Hard Strawberry Cider Recipe Fermented With Fresh Berries

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This hard strawberry cider recipe makes a delicious home-brewed fruit cider, perfect for spring and summer. You can bottle strawberry hard cider with honey for a refreshing sparkling cider.

Homemade Strawberry Cider

Or is it apple strawberry wine? In our blood orange cider recipe blog, I mentioned that cider must be 35% apple juice to be considered “cider.” Well, this recipe is mostly apple juice with some fresh strawberry syrup incorporated.

Another thing I’ve learned about cider is that the only difference between apple cider and apple wine is the alcohol content. If you brew some apple cider above 8.5% ABV, it is considered a wine, not a cider. So many rules.

This strawberry cider ends up around 9% ABV, so technically, it’s a wine. Call it cider or wine; it doesn’t matter to me.

Strawberry Hard Cider

My strawberry hard cider recipe produces light and fresh flavors that are perfect for spring! I like to bottle strawberry cider with honey to create a sparkling cider. However, it’s also fantastic as a still cider.

I love pairing this fresh fruit cider with our Sauerkraut Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese and Berries or Summer Lemon Kale Salad with Brined Salmon on hot summer days.

Strawberry Cider Recipe

I think brewing at home intimidates many people, so I made this recipe as easy as possible.

With this recipe, you can just buy some organic apple juice at the store. I used the 365 brand of organic pressed apple juice from Whole Foods. Make sure it is 100% apple juice and free from any preservatives and additives. Also, make sure the juice does not have any added sugar.

For the strawberry syrup, you will also need fresh strawberries, and organic berries work best. You can use frozen berries, but I love making this when fresh berries are in season in Louisiana.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

• 2 Grams Cider Yeast (Saccharomyces bayanus)
• Organic Pasteurized Apple Juice
• About a pound of organic strawberries
• Filtered Water
• Organic Cane Sugar

Cider Making Supplies

If this is your first time making cider at home, I highly suggest starting with this half-gallon recipe. This lets you get acquainted with the process and taste test before committing to a large batch.

Here is my Amazon list for brewing supplies. If you have a local home brew store, that is also an option to get what you need.

I got all my supplies at my local homebrew store up the street from my house. At a homebrew store, you can have someone help you pick out the right supplies.

• 1/2 gallon glass jug (with a cap)
• a second 1/2 gallon glass jug (with cap)
• 1 rubber stopper for brewing – You will need to make sure it is the right size for your jug. Some jugs have different diameter openings. I’ve linked the size stopper that fits my 1/2 gallon glass jug.
• an S airlock for the stopper
• a funnel
• large pot for boiling
• cheap vodka (for cleaning equipment)
• Two 1-Liter swing-top bottles (carbonation safe, for bottling the cider)

Choosing Yeast for Strawberry Cider

You can use champagne yeast or cider yeast for this recipe. If you visit a home-brew store, they should be able to help you select a cider yeast.

When buying packaged yeast, I like to make sure that the yeast species is not genetically modified. We chose to use Saccharomyces bayanus. This yeast species is associated with the natural fermentation of grapes, and it’s great for any fruit cider fermentation.

Another option is to use wild yeast. You only need about two tablespoons of wild yeast starter in place of the yeast in the recipe. Click here to learn how to make a wild yeast starter.

How to Bottle and Store Cider

Bottling and storing the cider is pretty straightforward. You need to verify that you have carbonation-safe bottles.

This is a sparkling hard cider so we will carbonate it. To carbonate hard cider in the bottle, we have to add a small amount of sugar, called priming sugar, right before bottling. I like to use honey as priming sugar because it contains a lot of fermentable fructans. More fructans = more bubbles.

The yeast will feed on the freshly added sugar and produce more carbon dioxide. Since the cider is in carbonation-safe bottles with the cap secure, the CO2 is forced into the cider and becomes carbonated. Bottling 1 liter with only one tablespoon of honey is not enough sugar to excessively carbonate. It’s just enough to produce a pleasant level of carbonation.

To make this a still cider instead of sparkling cider, do not add any honey or sugar when you bottle it.

You’ll need:

• Two 1-Liter Swing top bottles(Carbonation Safe)
• Organic Honey

How to Bottle

1. Clean and sterilize the bottles.
2. Add one tablespoon of honey to each 1 Liter bottle.
3. Using a funnel, transfer the cider from the aging jug into the carbonation-safe bale top bottles, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the jug.
4. Cap the bottles and invert gently twice to mix the honey with the cider.
5. Allow to ferment at room temperature for five to seven days, then immediately place in the fridge. You can age the cider for 3 more weeks in the fridge before enjoying it chilled.

More Recipes to Try

• How to Make Sparkling Hard Apple Cider from Apple Juice
• Vinegar from Scratch
• Hard Blood Orange Cider Bottled with Honey

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