Great Dry Sparkling Cider

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.



5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

I did something very similar to this. I used...
5 gal of organic unfiltered Apple Juice.
1.5Lbs local honey
2 tea bags
½ lemon, 1 lime
¼ tsp yeast nutrient
Brewing salts and Irish moss

My O.G of the juice was 1.052 but with the 1.5lbs of honey it was 1.09. that sounds too high but that is what it read. maybe the suspended stuff had too big of an influence. i dont know i am a little puzzled.
2 weeks I racked and added 64oz of Pear juice. Gravity before adding the pear juice was 0.999

It is very cloudy. I tasted it. It is very dry and bitter. it smells pretty bad too. it is young so i am hoping it will get better. That was 2 weeks ago and it is still just as cloudy. I am thinking about racking again.

Echo2112 said:

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.



5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a great recipe. What temperature did you ferment at?

Echo2112 said:

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.



5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

Click to expand...

I made this recipe last night, but used a 1/2 teaspoon of DAP yeast nutrient from More Beer instead of the Fermax.
I also used Mesquite honey.
I didnt use a starter at all but I have fermentation starting at 14 hours.
here's to your recipe, hope it turns out for me!

how much priming sugar did you use? the same as you would for a 5 gallon batch of beer?

UPDATE_ this cider has come out extremly well. Everybody seems to love it especially the wife.
For priming sugar I used pure cane sugar and did the math for a five gallon batch.

Hi there,
In the process of making my first sparkling cider...primary ferment of organic apple juice for about 2 weeks, then racked and bottled with corn sugar. After about 2 more weeks in the bottle I gave one a try...it was super carbonated but not the most delicious thing ever. Heavy ferment smell, pretty tart. My impression is that the rest just needs to age, but for how much longer? I also think I probably should have racked it more than once, but too late now! Any advice?

Just thought I'd post a few notes from my experiences.

I've made this recipe five times, the first with superduper organic cider, the next three with Apple Juice from concentrate, and I have another actual cider fermenting now.

I used farmer's market honey on the first batch with the organic cider, but just use the storebought honey now. I'm also using the Danstar Nottingham yeast, as that's what I have around these days.

Plan for 2 months total (at least) for this cider to be drinkable, 2 in primary, 2 in secondary (a must if you use cider instead of apple juice), and a month at least in bottles (no kegs yet). If you drink before then, which I did, the cider is very very bright and almost on the edge of sour. I have drank about 6 weeks in the bottle and the flavor balances out a lot, while still being a great cider.

I found that using organic cider makes a better end product. However, apple juice is an acceptable substitute. And considering the cider around here was $6/gal and aj was around $2/gal, there was no real contest for us. So my first batch cost around $40, and switching to aj costs around $15. Keep in mind, however, that cider is seasonal, so you may be able to pick it up cheap at some point.

Thanks for the great recipe!

fugazzi said:

Just thought I'd post a few notes from my experiences.

I've made this recipe five times, the first with superduper organic cider, the next three with Apple Juice from concentrate, and I have another actual cider fermenting now.

I used farmer's market honey on the first batch with the organic cider, but just use the storebought honey now. I'm also using the Danstar Nottingham yeast, as that's what I have around these days.

Plan for 2 months total (at least) for this cider to be drinkable, 2 in primary, 2 in secondary (a must if you use cider instead of apple juice), and a month at least in bottles (no kegs yet). If you drink before then, which I did, the cider is very very bright and almost on the edge of sour. I have drank about 6 weeks in the bottle and the flavor balances out a lot, while still being a great cider.

I found that using organic cider makes a better end product. However, apple juice is an acceptable substitute. And considering the cider around here was $6/gal and aj was around $2/gal, there was no real contest for us. So my first batch cost around $40, and switching to aj costs around $15. Keep in mind, however, that cider is seasonal, so you may be able to pick it up cheap at some point.

Thanks for the great recipe!

Click to expand...

I used organic cider as well and echo your statements. This thing aged beautiffuly. I have none left and the wife is all over me to make more. This recipe is great!

