Apple Pie in a bottle

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tmags711

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Hi all,

I've been kicking around a recipe in my head for a while and finally put something together. I want to try to brew an apple pie ale. Basically, get the full flavors of a classic apple pie in a bottle. I know it sounds a little crazy, but I do like a challenge. I use Hopville's Beer Calculus to run my recipes, btw (http://beercalculus.hopville.com)

So, I'm brewing all grain, 5 gallons of wort, planning on collecting 6.5 gallons of wort. Brewhouse efficiency about 78%.

Original Gravity: 1.064
Final Gravity: 1.017
Est. ABV: 6.3%

5 lbs Victory Malt
4 lbs American Two-Row Pale
.5 lbs Cara-Pils
.75 lbs Flaked Oats
.75 lbs Brown Sugar
4 baked apples (added @ 15 mins in boil)

1.5 oz Amarillo (AA 8.1%) @ 40 mins
.5 oz Amarillo (AA 8.1%) @ 10 Mins

4 oz Lactose Sugar in Primary, Ferment 14 days
4 oz Cinnamon sticks in Secondary 21 days

Pitch with WYeast American Ale II (1272)

Bottle


My hope is that the Victory malt adds a background buttery/nutty profile, the cinnamon catches on the nose, and the beer holds a solid flavor of apples and sugar. My goal with the oats and lactose is to give it a solid mouthfeel. I'm envisioning this as a fall beer, but expect it will need a couple months of bottle conditioning. I would love to brew this sometime in the next few months and then 'lose it' in the basement until fall.

Question #1: Is it redundant to use lactose and oats? I would prefer lactose for a creaminess (fingers crossed)

Question #2: Baking the apples will break down lots of the sugars. Will adding them towards the tail end of the boil be effective? Or put them in the Primary and ferment on top of them?

I have searched through the recipe forums and could not find a thread similar enough to answer all my questions. If I am repeating something obvious, my apologies, and please be generous with some wisdom.

So: Thoughts?

*If you aren't familiar, baked apples are whole apples cored and put in a pan with cinnamon, sugar, and water then baked in the oven for approx. one hour. Delicious
 
I would go with raw apples in secondary to get the apple flavor or maybe even add apple juice. What is the Amarillo going to contribute? I would suggest a single 60 minute addition of Goldings to provide some bitterness but stay out of the way of everything else.
 
I hadn't really considered the hops too much, I like the idea of some soft Goldings and then it hiding. I want to avoid apple juice because it's such a different flavor than you get in pie.
 
tmags711 said:
I hadn't really considered the hops too much, I like the idea of some soft Goldings and then it hiding. I want to avoid apple juice because it's such a different flavor than you get in pie.

It would ferment out almost entirely leaving behind some apple flavor. Crystal malt and spices are going to do the most for it.
 
I'm no recipe master but I am thinking Crystal 40 & 60, Munich, Vienna, and Victory would all help out. Maybe Maris Otter for a base malt? Some wheat malt too?
 
I would blend some apples into a sauce and brown them in some brown sugar and spices. Then add that to secondary. I would use some tart apples for more apple flavor. I've never done this myself. It's just what I would try. I may be wrong though.
 
I'm no recipe master but I am thinking Crystal 40 & 60, Munich, Vienna, and Victory would all help out. Maybe Maris Otter for a base malt? Some wheat malt too?

I second the use of Maris Otter as a base malt. It would really create a nice bready, crusty flavor without being too-over-the-top grainy. I tend to think that 5 lbs of Victory malt might be a bit much in a 5 gallon batch. I think it might make the beer too melanoidin-rich, like a Doppelbock made with a large proportion of dark Munich malt. You want a nice pie crust flavor that won't mask the apple and spice flavors. I think Maris Otter would work nicely, or you could try regular 2-row base malt, plus a couple pounds of light Munich and maybe a half pound of Victory. Just my 2 cents.
 
