Spice Cider, Your input please :)

I'm going to make a Cider for Christmas seen a few spiced recipes but came up with what I'd personally think would be in a spiced cider for me.

Any ways, what do you guys think to what i'm proposing? All the ingredients are just the "powder" type of spice accept vanilla, Cinnamon and cloves.

Any ways do you guys think the amounts are too much/ not enough in your experience.

Also, do you think i should add any of the ingredient in to secondary? or change them from a fresh alternative / what sort of amounts what i need! ahaha.

Hope my based is okay

25 litres / 40 pints - ish

25g white peper
20g all spice
Vanilla pod
42g nutmeg
56g ginger
36g Cinnamon sticks
3 cloves

Brown sugar to around 1.040 - 1.050 (If needed) Aiming for about 5% abv

Plan is about a month in primary.

Then bottled with sugar to carb a little and left to Christmas

Thanks allot!

Been reading and its seem that my amounts are to much and should be around 10 grams each? Hmm..

helppp please

the few times i have added stuff to cider it has come out over-spiced, so i don't have the experience to suggest amounts to add, i would be careful, or make several small batches as trials. you can certainly add the spices to secondary and then taste often; the more you can add whole the easier it is to remove them (in a hop bag or muslin) when it is spiced to your liking. remember the taste profiles before and after fermenting are going to be very different and flavors can intensify or mellow unexpectedly. ginger, for example, takes over sneakily, whereas cloves can just overwhelm
what are you adding for juice, you will be hard pressed (<--- pun pun pun) to find apples that give 1.040, more like 1.050-1.060

Think i'll half all the amount and put them in primary!

Then add in to secondary at the end as i feel is needed... (Will be looking for slight hints off) so that the taste should develop onces bottled.

I'm just using normal apple juice from a carton.

Any more input based on experience??

As tomorrow i'm giving this ago!

Basic apple juice ferments to around 1005-ish gravity from what i've seen. So do alittle bit of math before aiming towards alcohol tresholds.

And that aside, you should propably add the spices in steps of 1/5ths and wait some weeks in between adding and tasting. Spices is a cruel mistress in brewing.

A lot of people wrap them in muslin/teabags and dangle it into the secondary until it takes the level of flavour they want. You'll get a weirder flavour if the spices are there during fermentation, and you run the risk of basically drinking a curry.

Started this cider on 9/9/11
Just checked on it today as first free time i've had as you could of guessed gravity is around 1.000

When i made it, I added small amount of spices.
And added some more today!

12g of cin
table spoon and half nutmeg
Table spoon and half of ginger.

& Added Wine finings to clear it.

Will the fining kill the yeast so i can add more juice?
Thanks!

Alternately, you could make a very strong tea (steeped but not boiled) of all those spices and then add the tea carefully to taste in the secondary ... that way, right up through bottling you can incrementally add a bit more.
This is how I make Glühwein, a German spiced wine, at Christmas time.

renshaw said:

Will the fining kill the yeast so i can add more juice?
Thanks!

Click to expand...

Even though fining agents like Sparkolloid or isinglass will strip yeast from a must, this is not sufficient to consider the cider non-fermentable. A few little yeasties left behind are enough to get the whole fermentation going again.

You need to stabilize in other ways (or permanently refrigerate after adding more juice) to avoid fermentation.