I started a dry cider about a month ago, a few days ago transferring it to the secondary carboy. I also added more apple juice mostly because I wanted more cider but also to see if I could cut the dryness a little. it seems to be fermenting still (some airlock movement) but there is something floating on top. dunno if it is an infection but if it is what do I do? It smells fine havent tasted it yet... if I bottle now can I save it?

LadyStabbsalot said:

I started a dry cider about a month ago, a few days ago transferring it to the secondary carboy. I also added more apple juice mostly because I wanted more cider but also to see if I could cut the dryness a little. it seems to be fermenting still (some airlock movement) but there is something floating on top. dunno if it is an infection but if it is what do I do? It smells fine havent tasted it yet... if I bottle now can I save it?

Click to expand...

If you add more juice, you added more sugars in the juice, which would restart fermentation. Each time you add fermentables, fermentation will restart. You don't want to bottle until fermentation is completely over. If you want to sweeten, you'll either have to stabilize with sorbate and campden and then sweeten it or use a nonfermentable sweetener. Sweetening + bottling = bottle bombs.

Do you think Safale US-05 would work with this recipe?

My local HBS doesn't carry cider yeast. Or would I be better off ordering some online?

I'm new to all this but US-05 seems to be popular for a lot of applications besides beer.

Adding another to my noob questions:

You said you added priming sugar before bottling, so I'm understanding this is sparkling. Did you have to do any kind of pasteurization to stop the fermentation after bottling? I'm reading that this is necessary, but just don't see the step in your process. I'd like to clarify whether or not it was necessary for you.

I was just looking through this recipe ... For my first cider, I'm interested in making a Dry English style this fall. How much sugar did you use for carbonation?

SteveHoward said:

Adding another to my noob questions:

You said you added priming sugar before bottling, so I'm understanding this is sparkling. Did you have to do any kind of pasteurization to stop the fermentation after bottling? I'm reading that this is necessary, but just don't see the step in your process. I'd like to clarify whether or not it was necessary for you.

Click to expand...

As I understand it, this is done to make a sweet sparkling cider. Sugar is added for both sweetness and carbonation, but the cider is pasturized in the bottle to stop carbonation (and prevent bottle bombs) while the cider is still sweet. -- I could be wrong... I haven't yet made a cider!

I just got my first keg system and am very interested in this cider/cyser. I was thinking about 2 weeks in primary, then age in the secondary for a couple months before racking to keg? what do you guys think?

So there's no risk of bottle bombs as long as it's finished fermenting? I searched for this because a friend of mine just gave me some cider that is fantastic - it's dry and sparkling. For some reason I had always thought I couldn't make sparkling cider, but now I'm starting to think maybe I can, as long as it's not sweetened. Sweetened doesn't appeal to me at all, but heck, this stuff is just fantastic.

I just got an oatmeal stout kit from Adventures in Homebrewing they gave me 4 lbs of grain and its an extract kit.

I love that store and they are very knowledgeable and helpful.

I just purchased 5 gallons of freshly pressed unpasteurized cider and followed this recipe exactly, being careful to warm up the cider and the white labs cider yeast to 70 degrees before pitching. I also gave it a 60 second shot of Oxygen before pitching and set it aside to ferment at 70 degrees. It started fermenting in half a day and after 24 hours is going gangbusters. I can not believe how easy this is after doing a bunch of all grain ale batches. If you have not done cider before, this seems like a great way to start.

How would you make a starter for this cider? I wouldn't want to use DME since I don't want to impart a beer flavor.

But Palmer says not to make a stater with simple sugars. So couldn't make the starter from apple juice or anything thing.

Thoughts?

.......maybe just use 2 vials be to sure?

If you need a starter, I would use apple juice or cider and yeast nutrient. If you want the OG higher, add sugar. The nutrient is the important part. Simple sugars don't support yeast well on their own.

I'm not sure how well this would work for a long starter (i.e. a week on the stir plate).

Started a 5 gallon batch of this back in October, after 3 months in bottles one of them exploded. The FG was .998. I added an ounce of priming sugar per gallon just like you would in beer. Any thoughts on reasons for the bottle bomb?

