B. Nektar Zombie Killer Clone

I had a Zombie Killer the other day and have been looking for a while for a good brew to make for the lady. It immediately struck me as something that could meet that need. Anyone have any success with a clone or something in that direction?

that stuff is heaven, B. Nektar is one of my favorite companies. I would make as big a batch as possible, one of those a day would keep the frowns away. It is just so expensive. a clone of that would be fun.

Sub'd. I had their cherry cyser. It was a perfect balance of appley, honey, and cherry flavors. Expensive as heck, though. I'd love to be able to make something like that at home.

I've never had the Zombie Killer but after checking out the description on their website I'm interested in giving it a try.

It's got a low ABV and it's also carbonated, they probably stabilize it and then force carbonate.

I'd start by mixing a pound of honey with a pound or two of Montmorrency cherries per gallon and then topping up with apple cider rather than water. I'm going to my home brew shop tomorrow and they carry B. Nektar meads so if I find some I'll buy it and see if I can help out a little more

I guess you could make the cider yourself but I don't know much about that.

Too bad I didn't see this earlier today, I might have been able to get info direct from the source... I was at the Cigar City tasting room and Brad, the founder of B. Nektar was there brewing a collab with CCB, he sat down at the bar right next to me and I BSd with him for a while.

I shot him an email. Hopefully he responds.

Right now I'm thinking of getting 50% of the gravity from cider, 20% from honey, and 30% from tart cherry juice. I've never made cider before, and this is entirely a guess based on the taste. That sound about right?

And what kind of honey should I be using? Will it make much of a difference?

thasnazzle said:

And what kind of honey should I be using? Will it make much of a difference?

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Check this out. Guess we need star thistle honey

COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION
Zombie Killer Cherry Cyser is made with Michigan tart cherry juice, apple cider and star thistle honey. It is sweet but balances nicely with the tart cherries. Be careful...it is extremely addicting and refreshing. Serve cold...Zombies hate the cold!

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I just got done reading a ton of reviews on rate beer dot com. I think it would be good to age this on some light toasted French oak and the tart cherry juice to be added after fermentation & stabilizing. Just my 2c

Edit:

OK this thread has my head buzzin with ideas so thought I would share.

From B. Nektar site this is a 5.5% abv drink

So starting gravity of 1.04 & cold crash/stabalize as close to a gravity of 1.008 as possible then back sweeten with tart cherry juice to 1.02 & age for 1month on lightly toasted french oak cubes. ingrediants for 5 gallon would be as follows.

3 64oz bottles of Apple Cider
3lb of Star Thistle Honey, might need a little more to hit 1.04 gravity
Water to 5 gallon
2.5tsp yeast nutrient (SNA)
2.5tsp yeast energizer (SNA)

Stabalize with 5 camden tablets and 2.5tsp of potassium sorbate

Back sweeten to 1.02 gravity with Montmorencey Tart Cherry "Juice" not concentrate. Should take about 2 64oz bottles worth.

Age on 1oz light toasted frech oak 1 month.

Rack untill clear and force carb. DONE!

Sub'd. My wife makes me buy every bottle she can find. We were at knightly spirits in Orlando. They had a ton of b-nektar stuff on the shelf. So she got another. She would love for me to make this. We have been paying 8.99 a bottle here for it, and they can't keep it in stock.

They had all this plus an ipa-style mead which sounded interesting
http://www.bnektar.com/mead/draft-session/42-evil-genius.html

I paid $10 for a bottle today, I'll give it a try this weekend when I've got some time to fully enjoy it.

Arpolis said:

I just got done reading a ton of reviews on rate beer dot com. I think it would be good to age this on some light toasted French oak and the tart cherry juice to be added after fermentation & stabilizing. Just my 2c

Edit:

OK this thread has my head buzzin with ideas so thought I would share.

From B. Nektar site this is a 5.5% abv drink

So starting gravity of 1.04 & cold crash/stabalize as close to a gravity of 1.008 as possible then back sweeten with tart cherry juice to 1.02 & age for 1month on lightly toasted french oak cubes. ingrediants for 5 gallon would be as follows.

3 64oz bottles of Apple Cider
3lb of Star Thistle Honey, might need a little more to hit 1.04 gravity
Water to 5 gallon
2.5tsp yeast nutrient (SNA)
2.5tsp yeast energizer (SNA)

Stabalize with 5 camden tablets and 2.5tsp of potassium sorbate

Back sweeten to 1.02 gravity with Montmorencey Tart Cherry "Juice" not concentrate. Should take about 2 64oz bottles worth.

Age on 1oz light toasted frech oak 1 month.

Rack untill clear and force carb. DONE!

