3 replies to this topic

[Genesee Ted]

I forgot to get the brand name, but a couple of months ago I came across a few syrups in the supermarket that are from Croatia. The ingredients listed are simply blackberry juice and sugar (or raspberry juice and sugar, etc...) They aren't sold buy the gallon, but when I did the math it comes to about $12 a gallon. I figure this may be a great alternative to other fruit additions for mels but I can't find any info on these types of products. Does anyone have any experience with these? I may end up having to just mix up a test batch and see how it all works out but I thought I would check here first.

[SCOTTinLHC]

I tried a small (1 Gallon) batch with something like this before. It was some 'natural' Raspberry syrup that was on clearance. I mixed everything up & fermented it with a Wyeast package.While it had a good mead / honey flavor, a lot of the Raspberry taste was missing, but the smell was fairly good.This went very quickly or I'd have some to offer you. :)Hope this helps; it's just one guy's experience. Scott

[43hertz]

I've used a bottle of this:to flavor a cider before.Put the whole bottle into a five gallon batch. Stuff is way sugary. Came out pretty good as a cherry apple cider. Wife liked it more than I did, a little sweet for me. I'm afraid if I backed off the amount much to avoid the sweetness I wouldn't have had much cherry flavor, but If you did the math carefully enough where most of the sugar would go away you could probably hit it about right, or at least close.

[fatbloke]

it seems that a lot of "syrups" use a sort of reduced (in some way) element of the fruit.some, like raspberry, can be over powering and often need to be used in addition to another fruit, especially if they're "pure" fruit.personally, I'd have just used it to back sweeten as I find that with my melomels, cysers, etc I don't get anywhere near enough of the fruit flavour coming through if I use it just in the main ferment.hence I'd have used some in the main ferment and then some for back sweetening after the ferment is complete.As for syrups with preservatives, I can't recall a link off the top of my head, but if it's got sorbates or benzoates in it, then you'd need to do something about it, but if it's using "ascorbic acid" then don't worry - that's just vitamin CDoes sound nice stuff to have a play with though....