My most recent cider was a spiced apple-cranberry for new years.
5 gal of 100% apple juice, no added sugars, not from concentrate.
1/5 gal of 100% cranberry juice, no added sugars, not from concentrate.
1 lb honey
1 lb corn dextrose
3 TB ground cinnamon
1 TB ground ginger
1/2 TB allspice
1/2 TB nutmeg

yeast was from the cake of a Belgium IPA. I let it sit a while so there was practically no hop smell or taste.

I simmered 3 gal of apple juice and spices, then dissolved dextrose and honey. I added all of the juice, save the cranberry and a 1/5 gal of apple, to bring to temperature and pitched.

After 2 weeks in the primary I racked and added the cranberry. Then a week later I racked, added the last 1/2 gal of apple, and kegged for new years eve! (which was a day away)

It came out only slightly sweetened with a little cranberry-spice. Another friend made heavily back sweetened cider with organic pressed apples for the same party. I forget exactly how much but he kept adding a 1/2 gal at a time afraid that all of the sweet was going to ferment out. He even put an extra 3/4 gal in the last day! Though mine didn't really look it on it's own, it was VERY red by comparison! We could add or cut the sweetness by mixing them ;-) Both were a hit, especially with the ladies.

Inflames said:

Started a 5 gallon batch of this back in October, after 3 months in bottles one of them exploded. The FG was .998. I added an ounce of priming sugar per gallon just like you would in beer. Any thoughts on reasons for the bottle bomb?

Click to expand...

If only one of them exploded, I might guess it was close to the last one bottled and there was some undissolved sugars in the bucket. Or it might have been filled too high and there was no room for the gas to expand, or if could have been the unlucky one!

I've only bottled cider once, and that was some time ago but I remember using 3/4 oz of corn dextrose per gallon, not 1 oz. All but one of the bottles was emptied by 3 months and that one had stayed in a fridge for about a year--no problems. After that I've force-carbed and filled as I wanted. I have three favorite things from my brewing kit number 2 and 3 are a 6.5 gal ported Better Bottle and a 15 gal circular cooler mash tun. My most favorite are my cornies! There's nothing like showing up at a friends house, party, (the beach) with your tasty brews on tap! Not to mention a walk to the kitchen

For those who say use the same amount of priming sugar as for beer, what style of beer? Some beers are best with 1.2 volumes of CO2, and some with more like 3 or more. TastyBrew suggests 1.0 to 3.5 volumes of CO2 for cider. So, how much do you use?

I hope this isn't a duplicate post but I didn't see it as a new post!

First I am a reformed home brewer (I brewed for 7 or so years in the late 90s - early 00s) and new to the forum. I have quite a few apple trees of various varieties and have done some hard cider in the past with iffy results. Only one batch has turned out like I wanted. So this time I got a couple books on cider making and they were either too simple (like stupid, wrong simple) or really advanced (that was Craft Cider Making by Andrew Lea). I winged one of his suggestions for apple varieties, 1/2 dessert (sweet) apples and 1/2 obscure English cider apple varieties that apparently don't do very well just about anywhere else. If you are interested I used about 1/2 sour apples (Granny Smith and Honeycrisp), 25% Gravenstein (my personal fav multitasker LOL) and 1/4 dessert apples - a mishmash of Jonathan, Fuji, and Gala.

I found this recipe the day I pressed my apples in late Oct. (fortunately) so I ran down to the local brew shop and picked up the ingredients, with the exception of 2 cups of honey which is ours and is mostly wildflowers (it's raw, we don't do anything to it, and the taste blows away everyone we give it to).

So I did as directed with a couple changes. I added Campden tablets to hopefully kill off the wild yeast, let them work a couple days then used the White Labs strain in the recipe. I re-racked after almost 3 weeks since it was burbling happily after 2 weeks and I didn't want to re-rack based on my homebrew experience with meads (a couple of which were absolute heaven and did very well in our state fair competitions). After it cleared up in a week or so I racked it again for a tertiary malic acid fermentation (technically I suppose it is a conversion, not really fermentation) using freeze dried LAB.

