Mashing with Cider?

My friend here at work who makes wine by buying frozen fruit juice and adding in pounds of sugar wants to do an apple 'wine' with caramel. First I told him that adding sugar to juice to make wine is less than ideal then I told him dissolving caramel might work but for flavor using some Crystal 120 might be better. I explained the mashing process to him and he asked me if he could just heat up the cider to around 155 and mash with that.

I didn't know the answer. Anyone else ever heard of mashing with juice or cider?

you WANT simple sugars with cider/wine yeast. There is no need to mash anything because the sugar is already present in the fruit/juice/additions and you are not converting starches.

Why would you add crystal malt and its unfermentable/complex sugars(especially a dark one like 120) to a cider/wine?
Its easier and better to do a controlled back sweetening than try to have unfermentables in the must up front.

I have considered mashing with cider before and also with maple sap. But haven't done so with cider because I think the PH would be too low for an effective mash - not sure what the PH of maple sap.

Anyway you aren't really talking about mashing I don't think. You are taking about steeping like in an extract recipe. That would be good to get some extra flavor from the C120 for your cider but I would steep it separately in water and then boil and cool to kill lacto bacteria in the grain. Or you steep in hot with the juice, but you would have to boil the juice which would cause murky never clear cider/wine.

I did something similar to this when I made the "graff" recipe on this forum. I think it was DME and C40 or something. Long and the short is there wasn't much of a flavor contribution and I never did the recipe again. Great idea in theory, but in process I thought it didn't taste that great.

amandabab said:

you WANT simple sugars with cider/wine yeast. There is no need to mash anything because the sugar is already present in the fruit/juice/additions and you are not converting starches.

Why would you add crystal malt and its unfermentable/complex sugars(especially a dark one like 120) to a cider/wine?
Its easier and better to do a controlled back sweetening than try to have unfermentables in the must up front.

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I suggested crystal malt for for the caramel type flavor. Are you suggesting he should just use caramel candy like he wanted before? No matter what this kid is hell bent on adding caramel flavor.

People add sugar to fruit/juice & ferment it all the time, with great results...
Why would you think that was a bad thing?

If your friend wants caramel flavour, maybe a graff is more what he's looking for:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/

I'd steer clear of using candy, a lot of those candies use milk and/or butter, both of which contain fat, not something you want in your fermenter.

If it were me, I'd just steep some crystal 60 at 155* for 30-45 mins & add that liquor to the juice. if you want to replace the juice sugars lost to the liquor, just add some frozen concentrate.
Regards, GF.

gratus fermentatio said:

People add sugar to fruit/juice & ferment it all the time, with great results...
Why would you think that was a bad thing?

If your friend wants caramel flavour, maybe a graff is more what he's looking for:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/

I'd steer clear of using candy, a lot of those candies use milk and/or butter, both of which contain fat, not something you want in your fermenter.

If it were me, I'd just steep some crystal 60 at 155* for 30-45 mins & add that liquor to the juice. if you want to replace the juice sugars lost to the liquor, just add some frozen concentrate.
Regards, GF.

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IMO, I feel refined sugar is not ideal because it has been ripped of all it's vitamins and minerals. The same can be applied to a lot of these fruit juices my friend uses. Whether we like it or not, using malted grain (and other natural ingredients such as honey and hops) provides us with some valuable nutritional items as well as the sugar for the yeast.

Thanks for the info though. I can see by your number of posts that you're probably an expert in brewing. I passed on the info you gave me and my friend is debating on 120 vs 60. He was somewhat happy to hear that 120 was unfermentable because he wanted the wine to end up sweet, FG 1.020. I'll post what he decides. Oh, but he's definitely not going to use candy anymore.

Another option - take some of the sugar you'll be adding (Ed Wort's Apfelwein uses 2 pounds in a 5 gallon batch) - say, half a pound - and caramelize it according to the instructions in "Twenty Pounds of Sugar and a Jar of Yeast Nutrient" (do a forum search for that title, lots of good info there). When sugar gets caramelized, it loses some of its fermentability, which leaves some sweetness behind along with caramel flavor.

And yes, you don't get "vitamins and minerals" from sugar. My next suggestion is, use the sugar, and take a vitamin pill.

Cheers!

lonelynoose said:

I suggested crystal malt for for the caramel type flavor. Are you suggesting he should just use caramel candy like he wanted before? .

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actually, caramel candy or syrup would be better.

gratus fermentatio said:

People add sugar to fruit/juice & ferment it all the time, with great results...
Why would you think that was a bad thing?

If your friend wants caramel flavour, maybe a graff is more what he's looking for:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/

I'd steer clear of using candy, a lot of those candies use milk and/or butter, both of which contain fat, not something you want in your fermenter.

If it were me, I'd just steep some crystal 60 at 155* for 30-45 mins & add that liquor to the juice. if you want to replace the juice sugars lost to the liquor, just add some frozen concentrate.
Regards, GF.

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if you just steep and add then you will not kill bacteria in the grains. This could infect and ruin the cider.

heating cider up will set the pectin and it will never clear. not a big deal if you don't care if it is clear or not

JeepDiver said:

heating cider up will set the pectin and it will never clear. not a big deal if you don't care if it is clear or not

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+1 i stated that above as well

CidahMastah said:

but I would steep it separately in water and then boil and cool to kill lacto bacteria in the grain. Or you steep in hot with the juice, but you would have to boil the juice which would cause murky never clear cider/wine.

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That is why you should steep in some water, boil, then cool and add to your cider.

Thanks for the tips all. My friend is going to use 120 after all. He's going to steep it and add it after it cools.