Mangrove Jacks Mixed Berry

Robsparky99 · Nov 10, 2017

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Last brew for Christmas, at the request of the missus!

Basically followed the instructions to the letter brew wise, but added 2 litres of fresh forest fruits juice and only 500g dextrose to reduce the abv slightly.

Pitched at 21.3C and for the first time IÃ¢â¬â¢m fermenting in the House (brew fridge still have a lager in it) at 21Cish....

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user 18729 · Nov 11, 2017

Looks great didn't realise mangrove Jacks are doing cider kits now! Let us know how it turns out

Robsparky99 · Nov 20, 2017

Ok so after 10 days, the primary is finished (fg=999) roughly works out at 5.25% to 5.50% abv dependant on priming sugar. Added the cider essence flavouring and chilled right down to compact the trub. Hopefully bottle in 2 days

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Robsparky99 · Nov 23, 2017

Bottled this little beauty last night and everything looked great. Chilled it for 2 days and the trub was nice and compacted. Did a range of priming from a few grains of sugar to 2 carb drops. I tasted it and was pretty impressed as it was fruity and sweet.

Robsparky99 · Dec 7, 2017

Cracked my first bottle last night (still quite young I know) and it was a success. Fairly 'pungent' smell of rough cider, but the actual cider itself was very tasty and fruity. I used about 3/4 (I think about 4g) of the sachet of sweetener it gave me and that has produced a medium sweet cider, personally I think it's just right (far less sweet than say a kopperberg etc.). The flavour was full and not thin like the other cider can kit I did (although I still liked that), I'm guessing the extra syrup (2.4 instead of 1.8kg) has made the difference.

I did a little experiment of varying the amount of sugar in each bottle to change the carbonation (have family members who prefer flat cider) and the flat one was spot on. I'm impressed how clear it was and how well the yeast compacted at the bottom of the bottle. Overall I think the kit is probably the best kit I've brewed so far! Good quality ingredients, instructions which were spot on and a reasonable price.