I did a quick google search and came across this product. It is a natural apple extract. Adding something like this to the bottling bucket or keg would be a good way to add a prominent apple flavor.

http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Apple-Extract-4-oz/dp/B004QXKQN8/ref=pd_sbs_gro_2

This would probably provide more apple flavor than adding fresh or cooked apples to the fermenter. Maybe you could add both real fruit as well as fruit extract?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Toast the oats and secondary the apples in whatever form you choose to use them. A brew pub near me makes exactly what you are describing, and calls it bonita applebaum. The place its called funky buddha. It its really good but a one glass beer in my opinion.
 
Dude way to much Victory --- biscuit malt going to taste like eating bread. Marris Otter is English and Apple pie is American. Apple pie needs to be American....... like this:

10 lbs American two row --- Briess Pale Ale preferable
1/2 lb special roast Briess (tangy sour dough -- crust flavor)
1 lb Caramel 80 (sweet caramel flavor rich and full of color)
1/2 OZ chocolate malt -- nice roasted taste but in the back ground
1 lb Victory -- here is the bread flavor give the apples some meat.

Columbus hops for bitter and Cascade for flavor aroma.

Last 5 min of boil add 3 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon clove, 1/4 nutmeg.

21 days primary. Rack to secondary over 1 lb green granny smith apples (peeled, pared and sliced) boiled in 8 qts. of water and 1/2 lb brown sugar. (Boil at least 15 minutes.)

May need to up up quantities for all the extra in secondary.... let sit at least 30 days.....

Man dude you got me thinking about 4th of July ....

Any way that's a rough sketch of where I would I start....
 
i'm no expert on whether the apples should be in secondary or in the mash or what, but i agree with baking them - partial caramelization of their sugars should help. To that end, it might make sense to bake them in something non-stick so you can get all the goodness. it will also break down the cell walls and make the sugars easier to ferment (and the flavors easier to dissolve).

You should core the apples. There are bad things in apple seeds.

The cinnamon at 4oz of stick may be too much. If we're talking about hard cassia cinnamomum aromaticum bark, it's flavors are very soluble in alcohol. You might want to do some more research on the amount and type of cinnamon used in spiced beers.

fwiw true brown sugar is manufactured by spinning cooked cane juice in a centrifuge-like device, and as such it's major constituents are sugar and molasses. In baking i vociferously advocate real spun brown sugar because it's crystals are long and needly and have physical properties that are critical during the mixing stage - but added to wort you may as well use molasses for the flavor.

A cup of brown sugar is basically equivalent, chemically speaking, to 1 cup of table sugar (granular white sucrose) and 1 tablespoon of molasses, fwiw.
 
You'll want some tartness in there. Pie apples are tart. What you have right now is a recipe for applesauce beer. You're on the right track with cinnamon, and you might consider adding a little vanilla.

Cascade Barrel House in Portland made a sour beer called Apple Pie, and I couldn't believe how much it tasted like pie. I believe that beer was barrel aged with Granny Smith apples.
 
Well it took a bit, but now you have some people here that actually sound like they have a clue. Glad I could help. Hehe
 
Thanks for the answers y'all.

I'm definitely gonna switch over to a 50/50 Maris and 2-Row base with some Victory and Specialty malts.

As for the apples I am going to stick with cooking them before, then see how it tastes after primary. If the apples are too weak then I will rack over some more in secondary. Spices will be interesting, I will do some more research on amounts.

I'll post my final grain bill when I have time to brew this in a couple weeks.
 
Ill try to remember the recipe but my colleges homebrewing team made an applejack ale that when we were making it, smelled the like whole floor was eating a bowl of apple jacks. It was ****ing awesome
 
personally I would roast 1# of apples in the oven coating them with a little sugar until they are soft and add that to the mash to help get a nice mouth feel out of them. Add cinn, nutmeg, and a touch of clove at 5m.

Then when you transfer to secondary rack on top of some more apples. At this point I'd probably stick to fresh tart apples. Also when racking taste your hydrometer sample to gauge the spices. And add more into the secondary if you feel it needs them.

Oh another thought...at flame out (and into the secondary if needed) I would add 1oz vanilla extract
 
personally I would roast 1# of apples in the oven coating them with a little sugar until they are soft and add that to the mash to help get a nice mouth feel out of them. Add cinn, nutmeg, and a touch of clove at 5m.

