oaking your cider

divi2323 · 12-14-2011, 09:15 AM

Added 4oz American oak heavy toasted cubes to a batch of cider. Anyone here oak their stuff? How much, how long, any words of wisdom? Planning to ferment to dry and carb using priming sugar

GinKings · 12-14-2011, 10:12 AM

What's your batch size? 4 oz sounds like a lot if it's a 5 gallon batch. I typically use 2-2.5 oz per 5 gallon batch and leave it in there for 2-3 months. I add it in secondary because primary isn't long enough.

LeBreton · 12-14-2011, 02:25 PM

Take it easy on the oak IMO. The delicate apple aromas in cider can be easily over overwhelmed by heavier flavors. I put an medium toast oak spiral in a batch I recently started and pulled it after only 12 days. Hoping the oak mellows as the cider matures since it's just shy of too strong for me.

ajbram · 12-14-2011, 03:11 PM

I recently added almost half a pound of lightly toasted applewood chips to a 2.5 gallon batch. I added them to the secondary and they were there for about a week. I passed the cider through a filter between secondary and bottling bucket to get any suspended wood bits out, and backsweetened and primed with 250mL of organic apple juice and 2tsp cane sugar per gallon of cider.

At first I was concerned that I over-wooded this, but now that it has mellowed for a month it's wonderful. There is less woody flavour than a medium wooded wine. More of an aroma and the suggestion of toasty applewood on the tongue. The cider finishes crisp and clean, which I think is the reason that it doesn't seem too woody. If the finish wasn't as clean the wood flavour would build through the drink.

I should point out that I had a great mix of wild apples (backyard grown grannies and macs, and some yellow crabs from the park down the road), did some very unorthodox things prior to fermenting, and used Lalvin EC-1118.

The result though speaks for itself. This is by far my favourite cider.