Total Cider Noob: Trying to create a caramel apple drink

Hello all,

I'm totally new to brewing and making cider, but I have some cool ideas floating around in my head that I'd like to try to make.

One of my favorite fall treats is a caramel apple from the local fall fair. I want to make a cider that will taste like this, but I have some questions.

I'm thinking of adding brown sugar and caramel (and maybe some nutmeg?) to my apple juice. Will the brown sugar and/or caramel ferment out? I have read that the caramel will not, but I'm not sure on the brown sugar. I want to have a cider that's "Hard and Fast", so it should be strong but very tasty.

Any and all suggestions/recipes would be great, as I'd like to start this soon, so it can age for 9 months!

For one thing, I believe there is such a recipe under the cider recipe subforum. I know there's one for a caramel apple mead, but that takes over a year, which is a long time to wait. Based on reading that one, and the caramel apple cider recipe I believe is kicking around though, it sounds like in order to get an enduring caramel flavor you'd want to use some Crystal 60L or 120L. I remember there was some debate about whether caramel would ferment out or not. Brown sugar definitely will. This sounds like a cider that could be great tasting if you left it still and backsweetened it, or did so then carbed up in a keg. Bottle carbing is difficult.

Also, if you are willing to let it age for 9 months, the caramel apple mead is a cyser that you might want to check out, under the mead recipes, this one is by summersolstice.

I'm sure others with more experience can be of more help though.

I will PM you some suggestions.

Forrest

If you don't want to go through the trouble of making caramel and adding it to the cider i have a site (https://www.lorannoils.com/p-8298-caramel-flavor.aspx) that sells water soluble caramel flavoring. I have a bottle of the caramel that i havent used yet, but i've opened it up and it smells AMAZING. 1 small bottle of that should be able to flavor up to 2-3 gallons maintain a good caramel flavor.

p.s. from what i've heard, the brown sugar in cider tends to ferment out into a butterscotch kind of flavor. Good luck with your cider and feel free to contact me if you have any questions about that flavoring.

I am interested in BaronIV's oil expiraments and that would be an easy solution in place of making the caramel yourself.

I made some caramel and added it to some juice and fermented it. SWMBO tried it and seemed to like it, then Sunday I came home from work and the gallon jug that was 3/4 full was now in the recycling bin. Yes, she was tanked and you could say that she liked it! Now I have to figure out how to make it in 5 gal batches.

Take a look here and let me know if you try it. I think 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water per 5gal would be a place to start(depending on how dry it would normally ferment out) and I don't think it wouldn't over sweeten it. As soon as I can find another 24 bottles I will backsweeten it with the 2 cups and re-post my findings.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/anyone-ever-use-caramel-cider-156046/index2.html

-ArXiX

as per my experiments, i made a 1 gallon batch with a single dram of butter rum extract in it. It's nearing its FG around 1.005 and the butter rum smell is almost overpowering (havent tasted yet). if i were to make a conclusion, i would say that one of those drams (of a stronger flavor like butterrum or caramel) should be sufficient for 2-3 gallons of cider.

If you go with the extracts that i posted i would reccomend adding 1 bottle to the primary for a 5 gallon batch and after it ferments add more as needed. just so you don't overshoot the caramel taste.

hope this helped