Cider Experiment

OK, I have cider in the primary, right about 3 gallons. Started at 1.060 and now down to 1.010. I would like to have some fun with this and experiment with 3 separate 1 gallon batches. I saw a recipe for an apple caramel batch and of course I can keep one of the batches "pure", per se, but what other fun cider combinations or recipes have y'all seen? Time to have a little fun and hope you will give me a few ideas. I will keep you updated with the process, take pictures, whatever.

I like the bananna dancing guy. Must use him whenever I can.

spiced ciders are always nice for the holidays, some cinnamon, cloves, all spice, nutmeg kinda thing, maybe with a dash of orange peal

Nice idea there. Can probably come up with some sort of cinnamon, clove, vanilla type of thing. I wonder what else? Obviously this thread is drawing A LOT of interest.

You can add Oregon Canned Fruit. Raspberry, or Boisenberry. I heard that tart cherry is good too. These are pasteurized so they should work right out of the can. You might try sanitizing your blender, puree and add to the 2ndary and rack.

I have a cider recipe for a 5gal batch that calls for a fruit liquior 750ml for 5 gal. So 150ml (2/3 cup) for a gal batch . The recipe says to add to the 2ndary then rack over the cider and let it rip.

I made a caramel cider and it sucked and it still does (See Sig). Think of an Apple Juice - Beer Belch. Yuck!! It was very much like doing an apple pucker shot w/ beer chaser, no an apple pucker boilermaker. The recipe was cider and wheat malt. I don't recomend it at all.

The fruit route seems the easiest w/o making anything nasty. Apple juice is a common base for many fruit punches. Go down the fruit juice isle in grocery store and take a look at the 100% juice drinks.

You might even try throwing in pack of frozen wild berries blend.

Let us know what route you'll go.

I made a caramel apple cider that's not too bad. Its taken a while, but its rather nice now. You can try adding caramel syrup to your gallon, start with about 1 cup per gallon, add to taste. I tried giving it caramel flavor with wheat malt, but that didn't do too much to the flavor. I ended up using syrup from Starbucks.

Was the caramel syrup partially non-fermentable?

Maybe a caramel extract would be better?

The caramel syrup is available in sugar and sugar-free varieties.

NurseNan said:

The caramel syrup is available in sugar and sugar-free varieties.

Click to expand...

Which one did you try?

Cider morello cherry is a standard for me - 3lb or so of Morello cherries (the stuff in jars works well as long as it's just fruit, sugar and water - no preservatives) added to 5 gallons of apple juice in primary (not secondary).

I used the regular syrup, and really like the flavor. I put the first addition in too early, and it fermented out. This time I added it at the end to carb it.

Did you use the same 1 cup per gal for carbing?

Yeah, that's what it took to give it the flavor I wanted. It will probably mellow a little as it carbs.

Makes you wonder if the sugar alternative is better. I assume if too much syrup is used you can still get bottle bombs. Thanks for the suggestion. Let me how it goes!!

Has Anyone ever tried the fruit flavorings like this here?

http://morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=16739

Was just wondering if this would work. I am old to the beer and mead community, but brand new to the cider culture. I am going to try my first Apfelwein this weekend.

Cheers!

nardonir said:

Has Anyone ever tried the fruit flavorings like this here?

http://morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=16739

Was just wondering if this would work. I am old to the beer and mead community, but brand new to the cider culture. I am going to try my first Apfelwein this weekend.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

I have a few of those too, the cherry and peach, I believe, and I was curious about them too. They say "beer flavoring" on them, but not sure how it would all work. Curious to know of others' experiments with them.

Caplan said:

Cider morello cherry is a standard for me - 3lb or so of Morello cherries (the stuff in jars works well as long as it's just fruit, sugar and water - no preservatives) added to 5 gallons of apple juice in primary (not secondary).

Click to expand...

Great idea. I am past the primary phase right now so I think I will try that with my next cider batch.

NurseNan said:

Yeah, that's what it took to give it the flavor I wanted. It will probably mellow a little as it carbs.

Click to expand...

