Apple

Hey everyone. First time posting here, so I'm hoping to learn things.

I started brewing 8 months ago, and I've done a few batches, some pretty great, some not so much, and I've learned as I go.

Question I have is I want to do a wheat-ish beer with hints of apple and maybe cinnamon. I've decided to try it with the Brewers Best Kolsch recipe.

I've read on other forums and just through google that some people add apple cider to the 2nd fermentation (absolutely no preservatives). Wondering if that's the right way to go about it, or if anyone has any advice.

Also, when to add the Cinnamon, and how much?


Also, My local brew supply store sells Brewers Best fruit flavoring extract. Does anyone have experience with that? Because they do make an Apple variety.

Thanks everyone.

I prefer to add the cinnamon to the end of the boil. It doesn't take much...1-2 sticks depending on how strong you want it.

I would stick with cider instead of flavoring extract. The cider I always find is heat pasteurized and ends up cloudy anyway, so heating or not heating it doesn't matter to me. I wouldn't put it in a secondary...if you normally use cold water in your kits you could substitute some of that with the cider. Ferment it in the primary with your beer all at the same time.

Welcome to the forums and to getting creative and stretching your brewing skills.
I'll offer my opinion, and hopefully others will chime in here too.
You've got to decide which direction you want to go with the beer. Wheat-ish and Kolsch are two different animals. Either style of beer would work with apple, as would sour and something more caramel tasting like an American Amber.
I've made an apple sour, and lots of cider. The advice I can offer you is that apple extracts add flavor, but in a pretty artificial tasting way. Real apples have a subtle flavor, so you want to make a beer with a mild flavor itself if you want the apple flavor to be prominent.
Adding about 3 pounds of chopped apples tossed with vodka to sanitize added a nice apple flavor to about 4 gallons of an apple sour beer I made. You could make a wheat, or a kolsch and add the same amount after fermentation has finished to produce a second round of fermentation and produce an apple flavored beer. You could also add cider instead. I'd also look into using apple cider as the fluid for for your priming solution too.
One or two sticks of cinnamon added to the boil for 30 minutes or so will add a moderate cinnamon flavor to your beer.
I hope it turns out well. Report back on your results for others looking to do the same thing!

I might have to try substituting the cold water with cider before ferment. Although I have heard that adding fruit flavors to the primary can have some unwanted effects with the yeast, so I'm a little skeptical about that.

I made a blueberry ale one time with extract and I get what you're saying about the fake fruit taste, as it did, but I was wondering if I did it wrong being so new to the hobby.

I've also tried a brew using fresh santized fruit (not apples), and wasn't a huge fan of that taste either, which is why I was wondering about adding cider to beer. Everytime I try searching for such results on google, all I find is how to make cider etc.

If you use cider before the ferment, the yeast might consume most of the apple flavor. If you add cider after the fermentation is done, your yeast will want to kick off again with the new fermentable sugar available.
Something to consider is using a yeast that will quit at your finished beer alcohol level, then when your apple juice or cider is added, the flavor will come through.

I've done several Apple Pie ales and have used pasteurized cider, 1 gallon, in them. I brew a 4 gallon batch of beer instead of 5 gallons and had added the cider to my primary after the first 10-14 days of fermentation. The problem is they all come out very tart since the yeast eat the cider sugars. You can clearly taste the apple but it does not make for a good beer. Since I was bottling and need the yeast for priming I couldn't find any way around the problem.

Now I'm kegging though so I will be doing another Apple Pie ale this weekend or next. I will be adding the cider to the keg then racking the beer on top, very gently stirring it up with a sanitized spoon, then sealing it up and putting it on CO2 and into the kegerator. Since the temp drop to 37 will essentially put the yeast to sleep I'm thinking that I'll finally get a good batch.


Rev.

