"Winey" Cider

As many of you who have made and tried lots of ciders can attest, some are much more "winey" than others. From experience, I've found that ABV% isn't a good indicator of this factor: I've had winey 4% ciders and ciders at 8% that weren't.

I've found I prefer my cider to taste more like the juice before fermentation (less winey). Before my next batch I wanted to hear if anyone has had similar experiences or has any suggestions on making less winey ciders (yeast, added sugar types/amounts, juice source, etc).

I don't do cider, but maybe a yeast that doesn't finish too low is what you are looking for.

I don't know what a 'winey' cider is. I'm sure you are not describing a problem, but it produces images of bacterial infection.

One piece is the apples you use.... There are quite a few apples that produce a more "Wine" tasting cider and many others that produce a more "Appley" tasting cider...

The other piece is how dry you ferment it out... Fermenting completely dry, allowing malo-lactic fermentation, and then long term aging produces more of a "Wine" flavor to me.. Kinda like a chardonnay... Fermenting to 1.02 or 1.01 sg and then stopping it with sorbate or pasteurizing, and then drinking it as soon as it clears and tastes good again tends to leave the malic acid intact along with the sweetness and it makes more of an apple cider flavor cider to me... not as much like wine

Thanks

John

Thanks John that was exactly what I was looking for. I also used an ale yeast this time instead of monrachet or one of the other wine yeasts, just to see if it would help.

Yeah - Montrachet isn't a good choice for cider.... You can end up with lots of strange flavors...

Thanks

Another point few people make is... cider naturally tastes more like wine than apples if allowed to ferment out. Similar to grape wines, they usually taste nothing like grapes.

The ciders and grape wines that taste like the fresh fruit are usually those back sweetened with a concentrate of some kind. The most user friendly champagne cider I make is made by using my own fresh cider concentrate to sweeten a L-1118 13-14% cider. Tastes like you think apple champagne should, with a nice warm feeling in the throat (13-14%ABV ha)

If you halt the fermentation before it ferments dry, you can typically get a little more appley notes to prevail, but the cider is considered a little less stable, in most cases, than one that has fermented dry and gone through a malolactic fermentation. If you are using store bought juice you won't have a malo ferment unless you buy a strain and introduce it.

Try an ale yeast, and cold crash an rack off into sorbate and sulphites when you reach about 1.010-1.030 for a dry-sweet finish. Try adding small amounts of malic acid (the acid naturally found in apples) to get that granny smith green apple zing.

All your favorite commercial ciders are made by getting high octane hooch, then adding water and backsweetening with apple concentrate, adding malic acid and then force carbing (Woodchuck, hornsby, strongbow, etc.)

Choice of added sugar has a huge effect on winey flavor... regular sugar (cane/beet) and agave give a very "nectary" taste. Recently I've been playing around with tapioca dextrose (from natures flavors) and rice sugars (syrup, dried solids, clear syrup) and they have been giving very clean flavors.

A quick fermentation also helps retain the original juice flavor.

CiderMaster, "All your favorite commercial ciders are made by getting high octane hooch, then adding water and backsweetening with apple concentrate, adding malic acid and then force carbing (Woodchuck, hornsby, strongbow, etc.)

Are you saying commercial ciders aren't fermented apple juice?

patriqq said:

Choice of added sugar has a huge effect on winey flavor... regular sugar (cane/beet) and agave give a very "nectary" taste. Recently I've been playing around with tapioca dextrose (from natures flavors) and rice sugars (syrup, dried solids, clear syrup) and they have been giving very clean flavors.

A quick fermentation also helps retain the original juice flavor.

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I respectfully don't agree with either of these statements. Constant fermentation temp is crucial to good tasting ciders, but speed has nothing to do with it in my experience.

Additionally, in my experience, corn sugar (dextrose), sugar cane (sucrose), brown sugar, sugar in the raw, i.e. sucrose or even fructose have virtually none if any detectable flavor profile after the initial fermentation.

Now DME does have a slight flavor, but only as it ages out into the 5-6week+ mark IMO. At 6+ weeks you start to notice a marked increase in malty flavor.

To be fair I have never tried tapioca dextrose, but I would never describe the flavor or regular sugars (dextrose, sucrose, fructose) as nectary in the resultant apple hooch. Then again to each his own palate. I was a professional chef for many years of my life, so I trust my palate.

winewit said:

CiderMaster, "All your favorite commercial ciders are made by getting high octane hooch, then adding water and backsweetening with apple concentrate, adding malic acid and then force carbing (Woodchuck, hornsby, strongbow, etc.)

Are you saying commercial ciders aren't fermented apple juice?

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No I am saying they are made from high octane hooch = fermented apple juice to High ABV.

They take apple juice and add sugars, (sucrose), and ferment it out (now you have apple wine). Then back the ABV off with water and juice conentrate to get the sweetness and apple flavor back in there.

Try doing this with a home cider - you will get a woodchuck clone, pretty good if you like woodchuck