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That sounds awesome!

I am going to try this recipe this weekend. I can't force carb, though - no kegging system. My plan was to backsweeten with more sugar than needed to prime it, then just wait until the bottles were carbed enough and pasteurize them. Any idea how I should calculate the amount of sugar I should be adding to backsweeten/prime?

Oh, and - what yeast? I currently have some beer yeasts (s-04, wy3711 saison, wlp400 wit, and some brett b) in the fridge. Should I be using those? Or should I go for a cider yeast? I haven't made cider in a while - last time I used s-04 and it turned out well.

Definitely post back with results, finding the best clone possible for this would be awesome.

I recently made a cheap & easy attempt at a Zombie Killer clone myself;

5 gallons Natural Apple Juice (Kroger, Motts, whatever... just no preservatives)
3# Local Honey (B. Nektar mentions thistle, I just used what the farmer down the street had from his bee boxes)
16oz. tart cherry juice concentrate ('Fruit Fast' found in health section at Kroger)
WLP720 Sweet Mead/Wine yeast

I diluted honey with <1/2 gallon of apple juice and heated to 180F for 5-10 minutes. I guess a lot of guys dont worry about pasturizing the honey, I'll probably skip this step in the future. I added the rest of the apple juice and pitched yeast. Fermented 68F-70F until it was done. Racked onto 16oz of Tart Cherry Juice, slight activity in secondary. Racked one more time onto eisenglass and waited a month or two to clear out.

Results...DELICIOUS, but NOT CLONED
Not that I expected it to be, I was more or less trying to create something similar. Attenuation was higher than I expected. My attempt definitely finished drier than the real deal. I am going to attempt this same recipe with perhaps an ale yeast and see what I get. If that doesnt give me the correct amount of sweetness i'm going to experiment with more honey and/or cherry juice.

**Side note** I noticed the B. Nektar website lists the ABV at 5.5% yet the label reads 7%, Mine finsihed around 5.5%

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions or come up with anything close

I too finished my first clone attempt. I used 6gal publix brand apple cider and Notty. Let it ferment dry then back-sweetened with organic tart cherry juice and honey to 1.020. After that I pasteurized all the bottles after they reached the carbonation I wanted. It came out really good and real close to a clone but not quite there. Next batch I'm going to back-sweeten to 1.030 using more honey and use US-04. I'll post back on how it goes.

subscribed. I actually earlier today before finding this thread wracked a batch of semisweet mead onto just under 16 ounces of Michigan tart cherry. I wish I had read this before I would have made it a cyser. I'm planning on aging it with American White Oak Spirals. I am defiantly going to help try to clone Zombie Killer with you guys now with my next batch.

I haven't had a chance to do anything with this, JFK, but I'm curious as to how things turn out for you. Do keep us posted.

So I've come up with something that tastes incredibly similar but its technically a cider not a cyser.
Ferment 6gal Publix brand Cider with Notty until dry and yeast flocs out. Backsweeten with 2lbs Orange Blossom honey and tart cherry juice. I added a cup at a time of the tart cherry juice until I felt it tasted right. IIRC it was about 1L total. Pasteurize after 3-4 days if you bottle. If you keg just make sure to keep the keg cold so fermentation doesn't kick back up.
I don't have any Zombie Killer to do a side by side taste test, but from what I remember the the finished product tastes very similar. Nice honey flavor balanced out by tart cherry.

KeyWest, can you elaborate on your process for this? I just had Zombie Killer last night and was a big fan, but I've never really brewed a cider before. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

TMannion87 said:

KeyWest, can you elaborate on your process for this? I just had Zombie Killer last night and was a big fan, but I've never really brewed a cider before. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Shoot me a PM with anything you want me to explain better for ya and I'll do my best to help.

Could you post here as well? My wife loved this stuff when I found a bottle a couple months ago, and I'd love to make her a clone of this.

Thinking of using Trader Joe's cider with US05 as the base, then adding honey and TJ's tart cherry juice.

How well does the pasteurizing work? What time/temp do you use, and does it affect the flavor any?

QuercusMax said:

Could you post here as well? My wife loved this stuff when I found a bottle a couple months ago, and I'd love to make her a clone of this.

Thinking of using Trader Joe's cider with US05 as the base, then adding honey and TJ's tart cherry juice.

How well does the pasteurizing work? What time/temp do you use, and does it affect the flavor any?

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Though its technically a cider and not a cyser I've gotten best results from Publix brand cider and Notty. After its fermented and flocs out I rack it to my bottling bucket with a # or two of honey, depending how sweet you want it, and 1L of tart cherry juice. The pasteurizing works perfect and wont change the flavor any. I usually do it after 3 or 4 days in the bottle at 150f for 10mins on my stove top. After that I drink away.

