ceyser recipe ?

Is ceyser essentially just cider with honey used to boost the abv? How does the taste differ? Anyone have a good recipe?

Pretty much yes, cyser is a brew where the sugar comes from apple juice and honey. Now there are a lyt of technical definitions you can get into as well. But that is close enough. You can get into knockdown brawls over whether it is cider with honey our mead with apples, regardless it is good.

As to recipes, generally speaking the strength can be anywhere from 6-16% depending upon the amount of honey (and other sugar source you use). The more honey added the more honey flavor. And you do taste the honey provided you have added enough. Just like ciders there are plenty of different flavors to honey so choose wisely and maybe check out a thread or two in the mead forum to pick one.

I make a batch I call "Dude where's my pants!"
Start with 4 1/2 gallons of good juice. And campden and do whatever chemistry you prefer to get it ready to go.
Next, get a half gallon of something like motts or some other clear able juice to heat (i don't like heating good juice because it affects the constancy and flavor IMO). To the heated juice add 4# of dark brown sugar and 4# of orange blossom honey. Make sure it has all desolved. Take off the heat and cool.
When everything is ready add all the juice together in 5 gallon carboy. Pitch good champagne yeast (personal preferences is white labs wlp 715, always works for me).
Sit back and watch.
I rack after a month and rack again or bottle, depending upon clarity, after another month.

This cyser is high in alcohol and thick in the mouth more like a port so sip don't chug. It has a good honey smell and finishes slightly sweet but still has a low final gravity.
I make this one for christmas gifts every year. I bottle in regular beer bottles but caution drinkers in advance. Great desert drink.

I'm going to try some lighter cysers this season. Depending upon your taste, some folks use maple syrup, agave, or similar sugars to add to there ciders our to brew clean with water. Try what you liked and expirement whenever you can. Just remember it must be real sugars for the yeast to do it's business.

Isn't science great!

Love the name!! "dude where's my pants?"... I might have to give this a go....although i might cut back on the brown sugar & honey to make something a little less desert and a little more chugable...thoughts?

Greghark said:

Pretty much yes, cyser is a brew where the sugar comes from apple juice and honey. Now there are a lyt of technical definitions you can get into as well. But that is close enough. You can get into knockdown brawls over whether it is cider with honey our mead with apples, regardless it is good.

As to recipes, generally speaking the strength can be anywhere from 6-16% depending upon the amount of honey (and other sugar source you use). The more honey added the more honey flavor. And you do taste the honey provided you have added enough. Just like ciders there are plenty of different flavors to honey so choose wisely and maybe check out a thread or two in the mead forum to pick one.

I make a batch I call "Dude where's my pants!"
Start with 4 1/2 gallons of good juice. And campden and do whatever chemistry you prefer to get it ready to go.
Next, get a half gallon of something like motts or some other clear able juice to heat (i don't like heating good juice because it affects the constancy and flavor IMO). To the heated juice add 4# of dark brown sugar and 4# of orange blossom honey. Make sure it has all desolved. Take off the heat and cool.
When everything is ready add all the juice together in 5 gallon carboy. Pitch good champagne yeast (personal preferences is white labs wlp 715, always works for me).
Sit back and watch.
I rack after a month and rack again or bottle, depending upon clarity, after another month.

This cyser is high in alcohol and thick in the mouth more like a port so sip don't chug. It has a good honey smell and finishes slightly sweet but still has a low final gravity.
I make this one for christmas gifts every year. I bottle in regular beer bottles but caution drinkers in advance. Great desert drink.

I'm going to try some lighter cysers this season. Depending upon your taste, some folks use maple syrup, agave, or similar sugars to add to there ciders our to brew clean with water. Try what you liked and expirement whenever you can. Just remember it must be real sugars for the yeast to do it's business.

Isn't science great!

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This is ready to drink in a couple of months or only ready to bottle needing bottle conditioning? A bit lighter and less dessertlike sounds good to me. Agave sounds interesting. I too love the name.

I'm going to revive this post to say that I just got done putting a batch of "Dude, where's my pants?" into the fermenter. First time using honey. Man, did that slurry of honey and brown sugar liquid smell GOOD. Also, because I like to use it in ciders, I steeped some vanilla black tea in the warming water before adding the sugars. Always gives a good background flavor.

