Found an interesting recipe for Cider

Uses DME.. lots... to jump up the alcohol and I guess give it an additional flavor but yet no boiling.

5 gal apple juice
10#'s Golden Light DME (Briess)
1# sugar (called for cane but the person used Turbinado)
1# Honey (Wildflower honey)
WL sweet mead/wine yeast
+ various other spices in the 2nd fermentor

Would boiling this be better? And with all the DME will this fit into a 5 gal BB or do I need to use a bigger fermentor (not sure if the DME will cause the volume to increase much)? Also thinking of using a yeast nutrient thing I bought to maybe help this out.

Going to try this out tomorrow or saturday and the planned time for being ready is around end of may.

I believe these are the periods of time I have it set for.
1month 1st
2month 2nd
1month bottle

Well... with DME it won't ferment dry... you'll be left with something around 1.015 is my guess. I'm also guessing around 15-16% ABV between the juice, DME, honey, and sugar. That one may be a good one gallon batch...lol...

sirsloop said:

Well... with DME it won't ferment dry... you'll be left with something around 1.015 is my guess. I'm also guessing around 15-16% ABV between the juice, DME, honey, and sugar. That one may be a good one gallon batch...lol...

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Yeah without the juice its saying 10ish% so yeah I could see it getting that high, like a nice strong wine..... But the yeast will only hold up around 15% and with a attenuation of around 70% it wont ferment everything.

If my local brew store still has the yeast I might just put this together... might buy an extra bucket today if I do.

Have you tried this before? Unless it tastes great, I'd be wary to spend so much money on something like this...

I think your attenuation will be much higher than 70%. If you have a good starter, the DME should ferment out around 75-80%. Thats only like half of the sugars though. The juice, honey, and sugar are all virtually 100% fermentable so it raises the average. I figured 90% attenuation on that recipe... just as a guess. If you are worried about knocking out the yeast, just cut back the DME a little and/or use a little water with your juice. Apple juice contains A LOT of sugars. I think straight juice is 1.055 alone.

sirsloop said:

I think your attenuation will be much higher than 70%. If you have a good starter, the DME should ferment out around 75-80%. Thats only like half of the sugars though. The juice, honey, and sugar are all virtually 100% fermentable so it raises the average. I figured 90% attenuation on that recipe... just as a guess. If you are worried about knocking out the yeast, just cut back the DME a little and/or use a little water with your juice. Apple juice contains A LOT of sugars. I think straight juice is 1.055 alone.

Click to expand...

Ooo and in 2nd you put in concentrate..

This weekend is a giant experimental weekend.... this and Belgian Ale. Thankfully the apple juice was buy 1 get one free deal at the store. I don't have anything to properly brew a small batch in and also I like to take risks sometimes.

worst case you throw a kick the keg party and everyone gets real drunk

haha... i might be cutting the DME down to 7# to help not raise the volume that much...

I have a 6.5gal bucket 6 gal glass carboy and 2 bb..... I want to use the bucket and glass for the belgain ale as that will be 5.5 gallons.

I take it when doing the concentrate that you boil it with water then cool it down.... correct?

I've thought of doing something similar, but some hear have suggested the "cidery" flavor of cider does not blend well with malt.

HOWEVER.

The "cidery" taste of excess sugar does not actually come from sugar. Instead, the lack of nutrients in sugar makes the yeast behave differently, and its the yeast that produces the cidery flavor when too much cane sugar is used.

I've wondered if the "cidery" flavor in cider is also from lack of nutrients, and not actually from the apples.

If that was the case, then using malt-extract (with contains LOTS of nutriets) much actually cut the tartness. hmm

nick

I guess I will find out.

Well used 7#'s and heated up the DME, sugar, and honey which came out to 5.5 gal roughly (which is what i brew with beers so thats nice). The OG is 1.118. This will be approx 12% and hopefully tasty! But only time will tell. Also put in a yeast nutriant by WL from a capsule.

BTW 2nd uses cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon along with concentrate apple juice with potassium sorbate (C6H7O2K) for killing off the yeast.

Honestly doesn't sound very good to me, but I could be wrong. I do know that at 12% that is definately gonna need to be aged at least 6 months to a year before drinking.

if its not clear by mid summer it will wait till end of spring next year.