Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Champagne/Wine Yeast
Yeast Starter: Optional
Batch Size (Gallons): 1 Gal
Original Gravity: -
Final Gravity: -
Boiling Time (Minutes): 15mins
Color: Light gold
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): Until dry
Tasting Notes: Tastes like apples dunked in caramel and honey.

For a 1 gal batch:

Ingredients:
2 cups raw sugar (I would believe that the sugar is interchangeable, doesn't matter if it is white or brown)
250 ml honey
1 gal Apple Juice/Cider (preservative free)
Any standard wine/champagne yeast.

Method:
1. Add 2 cups sugar and 1/2 cup apple juice to a pan. Caramelise on medium heat for around 14 mins. NOTE: If you want this to be a clear cider, substitute JUICE for WATER.
2. Once sugar is caramelised, add to fermenter.
3. Pour half of your juice into the fermenter and SHAKE.
4. Add the rest of your juice.
5. Pitch yeast.
6. Ferment till dry, and yeast clears (see notes).
7. Add honey (Adding extra sugar is optional at this point, depends on your tastes) to a pan and caramelise to taste. (I used 15mins).
8. Siphon clear cider into clean fermenter and add half of your cider and the honey mixture from step 6.
9. MIX, MIX, MIX, MIX. I ended up mixing for almost half an hour to get it all to homogenise. Be wary that your cider may still be releasing CO2, so release the pressure often. Once you have mixed in the honey/sugar solution, add the remaining cider.
10. Bottle and pasteurise.

Notes (READ):
The sugar mixture will take a long while to mix in both times. It is more important to mix in the sugar at the latter part of the recipe, as the yeast will eat the sugar not in solution during primary fermentation.

Ferment till dry and yeast clears. If you have used apple juice with your sugar mixture, your cider will not completely clear, I would suggest using a hydrometer and wait for stable readings.

Do NOT burn your honey or sugar. This will most likely ruin your pot, and will smell and taste awful. That being said, watch for splashes and remember that the sugar will continue to caramelise after you remove it from the heat.

Essential Reading:
Pappers_ pasteurisation thread which is stickied at the top of the cider forum. I do not know how this would go being dry, but the flavours are complemented as a sweet cider.


Finally, I did not take gravity measurements, but I would hesitate a guess of a final ABV at 9%. This is the single best cider I have made to date. It tastes like I am drinking apples dunked in caramel, with a honey aftertaste. It is SO smooth. I had a sample of it as I was mixing and ended up going through a whole 750 ml bottle. BE CAREFUL with this stuff, it's dangerous because it is so smooth, even straight out of primary.