This morning, it was bubbling away.

Any ideas on using agave instead of honey or where you referring to honey to ferment and agave to backsweeten?

Just made a batch of Dude Where's My Pants ceyser. Only used 2 lbs of dark brown sugar and used about 4.5 lbs of wildflower honey. Went with Tree Top 3 Apple Blend as it was a little better than normal Tree Top, but cost effective. Excited to try it.

Is this a slow starter? 18 hours since slapping the airlock on and no bubbling going on yet.

My cyser took just over 48 hours to get started.

Ok thanks!

I put some nutrients in there to help out as well.

Here is my recipe, I use Staggered nutirent additions also.

Start with 3 Gal of Cider and pitch wyeast 3787, let it grow to a strong healtlhy fermentation, 2-3 days. Add 6.5 lbs of honey and let it do its thing. About a week. When it starts slowing down, start a 2 gallon batch of cider with 2 pounds of honey in it, pitch 71-B. When that is fermenting very strong add it to the original 3 Gals of cyser. The 71-B should compleatly take over the ale yeast. When the full 5 gal is fermenting very strong add anounther 6.5 pounds of honey and let it ferment out.

Rack off the lees once fermentation is compleat as 71-B is not suitable for sur lees. Age it for a few months.

Tastes like cotton candy.

aceparadis said:

Tastes like cotton candy.

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What color, pink or blue??? Haha. Seriously, what's the flavor really? Does ceyser still taste like cider? Is it a new animal altogether?

Greghark said:

Pretty much yes, cyser is a brew where the sugar comes from apple juice and honey. Now there are a lyt of technical definitions you can get into as well. But that is close enough. You can get into knockdown brawls over whether it is cider with honey our mead with apples, regardless it is good.

As to recipes, generally speaking the strength can be anywhere from 6-16% depending upon the amount of honey (and other sugar source you use). The more honey added the more honey flavor. And you do taste the honey provided you have added enough. Just like ciders there are plenty of different flavors to honey so choose wisely and maybe check out a thread or two in the mead forum to pick one.

I make a batch I call "Dude where's my pants!"
Start with 4 1/2 gallons of good juice. And campden and do whatever chemistry you prefer to get it ready to go.
Next, get a half gallon of something like motts or some other clear able juice to heat (i don't like heating good juice because it affects the constancy and flavor IMO). To the heated juice add 4# of dark brown sugar and 4# of orange blossom honey. Make sure it has all desolved. Take off the heat and cool.
When everything is ready add all the juice together in 5 gallon carboy. Pitch good champagne yeast (personal preferences is white labs wlp 715, always works for me).
Sit back and watch.
I rack after a month and rack again or bottle, depending upon clarity, after another month.

This cyser is high in alcohol and thick in the mouth more like a port so sip don't chug. It has a good honey smell and finishes slightly sweet but still has a low final gravity.
I make this one for christmas gifts every year. I bottle in regular beer bottles but caution drinkers in advance. Great desert drink.

I'm going to try some lighter cysers this season. Depending upon your taste, some folks use maple syrup, agave, or similar sugars to add to there ciders our to brew clean with water. Try what you liked and expirement whenever you can. Just remember it must be real sugars for the yeast to do it's business.

Isn't science great!

Click to expand...

I took a sample of my batch that I made 12/05/12 yesterday and my wine thief showed a couple inches of honey at the bottom. I know I need to rack it to the secondary soon. Do I need to stir it before I rack to make sure the honey at the bottom transfers to the secondary? Also, is it ok to use a brew pale as a secondary with a cyser? I know typically buckets are not optimal for a secondary as there is more of a risk of oxidation with more surface area as opposed to a carboy.

Vox said:

Is this a slow starter? 18 hours since slapping the airlock on and no bubbling going on yet.

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How dis this turn out?

jackfrost said:

How dis this turn out?

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I need to rack it to the secondary, but here is a pic I took yesterday.

Do I need to stir this at any point to mix the honey in? I would think no since you risk oxygenating it, but when I took a sample, there was a layer of honey at the bottom. Will this be a problem when I rack to the secondary?

Colby, it tastes like the pink kind.

Yummy.

