First Cider Attempt - Final Results

Raspberry Cider

Side Notes:

I decided to backsweeten with a pound of lactose sugar. This worked GREAT. It was pretty dry to begin with, but this gave it just enough residual sugar to not make you pucker after drinking it. I sweetened a glass a little bit more with some Splenda, which made it way too sweet. One pound of lactose sugar seemed perfect. (I suppose now I can call it a Raspberry Milk Cider...eww.)

I carbed it with 2 cans of Treetop 100% apple juice concentrate. This was way too much. In fact, after 1.5 weeks of sitting in the closet, my bottle caps were bulging!! I had to put all the leftovers in the fridge to stop any active fermentation and prevent bottle bombs. When you pour it in a glass there is a head that fills the glass instantly and to the top. Next time I think 1 can of concentrate per 5 gallons will be perfect for carbing. Especially with cider, a big head isn't too good anyway.

Results

Aroma - Nice and "appley" if that's a word. There is a very faint hint of raspberry, but this is hardly noticeable by smell.

Appearance - Pinkish brown. Since there is much more apple juice rather than raspberry, the raspberry only slightly modified the color. So the majority of the apple juice (yellowish-brown) is coming through.

Taste - Nice! Most people let cider age in the bottle for at least a few months, and up to a year or two. But since we were going to a family gathering, most was consumed within a week or two. Still, it was very good. Time would only age it better. It has a slight yeasty taste to it, which I'm still trying to get out of all my brews (perhaps only with a filter). There is definitely an apple flavor to it (there should be!), and I think this would come out even more without the excessive carbing. The raspberry flavor wasn't as pronounced as I had hoped. Next time I may try a different flavoring (extract perhaps) or I'll just add it to the primary fermenter. I would definitely make this again, but I'd like to split it into two batches and only flavor half.

Aftertaste - Not much of an aftertaste. Fairly clean (other than a slight yeast taste) and finishes pretty dry. Gives a good belch with all the carbonation :)

Labels

Labels I've made to this point...Just thought I'd put them on here to make sure I always have them :)

Raspberry Hard Lemonade

I've been wanting to experiment with recycling yeasts. This is one of the more expensive aspects of a brew, as a good yeast can be between $7-9. When you divide that among 50 beers it's not too bad, but if you divide it among 15o beers (recycling it 3 times) it's even better. Doing this can drive down your batch prices to under $20 if you're not doing a real hoppy batch (and you can't beat 50 beers for $20!).

I used a Cider Yeast for the hard cider that I recently made, so this was a good time to experiment. I didn't want to spend $30 on a 5 gal batch to not have it turn out, so I only made a 1 gallon batch of raspberry hard lemonade. Here's my recipe...

Raspberry Hard Lemonade

Malt/Fermentables
Approx. 3/4 lb Pale DME
3-12 oz. cans Minute Maid Raspberry Lemonade Concentrate

Specialty Grains
None

Hops
None

Yeast
WLP775 English Cider Yeast - pitched approx. 400 ml of slurry from Hard Cider recipe

Adjuncts

None

Brew Day Stats

Brewed: 06/04/2008
Racked (Secondary): None
Bottled: 06/11/2008

Pre-boil Volume: guessed
Post-boil Volume: 3/4 gallon
Boil Time: 15 minutes

Cooling Method: Ice water bath
Cooling Time: Approx. 20 min.
Pitching Temp: 84° F

Fermentation Temp: 65-70° F (first sign of fermentation approx 20 min. after pitching)

OG: 1.092
FG: 1.024
ABW: 7.3%
ABV: 9.1%

Results & Photo's

Ultimately, this didn't turn out as I had hoped. I think I used too much malt, as the final brew had a lot of malt flavors, which detracted significantly from the lemonade and raspberry flavor.

Aroma - Overall, a malty aroma and quite sweet.

Appearance - Brownish-red. This was probably because of the excess of malt, as it contributed a dull brown color to the final brew.

Taste - Ha! Pretty much horrible. The excess malt flavor combined with the 9%+ alcohol content made for an excessively sweet character. Without the use of hops to balance out sweetness, it was just too much.

Aftertaste - Not bad actually. Occasionally I get a mediciny aftertaste, which was thankfully not present this time. Perhaps I'm weeding this aftertaste out.