Strawberry cider recipe help!

[gavinduffy89]

Hey guys!
This is gonna be my first brew and i want to do a very strong strawberry cider as it is coming into the summer. I would love to say its for the missus but its all for me haha Im just looking for some advice with the recipe as i am so inexperienced at this. I have a 33l fermenter so im gonna fill it to 25l and hope to get 20l back, filled into 40 500ml bottles.

The recipe im thinking is as follows...

5 litres of strawberry ribena
20 liters of apple juice (shop bought)
2.5 kg table sugar
5 tsp pectolase
5 tsp glycerine
5 tsp citric acid
5 tsp yeast nutrient
red star pasteur champagne yeast

I plan on bottle carbonating with 1 sugar cube per bottle. Back sweeting but am unsure what to use and how much of it to use.

If anyone has any tips of advice on the recipe or anything else please let me know.
Thanks

[Drum]

I could be wrong but i think Ribena has preservatives which will inhibit the yeast. Maybe try something else for the strawberry flavour.

[Drum]

Just googled ribena ingredients and it does contain potassium sorbate and sodium bisulphite. Both are used to stop microorganisms growing in foods, so most likely will not allow the yeast to ferment at all.
Sorry i dont have any suggestion as to what else you could use but I wouldnt try the ribena.

[gavinduffy89]

If you boil the ribena it takes the preservatives out of it. I watched people do it on youtube and thats where i got the recipe from

[Drum]

Fair enough, never heard that before. Let us know how it turns out

[gavinduffy89]

Will do.

Thanks for checking that out by the way.