First Cyser advice

I have 2 gallons of Apple juice and about 2lbs of honey. Ive done graff's in the past (AJ and malt). But would like to try out a cyser.
my recipe looks like this:
- 2 gal Motts Apple Juice
- 2 lbs Honey
- some raisins and/or boiling up some bread yeast for yeast nutrient

for yeasts, I have us-05 and t-58. Ive used both in my graffs and like both. the esters from the t-58 work well with apple juice. and s-05 is clean.
Will an ale yeast be ok for this? i thought i had some d-47 laying around somewhere too but cant seem to find it.

and do I just dump the honey right in and mix or heat it up with some water?
If heating with a few cups of water I was thinking to add 1/2 a cinnamon stick and maybe a crushed up clove.

Mead ain't beer. You do not want/need to heat honey or apple juice to make a cyser. Just dilute the honey with the apple juice (do not use water for anything other than cleaning and sanitizing). I sanitize a blender and mix the apple juice and honey in the blender. That also aerates the must. I would suggest you use 71B to ferment the cyser but that's your call.
You do want to use some nutrient to increase the nitrogen in the must.
Looks like your starting gravity should be close to about 1.085 or thereabouts or potentially - an ABV of about 11%

I have made a couple of 5 gallon batches of Cyser that have gotten great reviews. Like everything you brew, ingredients are everything. When I make anything based on apples (Graff, Cider, Cyser), I start with fresh pressed cider from a local orchard. Add a bit of pectic enzyme and you get a product that is clear as glass and full of flavor. If you want to taste the apples and not taste apple pie, skip the spices and use a clean yeast. I like EC-1118 or D-47. Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Bernard's suggestions about aeration and not needing to heat the honey is on the mark. I will warm all the ingredients (especially the cider) to room temperature to make the yeast happy, but boiling honey or cider can change the flavor significantly.

thanks, the blender is a good idea. i was thinking dumping some of the juice into the fermentor then pouring the honey in the AJ container and shaking like hell.
I don't have 71b on hand. I live in another country and only have what Ive brought down. I remember having lavlin d47 and Red Star champagne yeast for this purpose but cant seem to find either in the fridge. so beer yeast it might be.

I've made cyser with Nottingham and it came out pretty good. I drank it young, though. Another 6 months and it probably would have been great.

I've read that K1-V1116 is actually one of the best yeasts to use for a cyser. I plan on using it for my next one. Other than that, I've used D47 (still aging) and Wyeast 1388 (currently bottle conditioning...).

I made it yesterday with some s-05 yeast cake from a pale ale.
I also boiled up some of the cake in a 1/2 cup of water, along with a spoonful of bread yeast for nutrients, and a few oz of sugar, mainly just to keep the gravity the same.
OG 1.080

So after reading about meads, cysers, etc. I just realized how long people let them sit before they bottle them. Here is my issue - I am fermenting this in a Mr Beer keg which isn't air tight.
I don't have any 2-3 gallon carboys to rack it over to, just 5-6 gallon ones, which i think will have too much head space for oxygen.

any suggestions?

are cysers drank still or sparkling? cold, room temp?

Cysers may be still or sparkling, drinkable chilled or at room temperature. Whichever way you prefer. Cyser's easy that way.

I use a 6 gallon Mr. Beer as my primary (don't even think they make that size any more) then rack into smaller carboys after a couple of months. I've used the 1 gallon carboy/bottles to rack into in the past. Usually I experiment with those, trying new things before scaling up those that work. If you're worried about oxygen, add a drop of honey or a little apple juice for residual yeasts to munch on. The resulting CO2 should force out any O2 and shouldn't have any lasting impact otherwise.

EDIT: Ack, mis-read what you've written. I thought you meant you had 5-6 one gallon carboys. My bad.

You can always use the Mott's bottles as secondaries, if you can get a couple of airlocks. Drill a hole in the lid, insert airlock, and if it's not airtight you can always pucky around it with glue...Better yet if you can get some grommets, or have bungs that will fit...Doesn't have to be glass.

good idea on the AJ bottles. Just remembered I have a 5 liter(1.3 gal) wine jug. so between those 2 I should be able to fill both pretty much to the brim.
only thing is my autosiphon doesnt fit in the 5 liter jug. sounds like there are ways around that...suck method or start it with sanitized water.

How long should i keep my mead temps low?
Its been 4 days between 60-62 in my cooler with ice bottles. It went up to 68-70 2 nights ago, guess I didnt put enough frozen water bottles in the cooler. Then last night went down to 56 as i put too many frozen bottles in. Back between 60-62 now. Fart smell fills the house when i open the cooler to check temps so its still chugging along.
I was thinking at the 1 week mark let it go up a degree or 2 a day until it hits 70. keep it there until it is done, then siphon into the jugs and let it age at room temp for a few months...which is 78-82F

I gotta ask, with all the fruit availble to you down there why are you making a cyser when you could use the local stuff fresh? WVMJ

WVMJ said:

I gotta ask, with all the fruit availble to you down there why are you making a cyser when you could use the local stuff fresh? WVMJ

Click to expand...

well the honey is local organic but AJ is not. what are some good fruits to use? I thought the best fruits to ferment are things like berries, grapes, apples, etc. and tropical fruits dont taste all that good after fermentation

Got it, berries our favorites, thought maybe some local fruit for a melomel would be more unique, how much do raspberries cost down there WVMJ

ive only seen them frozen since they are imported, but its a mixed bag along with blueberries and blackberries. $18 for 4 lbs. Its a Costco/Pricesmart Kirkland brand "3 berries".
I was actually planning up a sour ale and using a few lbs in it.
ive never had a mead/melomel...this is my first cyser. so if in 6-8 months this cyser turns out to be the tits, maybe ill go for it with a mixed berry melomel and add some mango or something else local

I just did a bit of reading up on the sulfur/rhino fart smell. Seems common. It's gone down quite a bit but still there, fermentation seems to be slowing.
I'm almost 3 weeks in, would adding some raisins help on the nutrient front? Or am I past that and not worry about it?...I did boil up a spoon full of bread yeast and a good amount of S-O5 slurry from an IPA.

I guess my main question is would boiling up a handful of raisins do any harm to a Cyser 3 weeks in.

its been almost 4 weeks so last night i siphoned into a 5 liter glass jug and a 1 gallon motts apple juice jug.

There was about 2 cups of space in the motts jug so i boiled up a mixture of sugar, water, clove and a cinnamon stick. smelled like goldschlager. so i pulled out the clove and cinnamon before topping off and hoping that fades.

will update when it clears and ready to bottle.

Give it a good long time for clearing. I have made several cysers. Eventhough it is clear after 3 months it will still continue to precipitate, i.e my bottles are not clear any more. Tried chilling, addition of chitosan/kieselsol, extra pectic enzyme at start. This year I will leave it for at least 6 months and then filter (1um). Anyone who has another solution that does the trick?

its been 2 months (1 in primary, 1 in secondary) and its pretty damn clear. i can read thru it.

was thinking to bottle in about 2-3 weeks. reasoning is i am moving in about 2-3 weeks, its only around the corner but that corner is a bumpy dirt road up a hill, so im concerned about oxygenating it. that would be almost 3 months.
1 gallon is in a Motts AJ jug so i can seal that one.
the other is in a 5 liter carboy with an airlock.
maybe bottle the one in the glass carboy and let the other one sit for a few months?

You mentioned earlier that you were worried about tropical fruits not performing well in primary, have you thought about adding them in in the secondary?