Craisin Hard Cider

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Brann_mac_Finnchad

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3 gallons of Treetop crisp cider
4.5 cups of white sugar (brown would work too
1 package of Nottingham brewer’s yeast
About 1/3rd pound of craisins

Soak the yeast in some cider. I boiled the sugar in some cider until it reached the soft ball stage (could cook longer. Mix two gallons of cider into the sugar syrup, then pitch everything into the carboy, and add craisins.

OG is 1.068 plus whatever comes out of the craisins.

Fermented at room temp (70ish degrees) for 2 weeks, cold crashed when slightly above the desired finished SG, siphoned off and pasturized in a large (enameled) pot before bottling.
 
When I make my Cran Cider this fall I am going to use craisins for one batch. I never thought of using them, that's a really good idea.
 
The OP didn't let his cider ferment out dry to reserve some residual sweetness. He pasteurized to kill off the yeast cells so he didn't end up with bottle bombs. Instead of pasteurizing you could also use campden tablets to stop the yeast but some people would rather not add chemicals to their creations.
If you would want carbonated cider you could bottle and when it had carbed up enough you could pasteurize in the bottle. There is a sticky in the Cider forum by Pappers that explains the particulars of that process.
 
I have basically had three 26ltr (7 gallon) barrells of apple juice, added a sachet of yeast per barrell and 500gr - 1kg of sugar per barrell.... then I just let it brew until it stopped burbling. In first case warmer weather and it was done in a month. 2nd brew was colder so took longer.... My question is this a problem. I
notice with most of these recipes they say bottle in 2 weeks.....
I added a teaspoon of sugar per bottle and capped to get carbonation. My starting SPG is about 1.03 - 1.05 the finish is .9 ish...
 
Nope. I pasteurized at a lower temperature, and while there was probably some loss, it wasn't heated long enough to loose too much. I also kept the pot tightly sealed when heating (a pressure cooker might be even better, but hard to take the temperature of).
 
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