"Apfelwein" this is your life!

Fire_travels · 03-13-2008, 02:44 AM

OOk sorry but there are so many threads about this, it could have it own forum!

Anyways... I have read many of the threads about Apfelwein, and mine is finally done, and ready to be bottled! Tonight I tried it for the first time and wow it does take a few drinks to get the taste!

All in all I’ll get right down to it.. I am not familiar with the way it is suppose to be! (Never tried it before)

And Tonight after a month and a half it was dry (which is ok) but very tart/sour..... is this because it is young or is this how it is??????

And I think some of the Apfelwein info should be consolidated! Take it or leave it!

Thanks,
Fire

farmbrewernw · 03-18-2008, 06:20 PM

I have a batch of cider kegged that is 7 months old, it taste considerably better than it did at 2 months as a matter of fact at two months I thought to myself that it would never be drinkable, now it is quite tasty. That being said I have my first batch of Apfelwein sitting right now at about 2.5 months, it tastes pretty good but still has some of that sourness and alcohol taste. I should think that this will get better with a couple more months of aging. You can drink Apfelwein after a month or so but it only gets that much better with age, I know it's hard but being patient is a good thing when it comes to Apfelwein. To answer your question about it being dry this really depends on how much sugar you added and what type of yeast you used. The original recipe should finish dry as it has a lot of sugar in it and uses wine yeast. It's an acquired taste but to be honest it grows on you. If you like a sweeter cider use less sugar and use an ale yeast. A lot of people have experimented on here with various combinations, for instance I knew I didn't like really alcoholic and excessively dry cider so I used a pound less corn sugar and Hefe yeast.

**Bobby_M** · 03-18-2008, 07:08 PM

The dryness will grow on you. Drink a few before doing anything nuts like backsweetening the whole batch with splenda. I'm on my second batch and now wish I didn't add any splenda. If someone is turned off by the dryness, you can back sweeten in the glass with a little fresh applejuice. You could even add some honey or corn syrup in the glass.