Hard cider is a popular alcoholic beverage in the distillery industry made from fermented fruit juice. It is usually fizzy, sweet, and naturally contains hints of whatever fermented fruit was used to make it. Hard cider has emerged as a popular alcoholic drink choice because of the wide variety of fruity and seasonal flavors available, and because it’s gluten-free, unlike traditional beers or some other hard liquors.
What Ingredients Are Used to Make Hard Cider?
There are only three ingredients necessary for hard cider: sugar, yeast, and fruit juice. Fermented apple juice is the most common choice, but hard cider can also be made from pears, peaches, strawberries, and more.
How Can You Add Flavoring and Sweeteners to Hard Cider?
There are several ways to flavor hard cider. Natural sweeteners like granulated sugar, honey, or brown sugar are common choices. These sweeteners can be added to ciders for sweetness and flavoring, but only after any remaining yeast is killed or removed. Otherwise, the yeast will consume all the added sugar, which will negate any added sweetness. Yeast will also produce more alcohol and CO2 gas as it consumes this added sugar, which might not always be desirable.
Sweeteners are almost always added to hard cider, but this usually happens late in the process. Yeast consumes almost all of the sugar in fruit juice as it produces alcohol, so a freshly brewed cider will be nearly sugarless and bone-dry. Most cider-makers or distilleries back-sweeten their ciders to make them taste more appealing to customers who prefer sweeter drinks.
How Can You Infuse Seasonal Flavors into Hard Cider?
Our taste preferences are highly dependent on our sense of smell, so an effective way to infuse seasonal flavors into hard cider is to identify the tastes and smells we associate with certain seasons. For spring, berries, and citrus bring out freshness and bright, zesty flavors as the world around us gets more colorful. Summer flavors might involve herbs like mint or basil, which pair well with late-season fruits like strawberries and blueberries. Fall flavors are all about spices like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg. The frigid winter months might taste like cranberries and rosemary – hallmarks of a holiday dinner or a candle passed around during a white elephant gift exchange.
Just like sweeteners, seasonal flavoring should be added after the fermentation process. Adding fruity flavors to a drink made from fruit juice might seem pointless, but as yeast consumes the sugars in fruit juice, the juice’s natural fruity flavor dissipates. If you want your hard ciders to taste like certain fruits or other seasonal flavors, add flavoring and/or sweeteners after fermentation.
How Can Bulk Sweeteners Streamline Hard Cider Brewing?
Creating and brewing a successful hard cider isn’t an easy task, and with so few ingredients required to make one, it’s important that every ingredient complements the others without overpowering them. At Bremer, we offer many traditional sugars, sweeteners, and flavorings in bulk quantities so you can fine-tune your hard cider recipes (and scale them up) without running out of ingredients.
Find Quality Bulk Distillery Ingredients with Bremer
We know that high-quality sugars, sweeteners, and flavorings are key to every batch of hard cider, and we believe you deserve the best distilling products and ingredients at the most reasonable price. That’s why we supply and distribute everything in bulk quantities – so you can follow your recipes without compromising on quantity, quality, or affordability. For information on the industries we support, products we offer, or our distribution methods, contact us – we’d love to help you.