Hard Manzaita Cider!

Right now, manzanita berries are ripe.  I wanted to make a hard cider out of them and with out more than one try I ended up with a light, refreshing hard manzanita cider with an alcohol content of about 3.0.  Not many of my kitchen experiments go all that easy and turn out this goo on the first try, and I have to chalk it up to the hard apple cider that I wrote about in an earlier blog.
Hard apple cider (HAC) begins with a simple starter that is made from an apple and apple juice.  That's it.  It's one of the easiest things to do in the kitchen.
I've been using that starter in a lot of things such as the pineapple chicha from an earlier blog.  For a lot of my fermented recipes, it's taking the place of salt and whey.  And it made this foray into hard manzanita cider really simple.

Manzanita berries:

I've made mancanita cider before (using Hank Shaw's recipe:  http://honest-food.net/2010/08/22/manzanita-cider/) so I started with that, tweaking it slightly.
Mixe 2 cups of sugar with 10 cups of water, bring it to a boil and pour it over 4 cups of cleaned manzanita berries.   Let it sit about 20 minutes and mash it up with a potato masher.  No need to kill yourself mashing on this step.  The idea is just to crack open most of the berries so that they can infuse more efficiently.   Let it the mess sit overnight and then strain it.
Pour your cider into a carboy and add 1 cup of the HAC starter.  (See the blog on Hard Apple Cider for directions.  Remember the starter needs to made several days in advance of using it, so that it's all filled with bubbly goodness).
Slip on an airlock, or a balloon or whatever set up you use and leave it alone for a few days.  # days if you like it sweet.  Longer if you like it drier and with a little more alcohol to it.
When it's reached the flavor that you like, bottle, leave it alone for a day or two, then refrigerate it for about a week.
A really easy treat for some hot afternoon.