NN, just clarifying a bit for me - 1 cup/gallon of the sugar free in the secondary for flavoring (to taste) and then another 1 cup/gallon of the sugared syrup for carboning when bottling? I may have lost something in translation a bit.:cross:

I had originally added 1 cup of the regular caramel syrup to 1 gallon of cider, and let it sit for a while. It was tasting pretty good, but I got busy and forgot about it. When I went back to it, a few months later, most of the caramel flavor was gone, but the ETOH was up. When I was ready to bottle, I added another cup/gallon, then bottled. This gave me the flavor I wanted, but since its fermentable, it will carb the cider as well.

Update:
Alright, just giving you all brief update with my little experiment. Remember, none of this is scientific, just me playing with ideas and ingredients.

I started out with a 3.4 gallons or so of pasturized natural apple cider, 1lb of organic brown sugar, 1lb of natural Michigan Honey. Heated it for dissolving purposes to about 140F. Cooled down, pitched Lavlin EC-1118 (I think that was the number) yeast and put it in the primary for week. OG was 1.060.

After 10 days or so I transferred into a secondary 3 gallon glass carboy and had about 2.8 gallons left. Picked up a bit of the yeast cake in the transfer on purpose to keep it going a bit. Gravity was 1.010. Tasted very dry and very wine-ish, which as fine for me. I went out and bought some 1 gallon carboys for the next step.

Waited a week and checked on it. Gravity was .98. After look at various techniques and recipes, I decided to split it up into 2, 1 gallon carboys and bottle the other gallon in a method similar to Nurse Nan's Caramel Apple Cider recipe. Here is what I did:

#1 - Strawberry Apple Cider (AKA - RedHeaded Stepchild II)
I took 4 ozs or so of frozen strawberries and heated them up to 140F in just a little bit of water, took them off the burner, put a lid on them and left them for 20 minutes. I then took my strawberry extract flavoring (your right, it does taste a bit like cough syrup) and added 4 drops of it to the bottom of the carboy just to emphasize the strawberry flavor but hopefully not enough to taste like medicine. I then poured the strawberry mixture into the carboy and then racked a gallon of the cider over it. Put an airlock on it and going to leave it alone for a week.
#2 - Caramel Apple Cider
I then poured a cup of Torinos Caramel Coffee Syrup into my bottling bucket and racked a gallon of cider on top, mixing them together. I bottled 8 bottles and hopefully the sugar from the syrup will just carbonate and not explode. I hope that Nurse Nan's calculations were close. I will check it in a week and see if they are highly carbonated and if they are I will move them to a refrigerator.
#3 - Cinammon Vanilla Apple Cider
I had about .6 gallons left over so I decided to have some fun with this instead of bottling it semi-still. I took one cinammon stick and broke it into 3 parts to open it up a bit. I put it in the microwave and nuked it for about 15 seconds and then put it into a 1 gallon carboy. I then took an all-natural vanilla extract bottle and put 4 drops of it into the bottom. I then racked the remaining cider over it all. I had a slippage accident with my 3 gallon as I was racking and disturbed the sediment so some of the yeast transferred and it is cloudy at the moment, but I suspect it will settle down.

Alright, long post but I will take a few pictures tonight and put them on here so if any of you are interested you can follow along.

I bottled over a week ago, and nothing has exploded yet.

This is turning out to be one hell of an experiment. I am curious to find out the final result.

Update - things are churning along. Strawberry one is melding with the strawberries (I wonder if that is illegal in Georgia, hmmm) and the normal dry cider is being enhanced with the cinammon stick and the 4 drops of vanilla.

Backsweeten question - these are dry, about 10.5 ABV, curious how "backsweetening" is done to get some of the apple taste back. Kill with campden tablets and add a couple of spoons of frozen apple juice concentrate? What are you suggestions? Thanks.

I am doing a cider experiment as well. I juiced about 120 liters of Gala, Sparten, Jonagold and Golden Delicious and now have 5 carboys primed and working away.
Batch one has date syrup and honey adjuncts. Wyeast 4783 Rudesheimer
Batch two has Honey and rose hips. Wyeast 4783 Rudesheimer
Batch three has honey and will be dry hopped. Vinters Harvest CY17
Batch four has honey, champagne grape juice and vanilla. Vinters Harvest CY17
Batch five has honey, date syrup and pomegranate syrup. Wyeast 4184 sweet mead

should be interesting?