Not happy with high ABV cider

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
BadgerBrigade

BadgerBrigade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
953
Reaction score
63
Location
Monterey
I made a few batch and the OG on them was 1.070.
Did a little backsweetining to the first one. It is either too young or just too hot with booze.
I have about 12 gallons more with no sugar added. I think I'm gonna like it better.
Anyone have this experience?
 
Yes, I have also had that experience. At lower ABVs, the flavor is more "cider", but once I get over about 1.060, it's definitely moved more to a "wine" taste.

I love apple wine, and it makes a great table wine, but it's not cider-like to me.
 
Yooper said:
Yes, I have also had that experience. At lower ABVs, the flavor is more "cider", but once I get over about 1.060, it's definitely moved more to a "wine" taste.

I love apple wine, and it makes a great table wine, but it's not cider-like to me.
Click to expand...

Thanks Yooper...
It's early and I failed to mention a few things:
I only aged it for three months.... I was expecting it to be young but there's just something a little off about it, I'm also pretty new so I don't exactly know what I'm tasting.
I also use EC1118

I hope it becomes more refined in a few months but I have some unaltered juice in two carboys with English ale in one and American ale yeast in the other.
I'm trying to do lots of different carboys with lots of different varieties so I can nail down exactly what I like.

I wonder if Dry hopping would balance it out?
Maybe I just need to keep those things in the bottle for another 3 or four months? What do you folks think?
 
I'm starting to think for a good high ABV make too batches. Jack one then blend it into the other. Smoother than a high OG cider.
 
MarkKF said:
I'm starting to think for a good high ABV make too batches. Jack one then blend it into the other. Smoother than a high OG cider.
Click to expand...

Cool idea... I will have to add that to my list of experiments. Thanks Mark
 
When making (hard) cider, sugar is a flavour diluter, it just ups the abv and takes away mouthfeel of the cider too. I dont add any sugar or water to my apple juice and the SG is usually about 1.040, I don't want it any higher than that unless I'm making apple wine and it's gonna be left for a long time to mellow out before drinking.
 
I agree as well. My ciders are generally in the 1.050-1.060 range. Once most dry ciders cross 1.070 by adding sugar I find they develop a boozy heat to them that I don't particularly enjoy. Aging can help mellow the harshness of a high ABV cider, but the heat remains.
 
gayleygoo said:
When making (hard) cider, sugar is a flavour diluter, it just ups the abv and takes away mouthfeel of the cider too. I dont add any sugar or water to my apple juice and the SG is usually about 1.040, I don't want it any higher than that unless I'm making apple wine and it's gonna be left for a long time to mellow out before drinking.
Click to expand...

The juice is fresh pressed from the local orchard... Pretty sweet anyway... The OG is normally 1.060 -1.065 before I add sugar.
(Which I'm not going to do anymore)...
Still would make it like 7%.... What is I wanted the cider to be 5.5ish% ABV?
I shouldn't Dilute?
Would I need to backsweeten? I don't want it too sweet. I want semi-sweet if that.
 
LeBreton said:
I agree as well. My ciders are generally in the 1.050-1.060 range. Once most dry ciders cross 1.070 by adding sugar I find they develop a boozy heat to them that I don't particularly enjoy. Aging can help mellow the harshness of a high ABV cider, but the heat remains.
Click to expand...

Do you ferment all the way? Because I realize I don't want jet fuel cider I think I wanna try to get one around 5%-6%. My juice starts at 1.060, how do I reduce the sugar (even possible?)
Or just stop is at 1.010-1.015?

I was thinking of trying to thin the juice out with a little water and then fermenting dry but what gayleygoo said has me wondering?
 
I agree with what Yooper said. When you start with higher gravities, you move away from the cider flavor and towards the wine flavor. I think this is because the yeast is doing more work to ferment, thus contributing more yeast flavor the cider.

Since you used ale yeast, you can expect a fairly clean fermentation. Wine yeasts like Lalvin 71B can add more esters, and yeasts like Lalvin D47 can add phenols. Using certain yeasts like this can add complexity in the flavor and aroma as well as increase mouthfeel. One important note about ale yeasts is to make sure you have enough nutrients, since cider contains far fewer yeast nutrients than wort.

If you're looking for the fresh apple aroma, your best bet is to back sweeten with fresh pressed juice. Unless you take the time to keeve or rack multiple times or crash cool the cider, it's hard to keep yeast from fully fermenting most cider. This is because cider is nearly all simple sugers, whereas wort contains more complex sugers that the yeast have a difficult time metabolizing.
 
MrFinstad said:
I agree with what Yooper said. When you start with higher gravities, you move away from the cider flavor and towards the wine flavor. I think this is because the yeast is doing more work to ferment, thus contributing more yeast flavor the cider.

Since you used ale yeast, you can expect a fairly clean fermentation. Wine yeasts like Lalvin 71B can add more esters, and yeasts like Lalvin D47 can add phenols. Using certain yeasts like this can add complexity in the flavor and aroma as well as increase mouthfeel. One important note about ale yeasts is to make sure you have enough nutrients, since cider contains far fewer yeast nutrients than wort.