Awesome. I think if I start it this weekend it should be ready in time for our big vacation trip in August!

QuercusMax said:

Awesome. I think if I start it this weekend it should be ready in time for our big vacation trip in August!

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Definitely. Usually takes me about 3 weeks from pitching the yeast to my pint glass.

I just wanted to post my experience with attempting to clone Zombie Killer. I followed KeyWest's recipe, but cut it in half. Ingredients as follows:

3 Gallons Indian Summer Apple Juice
1 Pack Danstar Nottingham Dry Yeast
17 oz. Tart Cherry Juice
1 lb. Orange Blossom Honey

I fermented for 3 weeks, ended with an FG of 1.005 (ABV 5.91%) I kegged this, racked on top of the tart cherry juice, added the honey and shook the keg to mix it all up. Carbonated at 16 psi for 6 days at roughly 40F.

I'm doing a side by side comparison with the real thing, and it's*pretty close. As you can see, the color is pretty spot on. The real Zombie Killer has a bit more apple and honey sweetness to it, while my version has a bit more cherry taste. Overall, I'm very happy with the results. My cost was under $30 for the 3 gallon batch. Definitely will be brewing this again! Thanks to KeyWest for the guidance.

http://i.imgur.com/dUfgj0i.jpg

Glad to hear it turned out well for you and your enjoying it!!

FWIW to anyone else planning on making this... If you heat the honey up a little it makes it a lot easier to mix in.

I've made 3 batches of this so far and all have been big hits.

My most recent batch was using 3 gallons Sams Club apple juice fermented with Cote de Blanc yeast. I kegged it along with 1lb 2.5oz Honey, and 16 oz RW Knudsen Sour Cherry juice. This was just about the perfect mix. I added Sorbate at kegging time, but I don't know if that was really necessary since I kept it cold.

My wife and I compared this with a few bottles of the "real thing", and interestingly enough there seems to be some inconsistency in the sweetness of the commercial product. One bottle was very sweet and the other was comparatively dry.

2.5 gallons were consumed between Christmas and New Year's, but sadly I had a leak of some sort and the last half gallon ended up in the bottom of my keezer. (I think it was a bad o-ring - the pin lock kegging setup I got came with a set of new o-rings for all the kegs, and evidently the post o-rings were NOT pin-lock sized.)

Oh well, time to make another batch!
This time I'm using 3 gallons of Trader Joe's McIntosh apple juice. I got a little bit of a "cider vinegary" taste from the last batch, which I wasn't super thrilled with. (Not that anybody else noticed or complained, I'm just very picky.)

I think I'm going to enter this into a competition in March under the "Fruit Cider" category.... I'll be interested to see what the judges say.

Zombie Killer was formulated as a "clone" of Acoustic Draft Mead's Cherry BzZz. Try the original draft mead - Acoustic - 10 varieties available in Michigan! All natural, all refreshingly clean, all consistent, all Acoustic. CHEERS!

The vinegar taste might be yeast driven somehow. I don't get it when I use Notty but I did when tried S04. I can't say for certain that's what it is but having made the same recipes and only switching yeasts its the only thing that stands out.

QuercusMax said:

I've made 3 batches of this so far and all have been big hits. My most recent batch was using 3 gallons Sams Club apple juice fermented with Cote de Blanc yeast. I kegged it along with 1lb 2.5oz Honey, and 16 oz RW Knudsen Sour Cherry juice. This was just about the perfect mix.

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This sounds great. How long did it take to get the taste right?

Vinegar notes are likely coming from VA or Volatile Acids in the Apple juice. Make sure your juice or concentrate is 100% pure, your yeast is fresh and has the proper nutrients and starter! Also, a "flavored cider" is not a mead. The sugar source for alcohol in mead is honey...unless ZK is really a "flavored cider", which, therefore, should be stated on the label. I've done comparative stability tests on both Acoustic Cherry BzZz and ZK. Can you Guess which one is consistent in quality and stability? If you think two bottles of the same product taste different (sweeter/drier) take a hydrometer reading and a ph measurement and compare. Always take a final gravity of your finished product so that if you loose track of measuring back sweeteners, you'll know for sure if you're under or over sweetening. Ok, now "Guit' BzZz'd, but Stay In Tune!"

I've done a few ciders and one cyser that I backsweetened with cherry juice. Also a big fan of Zombie Killer and looking to do a good clone. I feel like the organic cherry juice I found at the local health food store was a great match and I have access to a thistle honey also. Not sure how much difference the honey varietal will come through. Posting to get feedback on the cider side of things. I know Zombie Killer is just a cider with honey and cherries added. Wondering if it would be best to cold crash the cider at about 1.010 to retain some of the apple sugars, or backsweeten with apple concentrate so that some of the sweetness comes from a natural apple sugar instead of just from the honey and cherries. Anyone try this or have thoughts on the idea?

