Honey and/or Cinnamon

Has anyone ever used either of these in there Cider. Im finished with me 1st attempt at brewing, and made Apfelwien. Turned out damn good. but now i wanna try something a little more involved.

If i use honey does it matter what kind? would it matter when it was added?

Same questions for cinnamon.

Well if you add honey to apple juice and ferment, you get a cyser. A cyser is a apple melomel, which is a fruit based mead. So technically you will end up with a apple mead, they are delicious.

Also, just with unfermented cider, cinnamon goes great with cider in my opinion. If you like mulled cider, using those spices in primary or secondary can make an excellent flavor profile.

Something I did a while ago:

3L of Apple juice (0.8 Gallons)
450g (1 lbs) honey (75% carbohydrate content, cloverhoney)
Bakers yeast (I **** you not!)

It bubbled ferociously for one week, after that I clarified it using bentonite and bottled. I bottled in Grolsch bottles without priming. After two months I had a delicious almost champagne-like beverage! Serve well chilled.

Just goes to show that brewer's don't always need the fancy yeasts.

I drop 2 cinnamon sticks in the primary for all of my apple batches. This last time instead of using dextrose, I used 1.25lbs wildflower and .25lbs buckwheat honey. Its in primary, clear, and getting ready for a keg. I did take a sample of it to test out backsweetening and its decent. In another 3 months it'll be fantastic.

Awsome thanx for the ideas

Tusch said:

Well if you add honey to apple juice and ferment, you get a cyser. A cyser is a apple melomel, which is a fruit based mead. So technically you will end up with a apple mead, they are delicious.

Also, just with unfermented cider, cinnamon goes great with cider in my opinion. If you like mulled cider, using those spices in primary or secondary can make an excellent flavor profile.

Click to expand...

Do you have a 5g recipe for your cyser? sounds great

+20 to cyser!

We used 4.5 gal of various apple juice (just make sure only preservative is ascorbic acid) and 1/2 gal of Killer Bee honey (dark and malty). Still in secondary (maybe 8 months now?), but the hydro sample went down way smooth. Used 2.5 tsp of Fermax and pumped about half of a 3068 cake from a beer into the carboy to pitch it.

We liked the hydro sample so much we did another one, where we also used a juicer to juice a dozen or so apples in addition to the store bought juice. Haven't tasted that one yet.

"pumped about half of a 3068 cake from a beer into the carboy to pitch it."


explain that pls? you dumped beer in there?

and whats fermax.