Cider Spices?? Clove??

I just got back from a fellow brew club members house and we just pressed about four bushels of apples on his old apple press. I have about 4 gallons in the carboy at about 1053-1055.

I'm dumping about half a gallon of water in it that I boiled a pound of light brown sugar, a pound of raisins, a pound of cherries and a pound of currants in.

Thinking about adding a little bit of clove...

Obviously not going for a dry cider here... and I'm thinking it's going to sit in my basement until next winter.

Any opinions on the clove or is that just going way overboard?

I added cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to a batch of apfelwein a few weeks ago, and cloves are all I taste. It has a somewhat soapy/potpourri flavor going on that I do not like. It's mellowing, but be careful, next time I plan to just skip the cloves, since I think that is were that off flavor came from. If you do use cloves, go easy on them (use one or two), you can always add a few more along the way if needed.

Honestly, it sounds like you have a pretty tasty concoction going there already without adding any spices.

cool... thanks. That's helpful

Yeah, I'm starting to think I'm going to skip the clove. I probably have enough going on.

Just took a swig of it from my hydrometer reading and it's damn tasty. Obviously it won't taste anything like what I just tasted but hopefully it stays at least a little sweet.

I'm at about 1062 now that I've added the lt brown sugar and the fruit and I'm using WLP775 (Eng Cider Yeast) so I'm hoping the yeast starts to quit with a little sugar left over.

other spices that go with cloves: star-anise, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger. do not use the ground form of any of them. mead recipes ive made that used those spices need only about 1/2tsp(lightly crushed) of each for a 5 gallon batch, they're very potent spices and the natural sourness of apples makes them seem even stronger.

I would just like to say less is better with spices, fruit, etc, in ciders, meads, beers, etc.
Just 4 cloves, 1 cinnamon stick in a 5 gallon batch is a lot or too much for me. I want a hint of the spices, not to taste or actually smell them.

A little spice goes a long way, especially with clove, 1 or 2 whole cloves are PLENTY for a 5 or 6 gallon batch. Avoid ground spices, they can be rather nasty. Regards, GF.

What about the 1lb of brown sugar and 3 lbs of fruit I added??

I've done a very basic cider (nothing added) before and it was ok... it was very straight forward and actually kind of boring for my tastes... so I thought I would try to add to the complexity a bit and add the other fruits. My understanding was that even that much other fruit would very quickly be overpowered by the cider and would fade very quickly into the background.

I was thinking that, by the time it's done (I am planning on letting it sit until next holiday season) all of those other fruit flavors will basically be nothing more than hints of flavor... which is why I was thinking maybe just a little clove to add another "hint".

Well... in any case, I'm passing on the clove (thank you for all the feedback) but I'm curious what you guys think about the other fruits.

Cape Brewing said:

What about the 1lb of brown sugar and 3 lbs of fruit I added??
I was thinking maybe just a little clove to add another "hint".
but I'm curious what you guys think about the other fruits.

Click to expand...

I think your raisins will add some body, but the actual raisin flavour will blend into the background.

The cherry flavour will also be diminished, especially is they're sweet cherries; tart (pie) cherries will hold up better & deliver more flavour to your finished product.

The currants will diminish some, but currants are chock full o' flavour, I think that's the flavour that will be most detectable. I've nver used brown sugar in a cider before, but I would think it would compliment the apple flavour rather well; I wouldn't think it would go well with the currants, but I could be wrong on that. If you try it, let us know how it turns out. Regards, GF.

novafire said:

I added cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to a batch of apfelwein a few weeks ago, and cloves are all I taste. It has a somewhat soapy/potpourri flavor going on that I do not like. It's mellowing, but be careful, next time I plan to just skip the cloves, since I think that is were that off flavor came from. If you do use cloves, go easy on them (use one or two), you can always add a few more along the way if needed.

Honestly, it sounds like you have a pretty tasty concoction going there already without adding any spices.

Click to expand...

I add a piece of cinnamon stick, 2 clove pieces, and some tubinado sugar to make a hot mulled Apfelwein. Add a shot of good rum, serve in a mug and it will warm you up right quick. Make only as much as you will serve or drink in an evening.

Cape Brewing said:

I just got back from a fellow brew club members house and we just pressed about four bushels of apples on his old apple press. I have about 4 gallons in the carboy at about 1053-1055.

I'm dumping about half a gallon of water in it that I boiled a pound of light brown sugar, a pound of raisins, a pound of cherries and a pound of currants in.

Thinking about adding a little bit of clove...

Obviously not going for a dry cider here... and I'm thinking it's going to sit in my basement until next winter.

Any opinions on the clove or is that just going way overboard?

Click to expand...

So, how did this turn out?

Freakin' damn tasty!

I haven't bottled it yet. I racked it to a secondary a couple of weeks ago for no other reason than the huge cake of fruits floating on the top was bugging me for some reason. It was probably stupid and I probably shoudl have just let it sit but I racked it and am actually going to bottle it this weekend.

I took an extra large hydro sample/reading when I racked it, drank the whole sample and I was extremely happy with it. I don't like really dry ciders (just my personal preference) and this one has finished out just a little on the sweet side which is how I was hoping it was going to finish.

I also don't really know what my ABV since my OG was "at least" 1061... I say "at least" because I took the reading right after I tossed all of the fruit in... so... there's no real way (that I know of) to know what the actual OG was once all of the sugar started to come out of the fruit I added.

It's incredibly smooth though after finishing at 1000 on the button and I don't get any alcohol hottness on it at all which I was at least a little surprised at since the ABV has to be a little on the hefty side.

I never added the clove per suggestions on this thread and I'm glad I didn't. It's a really nice cider. I was planning on bottling it and letting it sit until next winter but I don't see me being able to wait that long.

Hey Guys,

I'm on my 2nd batch of Hard Cider, for the first I did it simple: juice, sugar, yeast. Nothing else and to be honest sometimes simple is good, it came out great! I've been looking into adding some spices though and I've heard conflicting advice, the gentleman at my Homebrew supply store told me ground spices are ok to use, but on this forum I've seen a couple folks refer to them as "Nasty", can someone offer a little advice on this, I'm about to add cinnamon and some ginger.. please let me know what amounts and what kind (whole, sticks, ground etc.,) thanks for the help..

Adding ground spices makes it next to impossible to remove them once the desired level of flavour has been reached. If you cannot remove them, often they will continue to add flavour until it's all been extracted; which is usually way too much spice flavour.

Whole, cracked, or chopped spices are best as you can put them in a hop bag & add them to the carbouy. Just fish out the bag when the desired flavour level has been reached.

Powdered cinnamon turns into a mucilaginous mess, stick cinnamon does not. Also, adding powders to must/wort provides nucleation points for dissolved CO2 & can cause the CO2 to suddenly come out of solution, resulting in an eruption of a foaming, sticky mess. Hope that helps. Regards, GF.