1 Gallon Cider Experiments

So taking inspiration from this thread, I will be making a few 1 gallon batches over the coming weeks/months to test out some new recipes.

Initially, these are the candidates:
Apple-Pear-Ginger
Belgian White (a la woodchuck)
Apple-Peach
Caramel
Maple Syrup
Blueberry
Pecan

I will be trying all of the above recipes at standard gravity (i.e no added sugar) and will be fermenting to 1.011-1.008 and then bottling with coopers priming drops. Lastly, I'll stove top pasteurize once carbonated (using a plastic bottle to decide when its done)

I'll post back with updates on recipes and results.
Recipe ideas are welcome!

1st batch done. Apple-Pear-Ginger.

Recipe:
3 lbs fresh pairs, juiced (gave just under a third of a gallon)
2/3 Gal apple juice (Kroger, from concentrate)
1 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/5 tsp pectic enzyme
Nottingham yeast

Primary for 5 days, hit a gravity of 1.011 so I bottled with coopers carbonation drops.
Plastic bottle was hard after 2 days, so I opened it. It had decent carbonation, so I left the bottles over night and stove top pasteurized this morning. Only lost 1 bottle out of 8, so not too bad for my first attempt ever.

Taster:
The cider is cloudy as hell so I'm wondering what the pectic enzyme actually did. The pear flavour is virtually non-existent. If I didn't know to look for it, I'm sure I would miss it. The ginger is also very low, which doesn't bother me because I think it could be overpowering if there was too much.

I added a little white sugar to my last few sips and it really came alive, so I'm wondering if the target FG of 1.009-1.0012 is too dry for me. Might try stop the next one a little higher.

With pear being such a subtle flavor, I am thinking you should ferment out pure apple to dry and then sweeten/prime with pear juice and ginger. This way the yeast won't eat all your pears. Just a thought. Looking forward to your next test.

Thats not a bad idea!

With pears giving such a good yield of juice, I might even just try a perry-ginger next (Sp?) and see if I get some good pear flavour at 1.020 or so

Alright, batches #2 and #3 in.

#2 - Belgian White

1 Gal kroger apple juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
Orange peel in strips, about 1/3 of a very large orange
1 tsp coriander
1/2 packet Safbrew T-58 yeast

OG-1.049

#3 - Plain Cider, experiment on stopping early (~1.020)

1 Gal organic apple juice (needed another 1 gal bottle so had to get the expensive stuff)
20 tsp white sugar
1/2 packet Nottingham yeast

OG 1.066

They are both in my brewcooler right now along with a caramel vanilla cream ale thats been there for about a week. Im worried its a little too cold for the T-58 as the tempis around 59 right now. As most of the beer's primary is almost done I'll ease up on the frozen 2-litres and let it get a little warmer.

Bottled the Belgian white last night, Fg of 1.020.

The SWMBO tasted it and said it was perfect so I obeyed.

The damn stuff over carbed over night! Woke up this morning and the plastic bottle was more than rock. So I popped the caps, lost about a third of each cider in foam over and then evened out the bottles before recapping an pasteurizing.

Oh nooooooooooooooo!

Lol

Ah! Too bad. Safa, I'm having the same dilemma you are (currently brewing 3 1-gallon batches). How to bottle and maintain a bit of sweetness...without over-carbonating!!! Fifthcircle's suggestion of priming with pear juice on your previous batch seems reasonable to me, but I don't have any experience to know if that would help or not.

Keep us updated!

Finally got around to popping one of the belgian white's!

Its delicious, it really is. Nice belgian-like haze, light sweetness too. Cant really detect any of the coriander or orange, but I think that they may just be adding to the flavour instead of standing out because this cider tastes pretty different to the regular stuff.

SWMBO has decided our next batch should be something with lavender Not sure how thats going to turn out, but oh well.

Man that belgian white cider looks and sounds delicious!! Even after such a short time! Nice job. Does pectic enzyme clear the ciders out decently after only 5 days of fermenting? I'm going to bottle my first ever batch of cider soon and I'm thinking of picking up some pectic enzyme for my next batch.

Safa said:

Bottled the Belgian white last night, Fg of 1.020.

The SWMBO tasted it and said it was perfect so I obeyed.

The damn stuff over carbed over night! Woke up this morning and the plastic bottle was more than rock. So I popped the caps, lost about a third of each cider in foam over and then evened out the bottles before recapping an pasteurizing.

Click to expand...

