Dry Cyser

Stout Man · 02-29-2008, 08:19 AM

My O.G. of my Cyser was 1.100. It has been fermenting sense Feb 18th. As of right now, 11 days later, the gravity is 1.002. I have never had something get this dry. My recipe even had 6 lbs of honey in it. I did boil the honey for 10 mins. The airlock is still going every 8 seconds. I just don't understand how this got so dry. I was expecting a final gravity of 1.010-1.015. I used Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast.

Fermentables:
5 gals apple juice
6 lbs clover honey
2 lbs corn sugar
1 lb strawberries
2 (16oz) apple juice concentrate

Any way I could get some good dextrin sugars in there to leave behind some residual sweetness? I was expecting the honey to do that as I know apple wine by itself ferments down to below 1.000. I didn't intend to get this wine this high in alcohol, right now it is 13.3%.

CBBaron · 02-29-2008, 01:26 PM

Honey and fruit juices will ferment to dryness if the yeast can tolerate the alcohol content of the resulting wine. There is no complex sugars like found in beer. Your best bet for a sweet mead is to allow the fermentation to finish, then stabilize with sorbate and campden tablets. After it is stabilized you can add honey to back sweeten to the desired sweetness. If you want this sparkling you are forced to use Splenda or Lactose to sweeten. Not something I recommend but then I don't care for any artificially sweetened product.

Remember that mead and wine are not like beer in that beer finishes sweet and wine and mead finish dry. That is why beer uses hops to balance the sweetness while wine and mead do not.

Craig

homebrewer_99 · 02-29-2008, 03:18 PM

If you use Champagne yeast it'll drop to.998. Now that's dry!

malkore · 03-01-2008, 01:25 AM

Not all meads are dry. I do agree that cysers tend to get dry, due to the sugars added by the apples/juice/cider, plus the honey. And you actually added raw sugar, and extra apple juice concentrate. All those simple sugars will ensure a bone dry cyser if the yeast can handle it.

but i like my mead sweet...
I make my sweet meads by using lower attenuating yeast strains, 13-14% ABV so some sweetness is left behind. But that's just one way of doing it, mostly because i don't wanna screw around with killing the yeast and back sweetening.

jiffybrew · 03-01-2008, 07:34 PM

Malkore, Could you give some example of yeast strains that have low attentuation? Thanks!

malkore · 03-02-2008, 03:03 PM

I'm feeling too lazy to get Schramm's book which has a great yeast guide in it.

But off the top of my head...
Fermentis S-33 is a trappist ale yeast that dies at 13% ABV. if you keep it at 2.75lbs of honey per gallon of mead, that yeast will leave you with some sweetness, but not too much.

There are also some wine yeasts that'll stop about 14%. I believe any strain for a Riesling is gonna give you that ABV, since its a sweeter white wine.

Yeast makers usually put the ABV in the specs for that strain.