Toffee Apple Cider

Plenty of research has answered my question, so here's my recipe. If anyone wants to try this one with me, it'd be fantastic. It's derived from Apfelwein a little, of course, but with some significant changes and additions. I need a tad more research before the steeping stage, but this should be interesting

Rob's Toffee Apple Cider

1 Gallon 100% Organic Apple Juice (5x 1 Litre Cartons)
500g Honey
Montrachet Wine Yeast or Champagne Yeast
1tsp Yeast Nutrient
Vanilla Pods
Cinnamon Sticks

First, collect empty bottles, preferably pints. This is likely to make a great gift.

Heat the honey in a pan until it's dark in colour, and the smell resembles candy floss/marshmallows. At this point, add 1 carton of Apple Juice and stir thoroughly until all honey is dissolved.

When cool enough, add all ingredients to a demi-john, check FG, and seal with airlock. Add corn sugar or honey if you want it stronger. Allow to ferment and settle out.

When fermentation is complete, check FG. Rack into secondary. Degass.

Wrap Vanilla and Cinnamon in small seperate muslin bags, and suspend in the cider. Check taste every few days.

When taste is to your liking, add 28g priming sugar (I'm using Glucose) to the demi-john, stir thoroughly and degass again.

Bottle into pint bottles, passing through a muslin filter to avoid any solids. Age in the bottle for as long as you can bear to not drink them!

Click to expand...

I'm thinking ahead here, so putting a brew on ready for Halloween - a Toffee Apple Cider.

Brother's do a fantastic version of this, the main elements being Apple Cider, Cream Soda Flavour and Toffee Flavour. Cream Soda is Vanilla, so it's just a case of a toffee flavour and a vanilla flavour in a standard cider (carbonated Apfelwein, naturally.)

I'm thinking of brewing a basic apfelwein as per the recipe and adding the flavours afterwards, so the extra flavours are very obvious and pure, and not their fermented counterparts. Essence is generally pretty rubbish in my opinion, so I'd rather steep or add the ingredients. Vanilla is fine steeping, but I'm unsure how to add the toffee flavour to be honest. I'm also wondering what sugar to use, as I think honey, molasses or light brown cane may give a much more complimentary flavour than glucose.

So, ideas for Toffee flavour addition is what I'm after. I'll write up a recipe once I've decided how to add the toffee

I've never had a toffee apple, they're not popular at all in Australia. Maybe try some molasses or burnt honey for a toffee flavour?

Could you heat and dissolve some actual toffee?

^ I've read about that, but the general consensus seems to be that it added almost nothing. I do want an obvious sweet toffee flavour too

Molasses or burnt honey could be good. One method seems to be to reduce a small portion of the juice pre-fermentation, ie 1/5 would be about right in this case, until the sugar in the juice caramelizes. Because the sugar's still there, topping back up to 1Gl with water won't affect your OG but it will supply a toffee flavour, as it's burnt.

updated - recipe ready

I thought apfelwine did ask for extra sugar? Eitherway post back with the results, I realy liked the brothers toffee apple cider till my local stopped serving it!

Upon closer examination, it does. *edits*

That should be plenty of alcohol to get a buzz on, but we'll see what the OG comes out as

Caramelized molasess might give you some toffee-like flavour, but I think you'd have better results if you also steeped some crystal grains (60L and/or 120L) and used an ale yeast. You might find this thread useful:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/caramel-apple-cider-61257/
Regards, GF.

^ Crystal grains might not be a bad idea, so I'll look into them. Thanks for the recommendation

This is on now. I had an Einstein moment at the supermarket, and decided to add a tin of pear halves in to try and achieve the apple-pear taste that brothers is known for. I only ended up using 4 liters of apple juice and 500g honey, and it's nice and full. OG is a massive 1060, although FG may be high because of the use of honey. It's likely to end up being around 6.5%-7%, but could reach as high as 8.5% if it ferments out at 0.996 :s

Oh well...all is well, so bottoms up!

2 hours, active fermentation. Boosh! It's on the left in the first photo, and at the back on the second.

Right, just had my first taste of this, cloudy and roughly blended with apple juice to backsweeten and vanilla extract to add the vanilla flavour.

It's really bloody nice but a little bit tart. Definitely a lot of difference to the Apfelwein, and there's a lot of body in there too, I can still taste it 5 minutes on. When this has cleared and aged I think it's going to be amazing! Gonna kill it tomorrow, crash it out and bottle it. But - it seems to have stopped at 1.010, and it's almost definitely finished fermenting - no kreuzen, no airlock bubbles, no change. What could have caused that, non-fermentables in the burnt honey?

I'm really afraid to cook the honey. What kind of pot do you cook it in that's going to be good for the honey as well as large enough for the liquid? I've got a 2 gallon carboy that I really want to try this in. Also, what do you think about placing these spices in a hops bag after the 1st rack?
* 1 tsp. whole allspice
* 1 tsp. whole cloves
* 1 3" cinnamon stick

I just used a large regular saucepan, but make sure you use a relatively big one, as it starts foaming a fair bit. Don't be afraid, just cook it gently enough so it's constantly being heated through but not boiled - it'll still turn dark and get that toasty flavour. Once the juice and honey are mixed, the froth will disappear and you just pour it into the carboy.

As for the extra ingredients, it's totally up to you, but this is quite flavorsome as it is and adding winter spice ingredients might turn it into a bit of a mess. Plus, in my opinion, it'll be too "wintery" - and you want to bust this out on halloween/bonfire night really, I reakon

Just had a taste, it's having a little trouble settling so i've filtered it through a muslin bag - there's a lot of stuff in the bottom on this one! It real,ly is something special, like a really good perry you can only find in local shops in somerset, with a buttery/toffee taste just below it...gotta put another one on tomorrow!