Zombie Killer is really a cyser which is a bit different than the clones in this thread. You can still get damn near the same thing in the end yourself, taste wise, by backsweetening a cider. Try the recipe I posted on pg. 2 and but cut the honey down to 1lb. Personally which variety of honey isnt as important as the quality.
Just make sure to pasteurize all the bottles ~3 days after bottling. Lemme know if you have any more questions.

KeyWestBrewing said:

Zombie Killer is really a cyser which is a bit different than the clones in this thread. You can still get damn near the same thing in the end yourself, taste wise, by backsweetening a cider. Try the recipe I posted on pg. 2 and but cut the honey down to 1lb. Personally which variety of honey isnt as important as the quality.
Just make sure to pasteurize all the bottles ~3 days after bottling. Lemme know if you have any more questions.

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Thanks......still debating whether to let it go dry. I made a cyser with fresh 2.5 gallons cider from pressed apples and 3 pounds raw wild rose honey. A great cyser by itself, but then added organic cherry juice as it went in to the keg with another pound of wild rose honey. It is very good.......but my sense is that it does not have the same apple underlying flavor because I let it go dry. Will see if anyone else weighs in but leaning towards using your recipe but cold crashing before it goes dry. Cheers

markklug said:

Thanks......still debating whether to let it go dry. I made a cyser with fresh 2.5 gallons cider from pressed apples and 3 pounds raw wild rose honey. A great cyser by itself, but then added organic cherry juice as it went in to the keg with another pound of wild rose honey. It is very good.......but my sense is that it does not have the same apple underlying flavor because I let it go dry. Will see if anyone else weighs in but leaning towards using your recipe but cold crashing before it goes dry. Cheers

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FWIW with my ciders I usually let them ferment dry then add apple juice, honey, and whatever else I may backsweeten with then pasteurize. The honey helps bring out the apple but adding apple juice when you backsweeten really put the flavor back to where I wanted it. For a while I was doing it without the apple juice but, like you, found I wasn't getting enough apple flavor. Maybe letting it go dry is what causes it(makes sense to me) but apple juice definitely fixes it lol.
Whatever you go with definitely post back with results!!

Just tried the commercial product. Quite tasty, but not exactly named appropriate I think. Zombie killer conjures up a rather harsh sensation. Maybe a whiskey. I think that even Michonne and Andrea (book) would consider this a tad light. That said, after I finished drinking it, it occured to me that it might be a good idea to put a hydrometor in and see what sort of FG B nektor is using. I'll do this myself if I get another bottle anytime soon. This is third on my list of to be cider brews so I'll do it myself if no one does before then. If anybody has a bottle handy and wants to contribute to the general knowledge before then though, it'd be appreciated.

I tried some recently and loved it! Here is my clone attempt:

3 gallons apple juice
SNA - 2tsp DAP, 1tsp Fermaid-K
EC-1118

Completed
Poured the three gallons of apple juice in a cleaned and sanitized 3 gallon better bottle.
Added 1tsp of the SNA and EC-1118 (not hydrated).
24 hours later, added 1tsp of SNA
24 hours later again, added 1tsp of SNA

Once fermented, I will:
Rack to keg and add 1 pound of honey along with 16 ounces (maybe more) of Tart Cherry Juice.

I will let everyone know how it turns out!

1L of tart cherry juice was the amount I used in a 6gal batch and it came out perfect so 2 cups should be about right for 3gal. Though if there's any advice I can give its to add the tart cherry juice to taste at bottling. Its strong stuff. As well 1# of honey is a lot, I use 1# for a batch twice the size and it comes through well. I've tried 2#s, the equivalent of what your talking about doing, and the honey was too much.

In the end its up to your taste but I figured I'd put that out there.

Thanks, I will take that in to consideration about the honey.

Just an fyi - I had an extra bottle of ZK and I let it go still and took a gravity reading which was 1.030.

Just some more info to keep in mind.

scottvin said:

Thanks, I will take that in to consideration about the honey.

Just an fyi - I had an extra bottle of ZK and I let it go still and took a gravity reading which was 1.030.

Just some more info to keep in mind.

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That's good to know thanks.

scottvin said:

Thanks, I will take that in to consideration about the honey.

Just an fyi - I had an extra bottle of ZK and I let it go still and took a gravity reading which was 1.030.

Just some more info to keep in mind.

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Awesome - another thanks!