Ideas for—and some help with—cyser

Hey, I'm going to be brewing up a 1 gallon batch of cyser this weekend. I'll be picking up the apple cider from a local orchard tonight, but I have a few questions before I get to brewing.

Is there any consensus on the best yeast to use for cyser? I'm thinking Lalvin 71B will make it nice and dry.

There's a ton from the apple trees in the yard, so what about doing the primary ferment over some apple slices? Has anyone done this? Would it wreck the flavor, or make the apples stand out more?

Most of what I'm going to be doing with this is up in the air as of now. I haven't even bought the honey yet. Decisiveness for the win.

Thanks in advance

I made a cyser last fall and have only sampled a bottle or two thus far but I am happy with it. Excited to try it now that it has some age on it.

Here's my recipe...

8 lbs local clover honey
4 gallons local unpasteurized cider
1 lbs brown sugar
1/2tsp Wyeast nutrient
1 5g packet D47, rehydrated in 2oz 107deg water

5 Golden Delicious Apples
5 Ida Red Apples

Staggered nutrients throughout first 3 days of fermentation

OG: 1.130
FG: 1.002

Based on the research I did at the time I went with D47, but I don't think you could go wrong with 71B. Also I added some apples into my primary but honestly can't say they added anything taste wise but I suspect they added additional sugars and nutrient because this one got to 17%.

Sorry. Forgot to mention that I'm fairly new at brewing, and I'm sorry if what's being asked here is answered in the FAQs, but my work firewall won't let me open PDFs from sites that our IT guys don't like.

Anyway...

I take it your batch size was 5 gallons? I'm only going to be trying a 1-gallon batch, so knowing the size will help me scale things.

What exactly are staggered nutrients? So I should add the nutrient a little bit every day? What happens if I overdo it?

Did you core and peel the apples, or include the cores and skins?

Could I just increase the cider/water ratio instead of adding brown sugar?

I would leave the skins on if they are not waxed apples andeither remove the skins or remove the wax from the skins if they do have wax on them. You will want to crush or finely chop the apples to aid with extraction and use pectin enzyme if you are wanting the final product to be clear. You could increase the ratio of cider to make up for the brown sugar but it will change the flavor, possibly in a good way.

Yeah sorry that was a 5 gallon batch. I did core the apples but did leave the skins on.

Do a search for SNA (staggered nutrient addition) and you should come up with some helpful info. I take a very unscientific approach and add 1/4 tsp of nutrient (DAP) for the first 3 days.

And yes you do not need to add brown sugar...my sole reason for doing so was to up the ABV.

Brewing day!
So for this 1-gallon batch I've got:

1 Gallon local apple cider
3 lbs local wildflower honey (The local general store has everything)
1 packet Lalvin 71B yeast
10 apples of unknown type (probably some sort of Macintosh cross). The apples were rather small, so that's why so many of them.
½ tsp pectic enzyme
¼ tsp yeast nutrient

Process:
Immerse the honey (while still in the bottles) in warm water. This makes it flow a lot easier when adding it to the pot.
Put the cider in the stockpot and heat to 130° while adding the honey.
Keep temp steady at 130°, stirring constantly to keep temperature even for 30 minutes.
Set aside to let cool to around 75°
Add yeast nutrient & pectic enzyme. Stir to dissolve
Add yeast
Skin and core the apples, then cut to tiny bits and put in bottom of primary fermenter.
Add must to fermenter.
Aerate
Put in airlock.
add ¼ tsp yeast nutrient for the next 2 days
Rack in 6-8 weeks.

Okay, so I'm 2 weeks into primary fermentation, and it's still bubbling along nicely. But I'm getting a lot of sediment. Much more than I did when I did my other batches of mead. Is this normal?

I recently did a cyser too, the cider I used was not pasteurized and I did a no boil on it. The cider in the jug (like all cider in the n/a sense) was cloudy like all I've seen. It has dropped clear.I would suspect that extra sediment might be all of the pulp and what not that was in the cider.

PaddyMurphy said:

Skin and core the apples, then cut to tiny bits and put in bottom of primary fermenter.

Click to expand...

That's why you have so much more sediment; and yes, for that process, that's normal. Regards, GF.

I racked it to secondary today. Had some problems with the jury rigged filter, and wound up with more sediment and apple bits suspended in the secondary than I'd like. I figure it'll settle out in a month or so.

I forgot to check the OG, but the SG now is 1.000 or pretty damn close. Snuck a mouthful or two and found it quite tart.

Okay, so I re-racked the cyser today. SG is still at 1.000, but I forgot to get an IG reading, so that doesn't mean much except it's probably done fermenting. Anyway, here's a picture of it before I racked.


I think that's looking pretty good.

looks good, is it still pretty tart?

I neglected to sneak a taste, sorry.

I did a 5 gallon batch about 35 days ago, just racked into secondary. OG: 1.138 FG: 1.019. I used Lalvin ICV D47 yeast.

Its bitter as hell, but should mellow in the next few months.