You might also get some ideas from searching through apple ale recipes. You could make a simple 1 gallon of wort and add it to 4 gallons of cider. If you don't want to have to pasteurize to leave a little residual sugar, yeast choice is absolutely critical. With the 'right" yeast, you will have a slightly sweet cider, and adding priming solution will only carbonate and not dry out your cider. Dry cider doesn't have a lot of apple flavor up front, but with time the apple flavor will improve. Try a yeast with a 71-75% attenuation, you get exactly what you want on the first try. When all else fails, there's always Splenda.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. At this point I'm considering doing a couple things. Maybe I'll try fermenting apple cider with champagne yeast by itself and see what that tastes like afterwards. Maybe the finished product is something that I could add to a ferment?

Also, I'm considering going the fresh fruit way, and then adding just a little bit of extract to the secondary as well and hopefully it's not as tart?

In either case, I'm completely at terms with messing up this brew. This is going to be a test on my end.

Epic Brewing does a sour apple saison. They use an apple concentrate.

It's an awesome beer.

ineednfnname said:

I might have to try substituting the cold water with cider before ferment. Although I have heard that adding fruit flavors to the primary can have some unwanted effects with the yeast, so I'm a little skeptical about that.

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Hard cider is just fermented cider and there's no off flavors from that. Why should it be any different if you're using it in beer? It's going to ferment whether you have it in a primary or a secondary. A secondary is best if you are using whole fruit for a number of reasons. One is that the yeast cake will drop out covering the fruit in the primary. If you are using pressed cider there is nothing to cove. The only instance I could really see where you would need to add it later on is if you have a very high gravity beer and you don't want to stress the fermentation, you would let it ferment out the wort at first and then add the cider after (much like you would do with sugar in a large beer). The reason most people will tell you to add fruit or fruit juice in the secondary is that they feel the primary fermentation will be so vigorous that it blows the fruit aroma out of the airlock during high krausen. If you use enough apple cider in your beer you will get plenty of aroma. Normally I will do fruit in the secondary that is very expensive or has a very delicate aroma (like strawberries).

Do a search for graf on the forum. You might find some ideas there for what you are looking for.

I did the search for Graff, it along with Teromous' last reply helped a bunch. That and I looked up specific apple brews, and I've come to a conclusion. I'm going to brew a 2 gallon boil, add cinnamon to the last 15 - 20 mins, then once the wort is cooled, add 3 gallons of cider to the primary ferment and pitch the yeast.

If it doesn't turn out, it doesn't turn out, part of learning right?
Again thanks everyone for the advice and I hope to be more a part of the forum as I delve deeper into it.

IMO, don't boil the cinnamon that long. I've tried several different boils times and the longer it's boiled the more flavor is lost. I put my spices in the last two minutes of the boil these days.


Rev.

Just an update on this.

I brewed 3 days ago. I went by the instructions for the Brewers Best Kolsch. I did a 2 gallon boil and dropped the cinnamon sticks in 3 minutes before the boil termination.

After the wort cooled, I added 3 gallons of Apple Juice. I found a brand that had no preservatives or additives. It was Tree Top 3 apple blend.

I added the liquid Kolsch yeast that was recommended per the kit.
The first day and a half, I was a bit worried, as fermentation hadn't started yet, but this morning before I went to work, it had started, slowly. When I got home in the evening, it was moving pretty quickly, so I think I'm good.

I did buy an extra container of juice just to drink and see what it tasted like, I expect the beer/cider blend to be a little on the tart side, but not bad.

OG was 1.074, which was about what I expected, probably going to end up around 9% abv or so, and my kitchen smells like apple/cinnamon, so that was nice to come home to.

So I let this condition for a while longer than I usually would. Tried some within the last week and it tastes pretty good. A bit tart, but that was to be expected. During ferment, the sugars from the apple juice fermented, but left just enough apple flavor to call this a success.

I can't taste any hints of Cinnamon though. I ended up putting 4 sticks of it into the last 5 minutes of boil, and then for good measure a couple of sticks into the primary.

Either way, the OG was pretty high, actually read in the wine section of the hydrometer, and gave the final product close to a 9% ABV. I can't really decide whether to describe it as a beer flavored apple wine, or a apple flavored beer. It's good either way.