I have an abundance of fresh black raspberries available and would like to try my hand at a cider using only black raspberries. I'll be starting with a one gallon batch. I am not sure how many berries to use, and if I should add water or not.
Basic Plan
- Started a yeast culture using nottingham, berries, sugar and water
- Ferment in primary for 1 week
- Move to secondary, straining out already fermented fruit, adding more fresh fruit
The berries are slightly tart, which I don't mind. My only concern is will there be enough sugars to ferment enough? I am targeting an 4%-5% ABV.
Edit:
What I ended up doing is mashing up about 3lbs of fresh berries and adding a can of apple juice to bring the gravity up to the level I was looking for. Final reading was somewhere 1.045 - 1.050 which is about where I wanted to be.
The juice has a nice berry flavor with a hint of apple and is a little tangy. Pitched yeast culture earlier today and it's fermenting nicely already.
Results:*
Cider came out great. I don't really taste much of the Apple, but the berries really come through.