Then I left it sit in a cool room (temps of 40s - 50s all winter) until this week About 5 months to the day, 2 months later than I was planning on, unfortunately). I read this recommendation in the advanced apple cider book (craft cider making) vs. the 3 weeks or so in the recipe, I suppose that is a bit longer than is necessary but it didn't seem to have any ill effects and the taste is as stated below - very dry, dominant but not overpowering "sour apple", almost no sweet flavors and fairly light on the palate. Exactly what I was shooting for since I don't at all like either pucker your mouth dry English style or sweet hard ciders (sorry Sam Adams and the like but their ciders taste like fizzy hard apple candy to me!). So off to bottling today with some honey for priming & champagne yeast which is all I could find used specifically in any sparkling cider recipes (and is all I can get at the moment).

So after all that I wanted to say that it looks like this recipe will turn out quite excellent (it already tastes 100% better that my previous attempts none of which used cider yeast or a 3rd racking for malic acid fermentation). I wish I had thought to take the SG at each step but according to my old and probably miscalibrated hydrometer I hit the mark almost spot on, OG 1.055 & SG .995 as compared to 1.05 and FG 0.996 below. I make that out to about 7.75%, a little off the 8% I was shooting with the addition of the honey for but what I would expect given the 7% in the recipe.

I am going to try 1.5 oz. honey/gal. as suggested in 2 other posts here - about 2/3 cup for 4.5 gal (an estimate but I think it's pretty close). Unless someone has a better suggestion? I see that it won't effect the taste at all and that's fine with me.

So after all that blabbing .....THANKS FOR THE RECIPE!!! I'll use it next year if our bees survive the very late snow we have had for a week now that can wreak havoc with kept bees. We also keep mason bees for a backup in nasty spring weather so we are crossing our fingers that they aren't going to be affected.

BTW one thing I heard long time back was to let a bad batch of cider sit a couple years completely exposed to the air to make cider vinegar if you don't want to waste it. So I let my first disaster (or the second, I forget now LOL) to see what happened. I thought this was silly but what the heck I left it in a glass carboy I didn't need since 2002(!) When I went to make the current batch I followed the standard procedure of not letting anything I touched get anywhere near the new batch (A nail biter but it worked) and siphoned it off.

The gross "mother of vinegar" mat on the top had me convinced that it was going to be disgusting but it's the best cider vinegar we've ever had the pleasure of sipping LOL (and we happen to enjoy almost any fine vinegar in our salad dressings etc.). So you might want to try this instead of throwing a bad batch out and wasting all that effort brewing it. You can apparently save the gunk for years to use in another batch but I didn't want to roll the dice with the new batch that went into the same room. After we gave half it away the feedback from friends and family was pleasantly excellent

A friend has acres of blueberries and tried his first blueberry mead last summer, I made a knockout from his berries years ago and then an utter disaster, so now I'm motivated to try again this summer if he gets a winner

Echo2112 said:

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.



5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

Click to expand...

I Believe that you only need to pasteurize or stop the yeast if you are not fermenting until dry. If you are wanting to keep things really sweet and bottle after a week or 2 you need to stop the yeast and can not prime as easily.

OK here's what's going on now. I primed with the honey and champagne yeast as above on March 23rd and yesterday I popped a bottle to see how it went. I have NO carbonation at all So did I not use enough honey? I used about 2/3 cup for a 4.5 gal batch, which was a little under what I wound up with - closer to 4 3/4 gallons. I had an old packet of champagne yeast and when I was at the local shop to get some more ceramic top bottles I mentioned that and he thought that it would be OK to use it. I didn't say it was over 12 years old, I should have or at least should have bought another packet. So does yeast die when it is in a packet for that long? Or maybe I didn't sue enough sugar? If you stare at it there is sediment on the bottom of the bottles which as a reformed beer brewer I take to mean that the yeast has done its job and settled out. The only other thing I can think of is the bottles weren't sealed properly, but I used all new rubber seals just so that wouldn't happen. Or I haven't waited long enough? After a month in the bottle my beer would have been ready to drink already.

I'd have to see the amount of fermentable sugars in honey verses priming sugar per gram to know if you used enough for priming as I haven't primed with sugar or syrup before. I'm not sure what the ratios are for either.