If you're looking for the fresh apple aroma, your best bet is to back sweeten with fresh pressed juice. Unless you take the time to keeve or rack multiple times or crash cool the cider, it's hard to keep yeast from fully fermenting most cider. This is because cider is nearly all simple sugers, whereas wort contains more complex sugers that the yeast have a difficult time metabolizing.
Click to expand...

So then it would be better to ferment out and then back sweeten with the juice to get the gravity to where I want as opposed to trying to stop the fermentation where I want...
Definitely sounds more logical....

What is the drawback of thinning out the juice with water? If my gravity is say 1.060 and I use water to bring it to 1.050 What happens in situations like this? Or is this totally not a good thing to do?
 
The drawback to thinning out the juice before fermentation is thinning out the flavor. While it will work perfectly to dilute the sugar concentration, you are also diluting the flavor compounds and and aromatics that you want to stick around until after fermentation.

Another really important thing for preserving cider flavor is relatively cool fermentation. A good cider strain will work in the high 50s. The less vigorous the fermentation, the less volatile aromatics you will loose as CO2 escapes, which means more apple flavor and aroma in the final product.
 
All my ciders come out hot, and I've found that bottle aging helps a lot more than secondary for that. My last batch was
1gal Apple Juice
1/5 pack Nottingham
1/4cup brown sugar

After primary, it was pretty sour and fusel-rich. It spent 6 months in secondary. At the end of that the apple was back and the sour was gone, but there was still a FIERCE alcohol nose. So at bottling it got
1 tube apple juice concentrate (no water)
1/4cup maple syrup

Fermentation took about a week then it was pasteurized. After 2 weeks in the fridge, most of the heat was gone and it had turned nicely mild and sweet. So I think that time in the bottle is very important to quelling the taste of alcohol.
 
The best cider I've made to date:

5 gallons Best Yet apple juice
+
1 sachet Safale S-04

Ferment 3 weeks at 64F, cold crash for a couple days, keg and carb- I set the reg to 30 psi for 48 hours then 13 psi for serving. I can't tell you how delicious this incredibly sophisticated cider is!

Edit: ABV is 5.4%, juuuuuust right ;)
image-1178208493.jpg
 
MrFinstad said:
The drawback to thinning out the juice before fermentation is thinning out the flavor. While it will work perfectly to dilute the sugar concentration, you are also diluting the flavor compounds and and aromatics that you want to stick around until after fermentation.

Another really important thing for preserving cider flavor is relatively cool fermentation. A good cider strain will work in the high 50s. The less vigorous the fermentation, the less volatile aromatics you will loose as CO2 escapes, which means more apple flavor and aroma in the final product.
Click to expand...

What about thinning out after? I hate to do that but I just don't think I want an eight or 9% cider and I think if I use only juice it's gonna be crazy sweet?
 
Brulosopher said:
The best cider I've made to date:

5 gallons Best Yet apple juice
+
1 sachet Safale S-04

Ferment 3 weeks at 64F, cold crash for a couple days, keg and carb- I set the reg to 30 psi for 48 hours then 13 psi for serving. I can't tell you how delicious this incredibly sophisticated cider is!

Edit: ABV is 5.4%, juuuuuust right ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks Great! And good news for me too because I just started a batch with no auger added and I'm using the Safale for the first time...
On prob is the fresh pressed still had a starting OG of 1.060
 
Kashue said:
All my ciders come out hot, and I've found that bottle aging helps a lot more than secondary for that. My last batch was
1gal Apple Juice
1/5 pack Nottingham
1/4cup brown sugar

After primary, it was pretty sour and fusel-rich. It spent 6 months in secondary. At the end of that the apple was back and the sour was gone, but there was still a FIERCE alcohol nose. So at bottling it got
1 tube apple juice concentrate (no water)
1/4cup maple syrup

Fermentation took about a week then it was pasteurized. After 2 weeks in the fridge, most of the heat was gone and it had turned nicely mild and sweet. So I think that time in the bottle is very important to quelling the taste of alcohol.
Click to expand...

What temps are you fermenting at? I've made this (almost) exact recipe 4 times this year, but using 1 whole cup of brown sugar in a gallon and have never tasted any hot flavors or fusels. Granted I drink it young, but after two weeks it's not hot at all. I've been fermenting them between 58º and 62ºF.
 

Similar threads

RileyOG
Newbie SG/Yeast/Bottle Bomb Question
Replies
24
Views
1K
Chalkyt
Chalkyt
Chalkyt
Batonnage for improving cider????
Replies
3
Views
504
doublejef
doublejef
lutherieguy
Mystery problem about 8 days into ferment - TWICE
Replies
4
Views
262
lutherieguy
lutherieguy
SoCalPlumber
Plumber's Cider
2 3
Replies
86
Views
3K
Fixerman
F
Chalkyt
Using Fuji juice to make sweet carbonated Cider
Replies
1
Views
402
Chalkyt
Chalkyt
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top