Just a idea. Some thing I use when I have a fast Carb...if it is 2 much then put it in your freezer for a while till u get little crystals at the top then pop open...cuts the foam down.

xjbobbin82: Thanks! And yes the pectic enzyme will help clear things out quite a lot. I have a regular semi sweet that I used pectic with and it came out as clear as commercial cider, very happy! Just be sure to not pour the yeast into your glass and it should turn out well.

Thanks Jackfrost, I will absolutely give that a try!

Safa,

I have a batch of you Belgian White inspired cider in secondary right now.

1 Gal Motts Apple Juice
1 cup cane sugar
Fermetis safale S-04

In primary for 1 month, has been in secondary for a week. I was planning on doing a blueberry cider with this but saw your belgian white recipe and had to try it out.

I added:
Zest of one large orange
1 tsp fresh cracked coriander
1/4 tsp orange extract

It has been floating in the secondary for 2 days now. Not sure how much flavor I will get but the color and clarity has changed drastically since adding the orange and coriander. I added the orange extract because I noticed you didn't get much orange flavor.

I plan on leaving everything in secondary for about a week and then backsweetening to about 1.015 or 1.020 with AJ concentrate and then bottle pasteurizing once they carb up. I will let you know how it turns out, thanks for the recipe.

That sounds great! Let me know how it goes!

Safa said:

That sounds great! Let me know how it goes!

Click to expand...

Bottled last night. Back sweetened with 1 can of frozen AJ concentrate. SG at bottling was 1.017, will drop down to around 1.014 by the time Im ready to pasteurize it.

Noticeable orange smell and an orange taste. However to me it is more of a bitter orange taste, granted the sample was warm and flat. Not sure how much coriander is coming through, but to be honest im not very familiar with it. I think this will be a pleasant option for something a little bit different. Might try to add the orange and coriander in to a Graff cider I am planning. Once everything is carbonated I will be back to update on the taste although I think this will benefit from a bit of aging.

Pic attached after bottling.

Looks great.

Just wondering though, any reason why you used S-04 instead of a Belgian yeast? I used Belgian because I wanted that hazy-heffe look to the cider much like woodchuck's offering, I can see yours has come out much clearer and more cider like. I'm experienced enough with yeast strains to know how it would affect flavour though.

Have 1 gal of straight up apple cider that started at 1.066 sitting in the cupboard. It's been there almost 3 months now.

Seriously thinking of splitting it in half and bottling one batch with the caramel syrup recipe that seems to be so popular. The other half I'm going to mix with 100% grape juice and just see what happens! Anyone done something like this before?

Update:

Grape juice cider isn't carbing, might have dropped too much yeast. Will give it another couple of weeks before I try re-pitch. (I'm thinking if necessary Ill just drop 1 or two little pellets into each bottle and recap)

It tastes delicious though. Could do with a little less sweetness, which Im hoping the carbing will help with.

Caramel apple cider is awesome. Very pleased with how it turned out, and I think I'll make a full size batch towards the end of the year. Its definitely got a Christmas taste to me. I might go down on the cinnamon though, its every so slightly too much for me.

Now:

Started a new cider today. I was at a local farmers market and found some strawberry flavoured cranberries. Weird, I know. They smelled unbelievable though. Super strawberry from hell kind of smell. So of course, I threw them in the blender with some apple juice, mushed them up a bit and added them and a whole gallon of apple juice to a carboy with some pectic enzyme. 24 hours later, I strained what I had (leaving a little bit of the lees to help the flavour) and pitched half a packet of Nottingham ale yeast.

I grabbed a little taste before pitching and MAN did it taste good. SUPER good. The flavor from whatever the hell they put on those cranberries really came through. (OG at this point was 1.071 )

I'm planning on stopping it at 1.010 and adding a little more apple juice until the right sweetness and bottling it. Followed closely by pasteurizing it of course.

Just stumbled upon this thread and I'm liking the experiments so far.

I'd like to see where this goes with your other experiments. Good Luck!

If you liked the caramel apple cider and are thinking of doing the full batch... My last batch I primaries for about 10days, went to secondary sprinkled 2 packets mulling spices & 3 - 6" cinnamon sticks let sit 5 days, bottle... Mine I left still so after bottling it went straight into the serving freezer... Looking forward to more of the experiments!

A local orchard in MD makes a cherry flavor apple cider. It's very tasty and is sold in 1/2 gallon glass jugs. I made a gallon with a cup of sugar and lavlin 1118. It's dry, bubbly, and pretty refreshing. Almost like a cranberry gingerale(only dry).

So- tonight I took 12oz of blackberries with 3/4 cup of sugar and made a syrup. Added it to a gallon of walleyworld AJ with some nutrient and ale yeast..... Hope it is sooooo tasty!

