Vox

Recipes 

Is ceyser essentially just cider with honey used to boost the abv? How does the taste differ? Anyone have a good recipe?

Greghark

Recipes 

Pretty much yes, cyser is a brew where the sugar comes from apple juice and honey. Now there are a lyt of technical definitions you can get into as well. But that is close enough. You can get into knockdown brawls over whether it is cider with honey our mead with apples, regardless it is good.

As to recipes, generally speaking the strength can be anywhere from 6-16% depending upon the amount of honey (and other sugar source you use). The more honey added the more honey flavor. And you do taste the honey provided you have added enough. Just like ciders there are plenty of different flavors to honey so choose wisely and maybe check out a thread or two in the mead forum to pick one.

I make a batch I call "Dude where's my pants!"
Start with 4 1/2 gallons of good juice. And campden and do whatever chemistry you prefer to get it ready to go.
Next, get a half gallon of something like motts or some other clear able juice to heat (i don't like heating good juice because it affects the constancy and flavor IMO). To the heated juice add 4# of dark brown sugar and 4# of orange blossom honey. Make sure it has all desolved. Take off the heat and cool.
When everything is ready add all the juice together in 5 gallon carboy. Pitch good champagne yeast (personal preferences is white labs wlp 715, always works for me).
Sit back and watch.
I rack after a month and rack again or bottle, depending upon clarity, after another month.

This cyser is high in alcohol and thick in the mouth more like a port so sip don't chug. It has a good honey smell and finishes slightly sweet but still has a low final gravity.
I make this one for christmas gifts every year. I bottle in regular beer bottles but caution drinkers in advance. Great desert drink.

I'm going to try some lighter cysers this season. Depending upon your taste, some folks use maple syrup, agave, or similar sugars to add to there ciders our to brew clean with water. Try what you liked and expirement whenever you can. Just remember it must be real sugars for the yeast to do it's business.

Isn't science great!

EHRod

Recipes 

Love the name!! "dude where's my pants?"... I might have to give this a go....although i might cut back on the brown sugar & honey to make something a little less desert and a little more chugable...thoughts?

Vox

Recipes 

This is ready to drink in a couple of months or only ready to bottle needing bottle conditioning? A bit lighter and less dessertlike sounds good to me. Agave sounds interesting. I too love the name.

PSUinDC

Recipes 

I'm going to revive this post to say that I just got done putting a batch of "Dude, where's my pants?" into the fermenter. First time using honey. Man, did that slurry of honey and brown sugar liquid smell GOOD. Also, because I like to use it in ciders, I steeped some vanilla black tea in the warming water before adding the sugars. Always gives a good background flavor.

This morning, it was bubbling away.

Vox

Recipes 

Any ideas on using agave instead of honey or where you referring to honey to ferment and agave to backsweeten?

Vox

Recipes 

Just made a batch of Dude Where's My Pants ceyser. Only used 2 lbs of dark brown sugar and used about 4.5 lbs of wildflower honey. Went with Tree Top 3 Apple Blend as it was a little better than normal Tree Top, but cost effective. Excited to try it.

Vox

Recipes 

Is this a slow starter? 18 hours since slapping the airlock on and no bubbling going on yet.

tracyt1800

Recipes 

My cyser took just over 48 hours to get started.

__________________
One beer is good.
Two beers is better.
Three beers is enough.
Four beers isn't half enough.

Vox

Recipes 

Ok thanks!