Mixed Berries Cider from scratch?

[Osprey_Pete]

Hi folks,

I really want to make a nice mixed berry cider, similar to a Kopperberg, and I've heard that the best option is to use the fruits themselves. Can somebody point me in the right direction of how to do this please?

Much Obliged :thumb:

 

[ScottM]

Best option is to buy a mixed berry cider kit and brew it

 

[GeorgeSalt]

Hmm.. perhaps a turbo cider with a blend of Lowicz blackcurrant, raspberry and strawberry syrups? - maybe 100ml of each syrup, tannin, acid and make up to a gallon with apple juice.

Or if you start with the fruit, make your own syrup and add that to a TC brew. Gently heat the mixed fruit in a pan with the absolute minimum of water. For fresh soft fruit, just use the water that remains after you wash and drain it, for frozen fruit just the liquid that thaws out of it. Once the fruit goes to a mush, strain it through a muslin overnight. Add 750-1000 g sugar per litre of juice and put it back on the stove and heat until the sugar dissolves (start with less sugar than you think you will need, taste and adjust). You now have a syrup you can use for brews or bottle for use as a squash, ice cream topping or mix with yoghurt.

 

[Gayle]

A kit will probably make the closest thing to a Koppaberg, since it has artifical flavourings and sweetners in it. I made a pear cider kit which tasted very much like the Koppaberg version.

If you choose to use the fruits, you could brew your cider first. Wash, dry, and freeze the fruit (this breaks down the cell walls to allow for better flavour extraction, or buy a couple of bags of frozen fruit), then thaw before adding to your secondary FV. You might want to add a campden or something the day before, but I didn't bother, the alcohol in the cider should have killed anything still hanging around in the fruit. Rack the cider onto the fruit and leave for a couple of weeks or until the hydrometer readings are stable. Rack off the fruit and continue as normal.

I also tried a raspberry and lime cider using the Polish raspberry fruit syrup, and a lime squeezed in, and some lime peel. It has turned out quite nice, but would need a bit of sweetening to make it taste more like the commercial version. I like it dry though, now I find Koppaberg far too sweet :sick:

If you use fruit, you'll probably need to add some pectolase too.