Apfelwein ABV Questions

I originally posted this in the Man, I love apfelwein thread, but as you all know that thread is a monster so I hope you all don't mind me posting my question here as well. I'm planning on making my first batch, but would like to lower the ABV a bit. If I follow the recipe, but leave out the 2lbs of dextrose I assume that would lower the ABV. But can anyone speculate what this would get the abv down to? Also, would it affect the taste of the final product at all?

yeah it will be readyy much faster and be much less dry
so long as you are at it use an nice hefawisen yeast and it will be nice and fruty
but you dont want apfelwein you want cider
if you want to make it ready good add 1lbs of dme

two must read threads!!! these are great theads if you want to get in to make great apple brews
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/better-than-apfelwein-29003/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/best-cider-ever-113431/

Well, I guess it depends on the juice your using and how much sugar it has. I have tried using just apple juice and yeast and have still been around 6% fairly consistant, as it seems apple juice has a fair amount of sugar. If you wanted to get lower than this I guess you could try to find an apple juice with lower amounts of sugar, although I've never really looked and dont know if they even exist. I have enjoyed the apple juice and Lalvin EC1118, especially after it ages for 3 or more months, just had one tonight and it was excellent, but I've found aging is key.

One other thing you could use a yeast that does not eat up all the sugars, therefore giving you less alcohol I suppose.

yeastluvr said:

Well, I guess it depends on the juice your using and how much sugar it has. I have tried using just apple juice and yeast and have still been around 6% fairly consistant, as it seems apple juice has a fair amount of sugar. If you wanted to get lower than this I guess you could try to find an apple juice with lower amounts of sugar, although I've never really looked and dont know if they even exist. I have enjoyed the apple juice and Lalvin EC1118, especially after it ages for 3 or more months, just had one tonight and it was excellent, but I've found aging is key.

One other thing you could use a yeast that does not eat up all the sugars, therefore giving you less alcohol I suppose.

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Yeah, 6% is right around where I'd like to be. Did you notice any flavor differences when just going with apple juice and yeast?

I didn't notice any significant flavor change. Most of my apple ciders are between 6-8% anyway, I've tasted as high as 11% but it taste like wine, as it should. I think if you want a low ABV just go with your juice and yeast. Mine have tasted great with a little aging in the bottle. I cant stress the aging for 2-3 months enough. Go for it!!!!

I was able to reach 5.8% with off-the-shelf apple juice and Hefeweizen yeast, although I don't think a FG of 1.004 is typical of Wyeast 3068 but a 2 month secondary will do that the odd time...

After using the yeast for one cider I think I'd cut out the loooong secondary entirely and do a solid 2 week primary until I reached a stable FG with 75%-ish attenuation.

Seamus, in your opinion, what's a good FG for a non-dry cider?

@HtG, you can approach lower ABV several ways, depending upon what you're looking for in a final taste.

I've heard of folks just cold crashing and bottling after the FG reaches a point that they like. I think they mainly do it that way to maintain some sweetness. Down side is, if there's any residual sugar, the minescule amounts of yeast left in the cider could build up again, and you're back where you started (or with busted bottles).

You can add chemicals to slow/stop fermentation. The down side is you're adding chemicals... I have no idea what they taste like.

You can ferment out regular AJ and backsweeten, if you like it sweeter, but you will essentially dilute the ABV that you wound up at, and you have to add it as you consume it, or you're back w/ left over sugars and sleepy yeast.

I wonder if you could ferment out an Apfulwien (higher ABV) and then stretch it w/ apple juice WITH perservatives... there is enough chems in that AJ to prevent it from fermenting, and between the apple in the Apfelwein and the apple juice, you would get a really apple-y drink, just at the ABV that you want. Just thinking...

Around 1.015-1.010 is where I would prefer to have my ciders if I wasn't already quite happy with a totally fermented cider of the 1.008-1.004 range, although I admit that these are considered by many of my friends as dry. The sweetness of either ranges of FGs doesn't even begin to approach that of commercial ciders.

I find your idea regarding back-sweetening with preserved apple juice to be really interesting, I'd like to try making a 7% ABV batch of Apfelwein and diluting it to 5% with some apple juice. As a precautionary measure I'd still bottle in beer bottles incase the diluted preservatives didn't entirely halt fermentation although after cold crashing and perhaps using campden tablets I doubt very much that any viable yeast would survive to reproduce.

Also, Splenda is a non-fermentable sugar that can be used to sweeten your ciders without the fear of renewed fermentation. Using Splenda along with priming sugar you can create a bottled sweet cider that is carbonated sans keg and beer gun. I've never used this method though, and I'm not sure at which point the Splenda would start to impart it's artificial taste on the cider...

Would cold crashing it stop the fermenting and result in a lower ABV?

OrlandoHomeBrewer said:

Would cold crashing it stop the fermenting and result in a lower ABV?

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it's tough to completely put the breaks on fermentation. you can temporarily stop it with cold crashing, but once you bottle, and those bottles sit at room temperature for awhile - BOOM!

Thanks for all of the input. I've already bought the Montrachet yeast, so maybe I'll just back it down to a lb of dextrose and give it a try.