A cider brewed partly with cherry juice. A new grocery store in the area is now carrying at least some single-varietal-source apple juices, at least some of the time, or so the label claims, so I'm looking forward to that—the juices themselves were quite tasty. I'm holding off on actually adding the cherry juice until primary fermentation slows because I'm hoping that this will help to emphasize the cherry flavor, and using a Belgian yeast that's supposed to emphasize fruit character. (However, the wild fermentation never took off, so some domesticated yeast got pitched in.) In honor of the Black Knight, we're calling this batch Just a Flesh Wound.

Ingredients in this batch

2016-11-13_02_50_32_HDR
Ingredients for batch 037.
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar.
  • 2 qt. Cadia organic Gravenstein apple juice.
  • 1½ qt. Tree Top honeycrisp apple juice.
  • ½ tsp. of Valley Brewers yeast energizer.
  • 1 tsp. of Fermax yeast nutrient.
  • ¼ tsp Valley Brewers wine tannin.
  • ½ packet White Labs WLP500 Monastery Ale yeast.
  • 3½ c. Knudsen's Pure black cherry juice (added on 23 November 2016).
  • 6 oz. Alasko frozen cherries (added on 26 January 2017).
  • ½ oz. French oak chips, varying sizes, from Valley Brewers (added 8 February 2017; intending to remove about the end of February, if it develops as anticipated).

Brew date: 12 November 2016.
Original gravity: 1.079 (but I'm calculating this as if it were 1.081 due to later additions).
Bottling day: 4 March 2017
Final gravity: 0.997
Estimated ABV: 11.25%

Yield:

  • 9 x 12 oz. beer bottles
  • hydrometer tube

Total: Approx. 113 fl. oz., or about ⅞ of a gallon.

Poured the brown sugar, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and tannin into a four-liter carboy, then poured in the Gravenstein apple juice, then poured in the honeycrisp. Shook to agitate thoroughly (and there's plenty of space in there that's reserved for the cherry juice). Drew off a sample into a sanitized hydrometer, poured it back in, and agitated again for a few minutes. Pitched the yeast in at 71℉, then popped in an airlock and filled it with vodka.

Observations

  • 2016-11-13T18:22:00: There are a small number of tiny bubbles near the surface of the must, but otherwise, there's no evidence of fermentation yet.
  • 2016-11-14T18:22:00: There's occasional carbon dioxide discharge from the airlock.
  • 2016-11-22T13:54:00: Carbon dioxide discharge from the airlock has slowed down a great deal.
  • 2016-11-23T20:00: Added cherry juice to the must, which filled the jug to the bottom of its neck, making a little over a gallon.
  • 2016-11-24T10:22: There is clearly carbon dioxide discharge once again from the airlock.
  • 2016-12-03T04:37: Got back from a little over a week on the road; there is now very little very little carbon dioxide discharge from the airlock. Holy jeez, though: lots and lots of yeast has flocculated and fallen to the bottom of the carboy.
  • 2017-01-02T21:59: Cider is quite clear and a deep red color. There's a rich tartness to it, but a lot of the identifiable cherry flavor has gone.
  • 2017-01-26: Added frozen cherries to secondary in hope of increasing the cherry flavor.
  • 2017-01-30T11:56: No sign that adding the frozen cherries has caused more carbon dioxide to be produced.
  • 2017-02-07: Put in a cooler with ice (and with batch 036) to cold-crash.
  • 2017-02-08: Pulled out of cooler. In contrast to batch 036 (which had the same yeast and was cold-crashed at the same time, right next to this batch, but came out still cloudy), this is crystal clear. Racked onto French oak chips (unprepared in any way; not even rinsed) in a fresh carboy. Yeast was recovered for reuse in the preparation of batch 052 (q.v.).
  • 2017-03-04: Bottled and discarded the oak chips. Yield was 9 12 oz. bottles, plus a hydrometer tube, at an estimated ABV of 11.25%.