Does anyone know if I need to stir before racking to mix the honey in that's at the bottom?

Added yeast nutrient and energizer to my ceyser a week ago as I figured the fermentation was stalled since the gravity was @ 1.000 and there was a layer of honey at the bottom. After a week, the gravity was still the same so I racked to the secondary. My first ceyser so I'm not sure what to expect. It wasn't delicious, but not horrible either. Wondering if something went wrong or if it is supposed to taste like this. If it is, Dude Where's My Pants is not my favorite.

Here are pics I took when racking to the secondary.

My cyser (nearly the same recipe as Dude Where's My Pants) was not my favorite either. It lacked "something." Also, it had an odd sweetness ... it tasted almost like one of the artificial sweeteners. I decided to let it age for a year or so and see if that helps.

I'm looking to use honey to boost up the OG of my cider. I am only looking to get to 1.060 or so. How much honey would that require? Or I guess I should ask how many points is a pound of honey usually worth?

I make a cyser with 5 gallons of apple cider and 3 pounds of honey which is generally 1.068. Usually use Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne Yeast. It comes out very dry (FG 1.000). I prime with about 5 oz of table sugar which results in an almost champagne-like beverage.

So I just got back into brewing again after a break of almost a year. My wife and I had our first baby so I decided to commemorate this milestone by brewing again. Funny thing is I was looking for recipes to make and decided on a ceyser. Found this Dude Where's My Pants recipe and bought the ingredients. While making it tonight and reading the thread, I realized I already made this like two years ago lol. So I gave it a go anyway and this time used the following ingredients :

- 5 gallons of regular Tree Top

- 4 lbs of orange blossom honey

- 4 lbs of dark brown sugar

- WLP 715 champagne yeast

Let's hope this batch goes better!

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Vox said:

So I just got back into brewing again after a break of almost a year. My wife and I had our first baby so I decided to commemorate this milestone by brewing again. Funny thing is I was looking for recipes to make and decided on a ceyser. Found this Dude Where's My Pants recipe and bought the ingredients. While making it tonight and reading the thread, I realized I already made this like two years ago lol. So I gave it a go anyway and this time used the following ingredients :

- 5 gallons of regular Tree Top

- 4 lbs of orange blossom honey

- 4 lbs of dark brown sugar

- WLP 715 champagne yeast

Let's hope this batch goes better!

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What was your O.G? Oh and congrads on the baby dude!

abrewnoob said:

What was your O.G? Oh and congrads on the baby dude!

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O. G. was 1.1. Thanks for the well wishes. He's an awesome little dude. I plan to make a mead that I will try a glass of every year on his birthday.

O. G. was 1.1. Thanks for the well wishes. He's an awesome little dude. I plan to make a mead that I will try a glass of every year on his birthday.

Vox said:

O. G. was 1.1. Thanks for the well wishes. He's an awesome little dude. I plan to make a mead that I will try a glass of every year on his birthday.

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Haha thats awesome atleast the more trouble he gives you,the nicer the mead will be!
Ahh i thought it would be around that mark, how tolerable is that yeast? It might get killed off before you ferment out fully.

Congrats. Sounds like you have aging plans. And if you drink it by the pint you will be asking yourself where your pants are

abrewnoob said:

Haha thats awesome atleast the more trouble he gives you,the nicer the mead will be!
Ahh i thought it would be around that mark, how tolerable is that yeast? It might get killed off before you ferment out fully.

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Lol yeah. On second thought I should make a bigger batch of mead so I can drink full pints by the time he's a teenager and not run out lol. Champagne yeast is beastly. It goes up to 17% as it's commonly used for champagne, wine, cider, and mead. I may add some yeast nutrient to help it out a little.

phug said:

Congrats. Sounds like you have aging plans. And if you drink it by the pint you will be asking yourself where your pants are

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Yeah. Longest aging I've ever done was my last ex gf who was like twenty years older, but that's a different story lol. I do have my first and only mead I've made which is maybe 2.5 to 3 years old. I plan on making a couple gallon batches and tucking them away.

Racked my Dude Where's My Pants Ceyser to the secondary yesterday just shy of a month in the primary. Sample didn't taste very good so hopefully the finished product will be when it's sat in the secondary for a while. Was about 1.003 fg.

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