Turbo Cider Flavoured With Strawberry Jelly

[Robbo]

First of all this was an experiment and it didn't turn out to what I was expecting, but managed to recover the brew.

This is what I did.

I heated 4 litres of Tesco's Value apple juice from concentrate to 60c and disolved two 135g packets of Hartley's Strawberry Jelly from concentrate and 100g of sugar into the apple juice. I left it to cool to around 30c and added two heaped teaspoons of Pectolase and covered the pot with a lid and left it for a minimum of 24 hours to give the pectolase plenty of time to neutralise the pectin in the jelly.

At this point the liquid tasted very strongly of Strawberry. After 24 hours i put the liquid into a 5 litre PET bottle, added 1 tsp Tannin , 1 tsp Citric Acid, 1 tsp of yeast nutrient and made a yeast starter from a general purpose wine yeast.

I added all of the additives to the must, gave it a good shake, fitted an airlocked and left it to ferment. It took 8 days to ferment out and the taste of the cider was really harsh and bitter, absolutely no hint of strawberry.

I was surprised at how bad the taste really was, but I managed to recover it by adding another two packets of Jelly which was dissolved in 1 litre of water, cooled and added 2 heaped teaspoons of pectolase. Again leave for 24 hours.

The TC is now sitting in a Demi to clear.

If anyone wants to try this, put the jelly flavouring in after the cider has fermented, putting it in before doesn't work and turns out rather tart

 

[godfrey]

might wait a little longer for the second attempt results before trying this myself

but I certainly respect your thinking out the box on this one :thumb:

 

[Robbo]

What I have found when making wine from fresh fruits is the higher the %ABV, the less it tastes of the fruit that what was used to make the wine.

The fermentation does strip the brew of some of the flavours, so i do recomend flavouring the cider after the fermentation and clearing process.

I like to try experimental brews just to widen the variety of ingredients that can be used, plus it is revealing and fun.

 

[lewisgill]

I have also found this with a TC that i did with morries AJ 4L and 500ml of strawberry ribena with some sugar. It has turned out very strong, around 9.6% and has lots almost all of the strawb taste. I have a second attempt on the go as we speak which it AJ with blackcurrant ribena (sugar free) the sugar free one has sweeteners added to it already and this time i added no sugar. Should result it about 4.5% which is what a cider shud be in my opion! I have had a little taste today before bottling and its a million times better. Kept some ey flavour and not so harsh. So yes i agree the higher the ABV the more of the flavourng u will lose.