For a ball-park on sugars, taste how sweet it is. If it's not sweet, then there is no sugar to convert and you have as much CO2 as you are going to get. If it's sugar sweet, then it didn't ferment, and if it's caramel sweet, then those sugars don't ferment well.
I'm not sure how well the flip tops hold pressure. I would imagine they should do fine. If it's still sweet, perhaps the campden is still in solution and not allowing the yeast to be active. I've never had good results with campden tabs. I tried a few times with a strawberry blonde, but yeast always ate the strawberry sugars. Did you leave it in a fridge to carb? Maybe it was too cold to be active.

As far as dry yeast goes, I was under the impression your are pushing it after 2 years. I picked up some packs of Montrachet from LabelPeelers for 80¢ each. Great price to keep on had for a bit.

I hope some of that helps!

Well I composed a lengthy reply that Firefox saw fit to blow away. So thanks for the advice, but to cut to the point: can I prime again with corn sugar and if so how much would you recommend? I suppose I would have to figure out the volume of primer to add to each bottle, is there a good way to make up a primer knowing how many ounces I need to prime? How much sugar to add and how much water to use? I don't have much room in the bottles, I did leave an air gap to allow for carbonation but it wasn't more than an inch on most of them.

If that doesn't sound like a good idea, is it better to add a small amount of yeast to a few bottles to see if anything gets started? The cider didn't taste at all sweet to me or my wife, seemed about exactly what it tasted like when I bottled it. I think that the sugars almost completely converted during the fermentation and malolactose conversion judging by the FG, alcohol % and taste.

And is champagne yeast the best way to go for a cider? Now that I am getting more yeast I suppose I could use anything that eats corn sugar

Complete personal preference on yeast here, I don't like the taste of champagne yeast, but nearly all the recipes I've seen use it. I have a batch going that was a Bavarian yeast for primary and Red Star Montrachet in the secondary, but it's still sitting and not bottled.

I'd wait and see if anyone else has ideas about getting carb into your batch. Maybe carb tabs, though I've never used them. I'd hate to say sanitize a bucket and pop all those caps, but that might be the most surefire way. Be sure not to splash and get much O2 mixed in. -- Are these regular bottle caps or the flip top rubber grommetted kind? Maybe we're on a snipe hunt and the grommets don't hold CO2 well.

Last idea would be to add sugar to each bottle. As far as how you get it in there... that sounds like a lot of work to put it in individual bottles. Perhaps just sprinkling it in.

Quick calculation:
Redneck units: ( 1oz sugar / 128fl.oz cider ) * 12fl.oz bottles = 0.0937oz sugar per bottle
The rest of the world: ( 7.5g sugar / 1L cider ) * 0.355L bottles = 2.66g sugar per bottle

That will produce quite a bit of carbonation. I use 1oz sugar per 1gal beer for most things. Stouts I'll drop to 3/4oz while some wheats and Belgiums I'll bump to 1.25oz. But, I like carb.

Conversions: 1 US oz weight ~ 28.35 g
1 US gal ~ 3.785 L

Thanks! I think I said before I had new rubber washers on the bottles, I have never had a problem with them before. They beat the heck out of capping, at least for me. I'll try the carbonation tablets, since I want it right the first time Being "out of the loop" so long has me at a disadvantage and I never saw them on the various sites I visited looking for a solution. Heck it's already 6 months since I picked my apples, so it'll be nice 'n drinkable by my daughter's wedding in July

One more quick question...if I use the carbonation drops, do I also need to add yeast? If so then how do I do that? Maker a starter then add a drop or whatever to the bottles? Does it matter how much yeast I add? Reading the package, I get the impression that they assume you still have live yeast in the bottles. If my priming yeast was already dead as I am pretty sure is the case, then I have no carbonation, is that right? I looked at the package and yeast isn't in the ingredients.

Ask where you get the tabs, but I'm pretty sure it is its own chemical reaction, no yeast involved.

Well I got them on Amazon and they don't have instructions beyond dosing. From hunting around it looks like they are just sugar. That's why I asked about adding yeast, although I am still not 100% positive that is how they work. Thinking about it some more, since I already primed with honey at the rate recommended in this thread, maybe I should just add some yeast and see what happens?

Wow, all the links I saw read that it's just predosed priming sugar. I wonder what I had...
Yup, if the yeast isn't alive, you'll need some to eat the sugar.

Man, I leave a thread for a while and look what happens!