Then when you transfer to secondary rack on top of some more apples. At this point I'd probably stick to fresh tart apples. Also when racking taste your hydrometer sample to gauge the spices. And add more into the secondary if you feel it needs them.

Oh another thought...at flame out (and into the secondary if needed) I would add 1oz vanilla extract

So, I don't mean to start an argument, but I don't understand some of what you said and disagree with some more. What mouthfeel do you expect to get from baked apples in the mash? It sounds like extra work with no real payoff. I've learned to stay the heck away from clove in beer. Vanilla is super volatile and should go in secondary or at bottling. IMHO you're just wasting money adding extract to the boil.
 
Just throwing this out there but a local brewery took a bunch of apple cider from a local orchard and boiled it down into a syrup to add that cinnamon apple flavor to a beer they did. Sounds like it might work for the beer you are going for.
 
You could always reference a Pumpkin recipe, kinda similar. Some of those mash with pumpkin.

This is why I said add to the mash. With my pumpkin recipe I do the same steps. Pumpkin in the mash and vanilla + spices at FO and in the secondary. It's just personal preference really. I haven't ever brewed it any other way so I can't say for certain what adding it in the mash vs just the secondary will achieve but the technique has worked well for me in the past
 
I added 8 oz of Coconut flakes to the mash for a Coconut Porter. Not sure if it added anything to the beer or not. Always hard to tell when your adding it at a later time also.
 
Marris Otter is English and Apple pie is American.

Careful what you say around a Dutch or French baker.

Here's my take, hopefully making it this weekend:

3kg marris
0.5kg honey malt
0.5kg crystal 45
0.5kg crystal 77

mash @157

0.5oz Chinook@60
0.5oz Chinook@10
2tsp cinnamon@5
3/4tsp allspice@5
3/4tsp nutmeg@5

Boil 60 minutes, 16L (4g) into fermenter
English Ale yeast

After primary add 4L (1g) of dark apple cider and 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped.
 
Dude way to much Victory --- biscuit malt going to taste like eating bread. Marris Otter is English and Apple pie is American. Apple pie needs to be American.......

Apple pie is not american:

"...English apple pie recipes go back to the time of Chaucer. The 1381 recipe (see illustration at right) lists the ingredients as good apples, good spices, figs, raisins and pears. The cofyn of the recipe is a casing of pastry. Saffron is used for colouring the pie filling.

In English speaking countries, apple pie is a dessert of enduring popularity, eaten hot or cold, on its own or with ice cream, double cream, or custard...."
 
So tmags711, how'd this turn out? I'm interested in the concept, for sure. Give it up!
 
I did the recipe that I listed above this weekend. After smelling the spices I reduced the all-spice to 1/2tsp, but otherwise it is all the same.

I messed up my boil a bit because I"ve recently been doing 90 minute boils and only did 60 - didn't alter my water addition accordingly so my OG was 1050 instead of 1056 and my volume was a bit high. Because of the high volume i'm actually going to rack off the cake when primary slows down so I have more volume for the apple juice to go in.

Once the spices were added I scooped a little out of hte pot and brought it to wifey to check out. She smelled it and said "Mmm, apple pie", I said "Great, but sniff again there's no apple yet". So the good news is it smells like PIE! Hopefully the addition of unfiltered/unpasteurized cider will give it a nice apple aroma/taste and this should be a good xmas apple pie ale.

I will update when I'm ready to keg it.
 
Thanks, Sleepy. I was concerned about that so when I was reading recipes and saw they all used 3tsp, I reduced it to 2tsp for safety. I'd rather keep it subtle.

The airlock smels nice and has slowed down. I just need to find cider with no preservatives, the local country market I went to last night had potassium sorbate in their cider :(
 
Actually y'all, I haven't gotten to brew it yet. I'm still learning my setup and working on improving efficiency. Unless my math is really off, I seem to be stuck around 65%. BUT, got a new mash tun, so I think I'll give it a go this weekend.

Thanks for the input everybody! Props to MazdaMatt for getting it done before me!
 
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