Forbidden Fruit Hard Cider Recipe

[napsternova]

Well I brewed this batch mainly for my wife. She says it's good, I don't like it but I can't pinpoint why exactly. I suppose I was expecting something a bit more sweet. It packs a punch and smells good. It isn't so bad where I would flush it. I would like to try another cider and see if maybe it was just my process.

[TonyKZ1]

I've made that one, I liked it, but I also made it for my wife and she didn't care for it. I think I put too much water in the fermenter when I was making it, so it may have been too weak. I'm going to try one of their ones with the fruit along with the cider and see how that turns out.

[napsternova]

that sounds like a good idea. This one was a bit too basic I think and lacked the real fruit flavor.

[pedro63]

I have made a couple of these with one being the plain version and the other being a version with the Oregon canned black berries. They both turned out good but as you say there isn't much sweetness to them but are crisp and a little dry. The one with the berries had good berry flavor and a little more kick but still wasn't very sweet. We pour a dash of grenadine in the bottom of the glass before pouring the cider to knock the edge off of it.

[FrozenInTime]

Making my own cider, I add a touch of lactose (un-fermentable sugars) to bring a little sweetness to mine. I also use fresh apples to make my cider base. I could never get any berry taste to come out well so I stopped trying those. I believe mine is based off of *Nong Cider* posted here some time back. Uses pumpkin pie spices and taste awesome!

[ebbz]

I tried the kit, as I go thru Hard Cider phases in my likes, and did not care for the outcome as it was weak and the carbonation was off. I talked to Sam at BD and he knows of someone who uses 2 cans of extract for a 2G batch. The recipe also calls for 1.5C of sugar. I decided to try the double can approach. The fermenter currently has the two cans, 3.5C of cane sugar (1.070 OG) and a single packet of the cider yeast and is nearing the end of fermentation. Samples have been very tasty. I will update after bottling.

[TonyKZ1]

That sounds good, when I tried it after brewing, it was also a little weak, I thought it was something i did. I need to get some more brewed and in the bottles.

[tdawg]

I tried this recipe a while back and like others, it was good not great so thought I did something wrong as well. I also used the BD Force CO2 to test that out. It certainly added the "fizz" but flavor was weak. @ebbz mentioned doubling extract and more than double the sugar with a single yeast pack. Curious how that turned out.