Ritchies On The Rocks Mixed Berry

[deano469]

Yesterday i bought a Ritchies On The Rocks Mixed Berry kit to put on over the weekend. After reading a few reviews, I've seen that to avoid it being a bit watery, people have either brewed it short to 20L instead of 23L or have substituted some of the water with various fruit juices (carton ribena, apple juice, Lowicz syrup etc..). I was just wondering which way poeple have got the best results with it. I appreciate you can get very good results with TC (i have and made and consumed a fair bit over the past 6 months) but just fancied trying a kit as a comparison. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[Hulpy]

My advices with adding juices on top is to make sure you the ones you use have any preservatives in them which could effect the yeast. I think you can boil them to make sure but better to check the label and avoid ones with preservatives in the first place.

 

[simmo3801]

I've just bottled mine. I made it as per instructions ie 23L then read here it would be watery and some advise adding Lowicz. I added 2 440 mls bottles of raspberry Lowicz on day 5 and stirred well. The flavour is good now and will definitely be drinkable but it was very watery. Turbo cider next to compare to a kit but if I was making it again I'd definitely try a shorter brew as you said to maybe 20L.

This prob won't help as you were starting your kit over the weekend though...

 

[deano469]

Cheers for the feedback Simmo, i got side tracked at the weekend so never got round to putting it on. I was trying to avoid adding Lowicz syrup if i possible as it adds a lot of sugar and makes the brew a lot stronger, i suppose i could substitute some of the sugar you need to add with syrup though........

 

[simmo3801]

Well a week on and I tried a bottle last night after about an hour in the fridge. There was a small amount of sediment in the bottom of the bottle. When I took the top off it made a satisfying fizzing noise and there was a smoke like vapour in the bottle neck. It was reasonably clear when poured which surprised me after a week at room temperature, albeit in a cold Edinburgh flat. The taste had certainly improved and most surprisingly it felt fuller of body and not quite as watery as when I first racked it. So much so that I put another in the fridge to have half an hour later! I've now moved it to under my bedroom window which is a lot cooler and I'll try to leave it alone for a month to see how it improves. But I'm happy with my first result! Demijohn of basic turbo cider on now to see how that turns out.