Fermenting With Apples

I can't find any recipes with apple pieces, all of the mead or wine recipies I read all use apple juice but not sliced apples or such. There must be a good reason why. I suppose the apples brown out too much from oxidation? Anyone here ever use apples to brew anything?

Thanks,
GTG

Apple juice/cider is so easy to come by for the most part...I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using actual apple parts in the brew either...

I wouldn't think that if you were to try it oxidation would really be an issue...if the fruit is in the container with the brew it shouldn't oxidize any more than the brew itself (assuming you're using good technique to minimize; ie, keeping headspace low, and careful not to splash when transferring after the primary fermentation).

I'd be more concerned that you wouldn't really get anything out of the apples...being such a dense fruit you probably need to do something to get the juice out...perhaps crushing the juice out? (insert tongue in cheek here...).

Perhaps you could try freezing thinly sliced fruit and adding to the secondary? Freezing is a good technique for helping break fruit open to release the cell contents better....

you could always brew up a cream ale, ferment it with a clean profile yeast, then rack it to a secondary with chopped up apples, or you could even make up like an apple sauce and add that to the boil to capture some of the apple taste, that would even sanitize the apples so you wont pick up the wild yeasties, unless your looking for the wild yeast to add some interesting profile to the brew.

Good luck

I already have the apples sliced into 8ths and in the freezer. My idea was a secondary addition as mentioned as well. Cream ale, haven't thought about that one. Hmmm...

GTG

GTG said:

I already have the apples sliced into 8ths and in the freezer. My idea was a secondary addition as mentioned as well. Cream ale, haven't thought about that one. Hmmm...

GTG

Click to expand...

Ive also had a pale ale that was made with apples as well. I think the importance would be to make sure you extract as much apple flavor as possible. I think a crush would be better than slices. Also your going to want to use a hop that wont dominate but rather compliment the apple flavor.

As for yeast I would use a clean fermenting yeast(nottingham, wlp001, us-05, wyeast 1056, pacman) and ferment on the colder side of the recommended temps so that you arent competing with any of the esters.

If you are looking for a fruitier profile I recommend s-04, maybe a wheat yeast such as wlp300.

The most important piece to remember is that apples are simple sugar and will pretty much ferment out dry. You will have some apple flavor but it wont be sweet like a sweet cider. You still have options as they do sell apple flavoring that can be added to taste at bottling as well as if you are kegging you can add some sorbate and k-meta and add juice/concentrate to backsweeten and prevent further fermentation

Heres a link to an apple pale ale, I cant vouch for this as I found it online and have not brewed it but gives an idea of a starting point.

http://hopville.com/recipe/200673/american-pale-ale-recipes/american-as-apple-pale

I'm looking into the pale ale route and the cream ale route now. I thought I might do a mead with them but I've got too many other meads planned right now.

Thanks for the info y'all,
GTG

sorry i just realized you posted this in the mead forum... thats what i get for surfing the web on my cell phone.

I think that you'll find that apples are generally pressed for juice to ferment (and yes, it's fermented apple juice, cloudy or clear, that is cider so you wouldn't add something thats already fermented), because apart from possible darkening of the brew through oxidation of the fruit, apple flesh tends to go to mush when it's in liquid too long. There are special techniques used to keep apple from going mushy for other cooking/preperation/commercial products.

Hence I'd do something like make the brew in a bucket, but keep pushing the fruit below the liquid level (punch the cap down), then when it's ready to come out of primary and into secondary, you can strain the fruit and then wrap it in a muslin/cheese cloth/whatever and squeeze it to remove more of the juice/liquor/ferment without worrying about degradation of the pulp.

Oh and the magic words are "pectic enzyme".........