Glad everybody liked this cider - I just did another batch on Friday to try and keep my supply levels up.

I found a few bottles that had been aging for 8 months - a couple other boxes were put over them and I kind of forgot they were there. I popped one in the fridge and then opened it up - damn tasty!

I am trying to hide the rest from the wife. She'll kill those things off in record time if I let here know they were available.

Echo2112 said:

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.



5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

Click to expand...

What kind of bottles are you using for this recipe?

I was using flip top bottles at the time, but I am kegging now.

Echo2112 said:

Had been wanting to do a nice dry cider, with noticeable apple notes to it, but not too much sweetness. This was a very simple recipe to put together, the key is to give this time to age, it can be less than pleasant the first month in the bottles. If you give it time, and wait 3 to 4 months, you will have an absolute stunner.

5 Gallons unfiltered Organic Apple Cider (from grocery store)
2 lbs local wildflower honey

1 tube White Labs #WLP775 Dry English Cider yeast
5 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG 1.050
FG.996
ABV 7.04%

Beersmith put the SRM at 6.0, but I really feel that it is closer to a 3 or 4.

After sanitizing, I put the Cider right into the primary fermenter, no heating or boiling at all.

Warm the honey in about 2 cups of hot (150F) water to liquefy it, and add the Fermax to the honey / water mix. Don't boil the honey!

Let the honey mix cool a bit, and then add it to the primary. Pitch your yeast on top. When I did this, I did not use a starter, so it took several days for fermentation to kick off. Next time I will make a 1000mL starter. Shake the baby like mad to aerate!

Let sit on primary for 2 weeks. Rack into secondary for 1 week to clarify and let things settle out. I then racked into a bottling bucket, added in priming sugar and then into flip top bottles.

After 4 months, this is probably the best cider I have ever had. Beats Woodchuck and Ace all to hell. I was trying to copy the Samuel Smith Organic Cider and I would have to say that I am more than happy with what I have here.

Samuel Smith uses a wine yeast in the cider they make, but the White Labs I used worked wonderfully. Same crisp light flavor, dry, but not overly so.

I am going to get another batch of this going this week, after getting into several bottles this weekend, and having some friends and in-laws over, my stock is dwindling.

Click to expand...

I started your recipe 2 weeks ago. The airlock is still bubbling every minute or so. Do I wait for the bubbles to stop or just rack it to second fermenting carboy now.

Well, your call really. If you rack now your fermentation will slow down or stop so you may have some residual sweetness to it from unfermented sugars. Depends on how dry you want it.

I might give it a few more days to see what it does, and then rack out.

brewman007 said:

I started your recipe 2 weeks ago. The airlock is still bubbling every minute or so. Do I wait for the bubbles to stop or just rack it to second fermenting carboy now.

Click to expand...

It ill take longer at lower temps. White Labs is supposed to work best at temps of high 60s to low 70s F. I have used this recipe and after a primary in the kitchen I racked off and moved the carboy to my workroom which is unheated, but remains in the 50s-60 in the fall when I press my apples and make hard cider. It wasn't finished at that time which is what you are after. That is the way to make "real" English cider, and it's best if you run the fermentation until it is completely finished.

I let mine sit for weeks in the cooler temps before I did a malolactic conversion to squeeze the final sugars from the cider and get what I was after, a very dry and crisp English style sparkling cider (see my previous post). Then a couple months after that. That was way longer than necessary but it does have the advantage of aging the brew before it's bottled.

To update my previous attempt, I did get decent carbonation after adding a carb tablet (which as far as I can tell is just corn sugar anyway) and champagne yeast. It was nice after a few months in the bottle, very nice after 6 months, and outstanding after a year. No off flavors, almost no aftertaste, very crisp and very dry. If you like American style sweet cider then the original post is probably all you need to do. I wish I had time to make another batch last fall so I could have adjusted it then

I'll try using a starter with the champagne yeast to bottle this time around, since after the conversion theoretically you have no or just a tiny amount of live yeast and I used champagne yeast that was too old, which I didn't realize at the time. I did 10 gallons of cider from my apples yesterday, and I'm starting the yeast in cider from this pressing as per White Lab's recommendation on their site. I'll be sure report back on this batch next year!