My cider brew

Here is what I did last night

Ingredients
5 gallons Apple juice, Pasteurized, non concentrate
2 lbs dark brown sugar
1 table spoon ground cinnamon
1 Pack Nottingham yeast

Steps
1. Sterilize everything
2. Dumped 1 gallon AJ into carboy
3. Boiled 1 gallon AJ with the dark brown sugar stirring constantly till boil
I attempted to sterilize the cinnamon in vodka but said screw it and dumped it in the boil.
4. Cooled and dumped into carboy
5. Added the 2 gallons AJ
6. Dumped in the yeast
7. Dumped in last gallon of AJ
8. Sealed up with airlock.

Now the waiting process. Any thoughts or suggestions from this point out?
I actually want a sweeter drink as opposed to dry, and I am also after carbonation.

Just keeping everyone updated, it’s off to the races. I actually need to put a blow off one because it was foaming over, but alas I am at work and it will have to wait. I think my plan for the end of this is to put some fermentable sugar in and none fermentable for sweetness and carbonation.
Splenda and table sugar?

if you had some home made vannilla extract(should go good with cinnamon)sounds good with that.Did u use cylon cinnamon?or cassia?and,ive never tried honey---would that be a good sweetner???

Boiling is not necessary and can be undesirable, but YMMV. It will drive off flavors and set the pectins. Since you did boil you may need some pectic enzyme to help clear later.

JustusIV said:

Here is what I did last night

Ingredients
5 gallons Apple juice, Pasteurized, non concentrate
2 lbs dark brown sugar
1 table spoon ground cinnamon
1 Pack Nottingham yeast

Steps
1. Sterilize everything
2. Dumped 1 gallon AJ into carboy
3. Boiled 1 gallon AJ with the dark brown sugar stirring constantly till boil
I attempted to sterilize the cinnamon in vodka but said screw it and dumped it in the boil.
4. Cooled and dumped into carboy
5. Added the 2 gallons AJ
6. Dumped in the yeast
7. Dumped in last gallon of AJ
8. Sealed up with airlock.


Now the waiting process. Any thoughts or suggestions from this point out?
I actually want a sweeter drink as opposed to dry, and I am also after carbonation.

Click to expand...

that was alot of work... next time I recomend you DON'T boil any of the apple juice - warm up just enough on the stove that you can desolve the 2 pounds of sugar in there - without boiling.

don't be too concerned when a greasy brown sludge appears floating on your cider - that'll be your cinnamon, powdered cinnamon has a tendancy to get muclilaginous and nasty looking when soaked in juice or liquid. it'll eventually sink and settle out - also don't sweat trying to sterilize cinnamon - oil of cinnamon is a natural antiseptic - so not much can live on it.

don't know too much about Notty - but with the yeasts i'm using (EC-1118 and Montrachet) the only way I can get bottle carb AND sweet (as opposed to forced carb in a keg) is if I ferment to dryness, then backsweeten to taste with a non fermentable sugar then add a small amount of fermentable carbing sugar. basically I've learned if your drink finishes sweet - then you can't bottle carb - and if it finishes dry - you can't sweeten it with fermentables.

someone here is sure to know more about the notty yeast than I though.

If you prefer a sweeter cider, leave out the additional sugar.

The two pounds of sugar is to boost the ABV, which makes it drier, not sweeter.

However, the Nottingham shouldn't finish as dry as a Champagne yeast, so it may finish closer to what you want than the original recipe would have.

Definitely taste it before adding any more sugar, since more sugar will take it even drier, not sweeter.

I haven't used cinnamon myself, but others have posted that a cinnamon stick in secondary gives better flavor results than ground cinnamon, plus no slime, do searches for the exact specifics if desired.

Pogo