Wedding cider

My sister's wedding is coming up in August, and as a wedding gift I was planning on brewing enough beer for the entire wedding. Since then I've considered a good cider instead, since half the attendees wouldn't appreciate a good beer, but might enjoy a tasty cider.

I'm thinking 6-8% ABV, with a good fruity apple taste to it with plenty of residual sweetness. It would also help if the ingredients were cheap and easily accessible.

Any ideas?

At this point in time, you should stick to 5%. Anything stronger won't be ready. If you want cheap, use frozen concentrate.

For my upcoming wedding (Saturday) I made 3 gallons of Apfelwein and cut with 2 gallons of fresh juice for those who like sweeter drinks. It turned out very good and didn't need to age that long. I pitched 2/22 and kegged 2 weeks ago.

Apple juice + Wyeast 3068 = Fantastic! I could have had mine bottled and carbed within 2 months very easily. I experienced some strange peanut butter flavours/aromas with mine though.

david_42 said:

At this point in time, you should stick to 5%. Anything stronger won't be ready.

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I agree with david_42 here

just a Juice and yeast cider, use an Ale yeast to keep some sweetness to it
if you want change is up some make several batches and add a can of different juice (Pear, Peach,) concentrate in the secondary

also,

Here is a quick to do light tasting beer
I use this as the base to a fruit beer SWMBO likes,
My MGD drinking friends love it !

Style: Blonde Ale
TYPE: Extract
Taste: (35.0) BMC ale
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Estimated ABV: 4.90%
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated FG: 1.012 SG
Estimated Color: 6.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 8.2 IBU
Boil Time: 30 Minutes
Ingredients:
------------
Amount________Item_____________________________Type______________ % or IBU
6 lbs 10 oz .....Pilsner LiquidExtract[Boil for 20 min] .......Extract ...................80.00 %
1 lbs 10 oz .....Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)....Grain ......................20.00 %
0.75 oz ..........Fuggles [4.50 %] (20 min) ...................Hops........................ 6.1 IBU
1 Pkgs........... Nottingham (Danstar #-) .....................Yeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: None
Total Grain Weight: 8.26lb
----------------------------
Steep grains as desired (30-60 minutes)



Hope it helps out

Anyone have a good ready-made recipe?

david_42 said:

At this point in time, you should stick to 5%. Anything stronger won't be ready. If you want cheap, use frozen concentrate.

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Wrong, go with the Graff recipe and don't use the hops. For the general public who's pallet isn't developed for good beer character, they probably won't appreciate hops.

About 8% and scary drinkable with a TON of apple flavor.

Brewster2256 said:

Anyone have a good ready-made recipe?

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Yes, go the the recipes section, under cider. Make some Graff, it's soooooo good after 10-14 days of fermentation and 2-3 weeks in the bottle. If you keg, it great after a week in the keg.

You can't believe how much of a crowd pleaser this stuff it, best apple cider ever.

If you are catering for people that don't enjoy beer in general, then I'd have to stray away from any cider that contains malt, especally any darker malts. I've done a batch of malted cider before, my beer drinking friends kinda liked it (but prefer just to have beer), but my cider-loving friends didn't approve at all.

Pretty much the only way (IMHO) to have something ready in time that would appeal to non-beer people would be to make up a batch of cider and sweeten it with non-fermentables, (eg stevia, splenda, lactose, etc.) or to kill off the yeast, backsweeten then keg. you really should have started cider months ago if that was your plan. YMMV.

use straight apple juice with s-04. Should be able to get it for about $4 per gallon. If you want to raise the AVB use apple juice concentrate.

Use around 30oz per 6 gallons of concentrate to sweeten.

nickmpower said:

use straight apple juice with s-04. Should be able to get it for about $4 per gallon. If you want to raise the AVB use apple juice concentrate.

Use around 30oz per 6 gallons of concentrate to sweeten.

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+1 on the S-04. Best yeast for easy-drinking cider.

Still making the cider, but decided to add an ale or two.

Bought 10 gallons of apple juice w/o preservatives, 4 cans of apple concentrate and a white labs cider yeast. Threw in 1/2 ounce of yeast nutrient, 4lbs of sucrose and juiced a lemon. Fermenting in a ~11 gallon trash can as we speak.
Initial gravity: 1.07

What do you guys think of the label?

Looks really good, recipe and label.

The cider is now bottled in 1 gallon growlers (which despite any debate involved in their use, seem to hold their Co2 and pressure fine), and has ~1.00 gravity. They came out pretty dry, and due to the type of apple juice I used, didn't come out with a lot of flavor. To compensate for the lack of flavor, and to both carbonate it and sweeten it, I thought of adding apple concentrate to each of the growlers a few days before the wedding, allowing the yeast to metabolize a partial amount of sugar, while still leaving a considerable amount of residual sweetness.

Now my question is concerning the amount of apple concentrate juice to use, and how long prior to the wedding it should be added to end up with an eventual medium between sweetness and Co2. The wedding is on August 1st.

Brewster2256 said:

The cider is now bottled in 1 gallon growlers (which despite any debate involved in their use, seem to hold their Co2 and pressure fine), and has ~1.00 gravity. They came out pretty dry, and due to the type of apple juice I used, didn't come out with a lot of flavor. To compensate for the lack of flavor, and to both carbonate it and sweeten it, I thought of adding apple concentrate to each of the growlers a few days before the wedding, allowing the yeast to metabolize a partial amount of sugar, while still leaving a considerable amount of residual sweetness.

Now my question is concerning the amount of apple concentrate juice to use, and how long prior to the wedding it should be added to end up with an eventual medium between sweetness and Co2. The wedding is on August 1st.

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I'd be weary of adding extra fermentables only a few days before the wedding. Doing so might rouse a lot of the yeast and you could end up with a cloudy and yeasty tasting cider. Personally I'd just hit it with campden tablets and add the concentrate to taste before bottling and sticking it in the fridge. You wouldn't have a sparkling cider (forgive me if that was one of the original criteria) although you'd have a very palatable still cider with an alcoholic content to boot!

SeamusMac said:

I'd be weary of adding extra fermentables only a few days before the wedding. Doing so might rouse a lot of the yeast and you could end up with a cloudy and yeasty tasting cider. Personally I'd just hit it with campden tablets and add the concentrate to taste before bottling and sticking it in the fridge. You wouldn't have a sparkling cider (forgive me if that was one of the original criteria) although you'd have a very palatable still cider with an alcoholic content to boot!

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Was hoping for some sparkle, otherwise your idea sounds great.
How about racking it a couple times before the addition of more concentrate?