Sounds awesome hehawbrew. I saw a 100% blackberry juice at the store today, seriously thinking about just fermenting some apple juice to dry and backsweetening with that. Let me know hows yours turns out.

Bottled the strawberry cider today. Fermentation (as usual) has knocked the flavour for six. Very very little strawberry flavour detectable. Im hoping that it will come through in the next few weeks while aging in the bottles. I backsweetened with almost a gallon of apple juice, so the final ABV sits at about 5%. Not bad!

Picked up two free pineapples from EarthFare today. Plan is to throw some brown sugar into a gallon of apple juice and I'll let it ferment to about 1.010. Then juice one of the pineapples and use that to backsweeten. Hopefully the brown sugar + pineapple turns out as nice as it sounds in my head.

I'll get a pick up of the strawberry cider when I pour one (going to have to pasteurize in a few days if all goes according to plan). It has a really nice pink tinge to it now.

Well, it's fermenting well! Cant wait to hear how strawberry cider goes!

Man, the Nottingham is really going to town on the batch that will be pineapple cider. I added 2 cups light brown sugar to the gallon and pitched half a packet of Notti last night (about 24 hours ag)? And right now it's pushing about 2 bubbles a second and it looks and sounds like a fresh coke!

(Those white streaks you see on the bottom left are bubbles. This thing is literally fizzing)

Safa said:

Man, the Nottingham is really going to town on the batch that will be pineapple cider. I added 2 cups light brown sugar to the gallon and pitched half a packet of Notti last night (about 24 hours ag)? And right now it's pushing about 2 bubbles a second and it looks and sounds like a fresh coke!

(Those white streaks you see on the bottom left are bubbles. This thing is literally fizzing)

Click to expand...

:rockin:

Strawberry cider plastic bottle was really hard last night, so I threw a glass one in the fridge and popped it about an hour later. Still not carbonated (did have a bit of a fizz as I opened it, but that's it).

The flavour though is fantastic. Just a very light strawberry taste to it, nice and sweet and clean. Great pink tinge to it as well, I know the SWMBO is going to love it

Nice!

I'm still very new to all this. I have no problem carbing my beer but am having a hard time with cider.... For my gallon beers I use 3 tablespoon of honey or maple syrup....I use the same with my cider but get far less carbonation....

I was grocery shopping tonight and Welches grape juice caught my eye..... Bought enough for a gallon experiment!! For those of you who have done this, what can I expect?

Not sure why the carb isn't working out for you. Are you giving your ciders enough time in the fridge to allow the CO2 to dissolve out of the head space?

Good luck with the grape juice, that's actually on my list of stuff to try!

It works, just not as much carb as my beers. I tried another tester tonight after a week , and it was better. I think I just need to be more patient... I know I need to be.....lol.

That Welches grape juice is fermenting like crazy! I am very curious to see how this will taste!

Also-,two or three weeks ago I made a cider where I added a bunch of blackberries that I first turned into a syrup. Still going strong but looks gross on top! The trub on the bottom looks just like the top? Will all that settle after a while?

If you can cold crash it that will help a lot

Ahh, after fermentation has stopped?

Yup, it helps a lot

What do your 1gal fermenter setups look like? Are you guys using 1gal glass jars, 2.5gal pails? Ive been contemplating doing these smaller batches with some ciders...

robbyhicks said:

What do your 1gal fermenter setups look like? Are you guys using 1gal glass jars, 2.5gal pails? Ive been contemplating doing these smaller batches with some ciders...

Click to expand...

I use 2gallon ferm buckets

I bought a couple of gallons of cider from an organic store like Earth Fare/Whole Foods which came in 1 gallon glass jars. Perfect mini carboys.

I just went to the LHBS and picked up a size 6 or 6.5 stopper.

I typically get just over a six pack out of a gallon because trub plays a much bigger role on the small scale. I have started back sweetening with concentrated juice to help up the yield a bit, but that requires upping the initial sugar levels to get decent ABV. Its fun to experiment on such a small scale though. If you screw up you only have to deal with 7/8 bad bottles of cider and a wasted gallon of juice.

So then I have to ask a noob question... In a year and change of brewing, I've always had better bottles with the racking adapter, I also have a drain on my kettle so I've never had to siphon, how much of a pita is it, and what's your best setup for siphoning? I'm assuming you have 3 or 4 gallon jugs that rotate through primary-secondary-primary etc...

No secondary for me, I just primary, cold crash, and bottle.

I just have a plain old siphon, I fill it up with water, plug the bottom in the jug and let it rip. I drain the water into a separate vessel and when the cider gets to the end of the siphon I transfer the tube into my bottling bucket.