GF Hopped Cider Recipe Help

First cider attempt here. Going to try to make a gluten free hopped cider that my celiac friends can enjoy with a goal of making it "beer like".

Plan on making a 3 gallon batch using local pressed cider. Using S-04 or one of the other GF Dry Ale Yeasts. I'd like to hop it as well and was thinking of adding a dose of Cascade hops.

My hopping method would be to boil some water for 30mins with approx .5oz Cascade to achieve a light bitterness and add the cooled water directly to the juice. Does this need to be done prior to fermentation starting?

I would also like to bottle condition this to make a carbonated cider. Shooting for a dry, potentially tart/sour beer like cider depending on the type of apples the cider is made from.

Anything I'm missing? Thanks.

Others may disagree but basically what you are planning is to dilute your apple juice with water (albeit flavored with bittering hops). OK, I guess... but if it were me I would try to find a way to add hops without diluting the apple juice. I have made hopped cider before but what that meant was I added the hops to the "secondary" for about a week - so I got some aroma and some flavor but essentially no bittering. (you really cannot boil the AJ as you will set the pectins and produce jam rather than cider... (and if the jam does not "set" what you will get is a very hazy cider).
You might consider adding Nelson Sauvin hops (from New Zealand).
You might also consider adding tannins and oak to increase the tartness (rather than the bitterness) .
I have never made a gluten free beer but I have made apple ale (which uses malt) and here you can boil wort with hops but that does not "dilute" the AJ as much as add a new flavor to the apple juice. Perhaps you can use a gluten free grain to add body to your cider.
You prime the cider as if you were priming beer but as cider has no proteins there will be no significant head. It will be more like a sparkling wine. I generally add about 1 oz /gallon of sugar to prime my cider but if you simply wanted it petillant (slight effervescence) then you would use less sugar

Yeah I need to see how strong the OG for the cider is before figuring out how to overcome diluting it too much. I also considered using honey with the water to boil with the hops in lieu of regular DME. That will provide additional sugar to prevent dilution and add some complexity

Boil hops in water, chill water. Add apple juice concentrate to water per packaging specifications on to the desired OG to match cider OG. Add the resulting blend to your cider. Bingo no pectin haze, no dilution.


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If yo wanted to you could make it a GF graff by mashing some GF malt that is out there, and boiling per usual hopping, etc... And adding to the cider


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This is basically what I make for my celiac friend, who enjoys it immensely. I boil my hops in in one liter of apple juice, 3/4 of the hops for a half hour and 1/4 for two minutes, strain out the hops and add that to the rest of my apple juice before fermentation. Can't say I've ever had a problem with clarity after letting it sit in secondary.

I've only ever used cascade hops for my ciders. Hoping to get another kind after this bag is finished.

boiled .5oz of Cascade in about a half gallon of honey wort. About a pound of honey used. Smelled quite interesting, like hoppy honey tea, and tasted fine. Added to carboy with 3gal of pressed cider. Its happily fermenting away with some S-04 right now about 12 hrs after pitching the yeast

On day 6 now and after an obvious krausen from primary with the S-04, it looks like I've got a secondary fermentation going. Could this be malolactic fermentation? It resembles the bubbles and foam you get when making wine. No off smell or anything, but still bubbling away. I don't see anything that would tell me its infected.

Just bottled this. Real interesting flavor. Equal parts apple, beer and wine with a nice tart zip on your tongue.I'd expect this to have even more bite once carbed up.

FG was down to 1.000, undercarbed in case the yeast knock it down another point or two.