a nice after addition too ,left to infuse in the bottle . And how about some real vanilla essence ? That and the toffee apple idea set my mouth watering :

 

[shocker]

....or howabout using it as a base for a liqueur type drink with some of the many flavourings available ,like this...

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... napps.html

I know it will be way weaker than a shop bought....or maybe not ,I dont know your cider !.....but you could always boost it cheap vodka if you felt the need.....

 

[Fergmeister]

I experimented with a few bottles of my batch of tc, adding almond extract, vanila extract and cloves and cinnamon. I never read the ingredients, and the extracts were oil based and so they don't taste any different and look like you have just added a spoonful of veggie oil on top. Yum. The cinnamon and clove has been maturing for almost 2 months now so I aren't far off having a taste and I will let you know how it turned out (although I think I may have added too much flavourings).

 

[shocker]

Have to use alcohol based ones then ! Or chuck some washing up liquid in to break up the oil and add some bubbles..... :grin: :whistle:

good point though , hadnt thought of that ! Try the liqueur flavourings then ,butterscotch sounds nice and at about 3 quid not a disaster if its not .

 

[Fergmeister]

you can remove most of it with a spoon, but you still get the greasiness
it was a really last minute thing, using what I had in I thought I would experiment. I have since learnt that some extracts use oil in them, whereas some don't lol. Those spirit flavourings look good, but expensive. I think makro sell a wide variety of the coffee syrups (about 5 quid for a litre), the only problem being that they almost certainly contain sugar, so it would have to be added as you're about to drink it, or in lieu of priming sugar (which could affect the flavour).

 

[artyb]

great stuff guys.... :party:

i will have a go at some of those, i was thinking along the lines of cordials etc

 

[ingypingy2]

Might be worth trying some of these type of things :) I got some to put in a kilju - got a deal on ebay - 3 for £6ish (kilju spectacularly failed so got turned into tea wines - so haven't used them yet) but it was the best deal I found anywhere :)

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... Range.html

These are not the ones I bought, but are similar :)

 

[Duncs]

I think makro sell a wide variety of the coffee syrups (about 5 quid for a litre), the only problem being that they almost certainly contain sugar, so it would have to be added as you're about to drink it, or in lieu of priming sugar (which could affect the flavour).

I've tried adding the coffee syrups for priming, I've used Strawberry, Cherry, Orange and Vanilla, all I can say is :sick: :sick: :sick: :sick: they didn't turn out as you'd expect. I also had a sugar free cherry syrup that I thought I'd use for flavouring, also not good.

Black cherry concentrate from Holland & Barrett is very nice, either added as you drink it or added as a primer.

 

[braesider]

Used 3 twinings Apple and Blueberry fruit tea bags in 1 gallon of tc, this gave some extra apple flavour back to the tc and a nice subtle hit of blueberry which produced a lovley cider, will use these in future for flavouring cider as they work really well without adding extra alcohol strength to the cider, which is good news for us diabetics.

 

[Hop-on]

I didnt realise you could use teabags to help add flavor to brewing cider. does it work?

 

[oldbloke]

A cup of strong tea is a good way to get tannin into a turbocider - it's a bit lacking in cheapo juice. I tend to use Earl Grey for a slight extra flavour note.

I've tried dumping a chunk of vanilla pod into a demi of TC, not enough or it doesn't survive fermentation, you could tell something was there but that's abotu it.
I've got one conditoning now which had 4 cloves in the demi, sneak taste off bottling syphon very promising.

In the run-up to Christmas, Morrison's had a cider mulling kit. I thought it ended up tasting mostly of mull and hardly at all of cider.

Saw a blueberry cider in Lidl today - bright blue. Had to get one to try. Just odd, frankly.

 

[Hop-on]

Ive tried the blueberry cider as well, thought it tasted more like a alcho-pop. really wasnt great!

 

[starspud1]

Used 3 twinings Apple and Blueberry fruit tea bags in 1 gallon of tc, this gave some extra apple flavour back to the tc and a nice subtle hit of blueberry which produced a lovley cider, will use these in future for flavouring cider as they work really well without adding extra alcohol strength to the cider, which is good news for us diabetics.

Can i ask if you boiled the teabags before adding to the fermentation bucket, or do you just chuck em in?

 

[Welshwitch]

We boiled up some strawberry ribena for 30mins then poured it in the fresh pressed apple juice then stirred it up and put in the yeast. It was really nice.


We currently have a ginger batch just bottled but not tried yet and also one with oak chippings soon to be racked.

 

[starspud1]

We boiled up some strawberry ribena for 30mins then poured it in the fresh pressed apple juice then stirred it up and put in the yeast. It was really nice.


We currently have a ginger batch just bottled but not tried yet and also one with oak chippings soon to be racked.

Did you still get enough of the taste after the fermentation had completed? I seem to find that that yeast eats tastes as well as sugar!

 

[Welshwitch]

We put in two litres of strawberry ribena to 25 litres of fresh pressed apple juice (we have our own apple trees and home made press) and we had a definite strawberry flavour which made a nice change. For that batch we used YLP 775 yeast.

Some of our ciders have come out at 8% and a little lemonade top makes a nice cider drink for us ladies. who prefer it just a little sweeter.

 

[braesider]

Used 3 twinings Apple and Blueberry fruit tea bags in 1 gallon of tc, this gave some extra apple flavour back to the tc and a nice subtle hit of blueberry which produced a lovley cider, will use these in future for flavouring cider as they work really well without adding extra alcohol strength to the cider, which is good news for us diabetics.

Can i ask if you boiled the teabags before adding to the fermentation bucket, or do you just chuck em in?

Simmered tbags for 10 mins let cool slightly carefully squeezed them then poured in demi

 

[31bb3]

I added some apple and blackcurrant cordial to my last tc then force carbed it was really nice only thing was pink cider lol