Help me clone a sweet cider

GeorgeH · 08-20-2009, 06:28 PM

Most of the cider recipes I've seen say they are pretty dry, I'd like to try to brew a sweeter cider. My SWMBO is particularly fond of J.K. Scrumpy and I want to make something similar. Here's my plan:

Get a bottle of Scrumpy and fill my hydrometer sample glass (don't worry, I'll properly dispose of the rest

). After it goes flat and warms up to room temperature, take a hydrometer reading to find out the final gravity. Then, work backwards from the alcohol content (8.5% I think) to work out the original gravity.

Put 5 gallons of apple juice in my carboy, mix in the appropriate amount of honey to reach my O.G. and then pitch a sweet mead yeast. Take hydrometer samples every day and when I hit my F.G. stop fermentation by cold crashing and racking to secondary. Let it clear, then keg & force carb.

So what do you think of my plan as a whole? And do you have any other recommendations for yeast or stopping fermentation?

Alternatively, I was thinking of just making a standard cider recipe and back-sweetening to taste with apple juice, but I'm afraid of that re-starting fermentation.

jcobbs · 08-20-2009, 06:42 PM

If you make a dry cider and hit it with campden and potassium sorbate, you should be able to backsweeten without restarting your fermentation. Or backsweeten with a non-fermentable sugar.

**Brandon O** · 08-20-2009, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeH

Most of the cider recipes I've seen say they are pretty dry, I'd like to try to brew a sweeter cider. My SWMBO is particularly fond of J.K. Scrumpy and I want to make something similar. Here's my plan:

Get a bottle of Scrumpy and fill my hydrometer sample glass (don't worry, I'll properly dispose of the rest

). After it goes flat and warms up to room temperature, take a hydrometer reading to find out the final gravity. Then, work backwards from the alcohol content (8.5% I think) to work out the original gravity.

Put 5 gallons of apple juice in my carboy, mix in the appropriate amount of honey to reach my O.G. and then pitch a sweet mead yeast. Take hydrometer samples every day and when I hit my F.G. stop fermentation by cold crashing and racking to secondary. Let it clear, then keg & force carb.

So what do you think of my plan as a whole? And do you have any other recommendations for yeast or stopping fermentation?

Alternatively, I was thinking of just making a standard cider recipe and back-sweetening to taste with apple juice, but I'm afraid of that re-starting fermentation.

It will taste like white wine.

If you want something that actually tastes like cider should make some Graff.

We all feel ripped off when apple juice and yeast is supposed to make cider, and it technically does, but it tastes like white wine.

Graff is the solution my friend. Read about it in the recipes section or the various thread in this forum.

GeorgeH · 08-20-2009, 07:26 PM

I was looking at Graff but then I read this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon O

It's not a sweet cider by any means. You ever had woodchuck cider or strongbow? I would say it's a bit dryer than those, but not nearly as dry as apfelwein.

Any tips on making it sweeter? Add a bit more DME?

Freezeblade · 08-20-2009, 08:14 PM

you have the setup for doing a sweet cider that most don't (kegging setup). So I say go ahead! Although it is really hard to stop fermentation once it starts, the route I'd go is the following:

Ferment the Juice down to dryness using an ale yeast (s-04, us-05, notty all work great), then campden and potassium sorbate it to kill off the yeast, then backsweeten with honey/sugar/concentrate to the desired FG, keg and force-carb.

homebrewer_99 · 08-20-2009, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freezeblade

you have the setup for doing a sweet cider that most don't (kegging setup). So I say go ahead! Although it is really hard to stop fermentation once it starts, the route I'd go is the following:

Ferment the Juice down to dryness using an ale yeast (s-04, us-05, notty all work great), then campden and potassium sorbate it to kill off the yeast, then backsweeten with honey/sugar/concentrate to the desired FG, keg and force-carb.

I agree with this method if you keg.

GeorgeH · 08-24-2009, 02:58 AM

Well I took the hydrometer reading.

The F.G. of the cider and at 72 degrees F it was 1.038! I said it was sweet! The cider is 6% ABV so by my estimate the O.G. was 1.083. Since apple juice is about 1.045 either they're adding another sugar or back-sweetening.

I also noticed there was yeast in the bottle. That's a little surprising to me since at 1.038 there should be plenty of sugar in the bottle which would lead to bottle bombs. Since that's not happening, the only thing I can come up with is that their yeast can't go above 6% and they're back-sweetening.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a wimpy yeast that can't go above 6%? Or any other general heckling? Right now I'm thinking of brewing Graff and then back-sweetening with concentrate.

HokieBrewer · 08-24-2009, 06:38 PM

The JK Scrumpy's owner posted in here a while back answering some of the same questions you have. Search around and see if you can find it.

GeorgeH · 08-24-2009, 07:25 PM

Thanks HokieBrewer, I found the thread you're talking about: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/jk-scrumpy-83719/#post892890

It looks like you just have to take it slow at a cool temp. Maybe I'll start 2 batches, one to backsweeten and the other to ferment slowly. The good news is that SWMBO will insist I build a lagering box when she finds out that's how Scrumpy comes out so sweet.

CvilleKevin · 08-24-2009, 09:41 PM

Cold crashing will leave you with plenty of residual sugar, although it appears that JKS uses slow fermentation and nitrogen reduction in order to bottle condition their cider sweet - same as many French cider makers. For more info, see: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/anyone-sucessfully-done-jk-scrumpys-clone-125852/