Spiced Winter Cider

Messed around with the recipe a little based on what I had on hand:

4.5 gal. fresh apple cider
1 gal. Mott's apple juice
1 lb. brown sugar
5 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
0.5 tsp nutmeg
Wyeast 1968


Brewed 11/12/12
Racked 11/26/12, added K meta and K sorbate as Rx'ed

OG: 1.072
FG: 1.012

Smells amazing, taste when taking gravity readings was dang good too. Will throw into keg when I have an empty available. Planning to carb to 2.25 volumes CO2, PSI ~9 in kegerator @ 39 F.

mragin said:

Messed around with the recipe a little based on what I had on hand:

4.5 gal. fresh apple cider
1 gal. Mott's apple juice
1 lb. brown sugar
5 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
0.5 tsp nutmeg
Wyeast 1968


Brewed 11/12/12
Racked 11/26/12, added K meta and K sorbate as Rx'ed

OG: 1.072
FG: 1.012

Smells amazing, taste when taking gravity readings was dang good too. Will throw into keg when I have an empty available. Planning to carb to 2.25 volumes CO2, PSI ~9 in kegerator @ 39 F.

Click to expand...

I sort of followed your recipe above, except i used all apple juice ( started with 5.5 gallons) ended up not having cloves on hand, so left that out, and added a little more of allspice and nutmeg

goal was to have a spiced hard cider for xmas....

fermintation started out really slow... it was sitting next to a simple cider I made same day, and was "way behind", then checked it today and the spiced cider went pretty crazy OG was 1.067, todays reading .094! sitting at approx 11% abv!

Best part is that is tastes amazing! its not sweet really, but I don't know if I am going to back sweeten or not, I may split the batch up and try both! it also seems alright as a still cider... ( wish I had 20 gallons of it right now so I could try all the varations!) I will report back to my findings and how things are going.

mragin said:

Messed around with the recipe a little based on what I had on hand:

4.5 gal. fresh apple cider
1 gal. Mott's apple juice
1 lb. brown sugar
5 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
0.5 tsp nutmeg
Wyeast 1968


Brewed 11/12/12
Racked 11/26/12, added K meta and K sorbate as Rx'ed

OG: 1.072
FG: 1.012

Smells amazing, taste when taking gravity readings was dang good too. Will throw into keg when I have an empty available. Planning to carb to 2.25 volumes CO2, PSI ~9 in kegerator @ 39 F.

Click to expand...

Kegged this and it's pretty good! The spices are a little understated, though. All I can really taste is the nutmeg. Might double them up next time. I also turned the CO2 up to 12 PSI to get a nice sparkly cider. It's been 2 weeks and it's almost gone.

It's pretty sweet too...might let it ferment a little longer next time and get that FG down closer to 1.

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Alright I need some opinions as to my next move with my cider...

as I said above, it fermented down very nicely, and is currently sitting at .094, adn 11.8% abv. It has a great taste, the spices came out nicely, a little strong nutmeg, but pretty good.

things I am thinking about doing
1. adding approx a quart of extra dark maple syrup to a secondary, and leaving it there for approx a week)
2. putting a light carb on it ( its not bad as a still cider, but I think it might be a little better lightly carbed)
3 instead of adding pure maple syrup, I was thinking about making a simple syrup out of brown sugar and adding that ( i used brown sugar in the boil recipe)
4. just leaving it alone, bottling it and cold crashing the bottles to avoid bottle bombs.

I am not concerened in losing some abv.. if it drops to 8/9 thats fine, it is going to end up in 12oz bottles in the end regardless, as I only have a single corny keg currently, so unless I have no other beer going I keg carb in that to reduce bottle sediment, then bottle from the keg.

thanks in advance for the thoughts and ideas!

Reviving an old thread... Do you added the cinnamon sticks and other spices right into the primary or do you strain the brown sugar mixture first then put it into the primary?

I added mine straight to primary and left it for 5 weeks before I pasteurized. I have a bottle thats been ageing for 5 months. I'm going to let it go for a year.....hopefully. This is a great cider once aged.

that sounds really good...will have to give it a go

I back sweeten mine and bottle carb no problem. Don't be scared

4 gallons of apple cider without preservatives
1 gallon of cider for top-off
2 lb dark brown sugar (4 cups)
4 C white sugar
6 cinnamon sticks
1 Tblsp cloves
3 Tblsp cytalized ginger
½ tsp all-spice
1 Tblsp yeast nutrient

Nottingham English ale yeast e11

Put 4 gallons of cider in carboy with ½ tsp Potassium Metabisulfate.

Boil the brown and white sugar in half of the remaining gallon of cider for 10 minutes. Add the cinnamon sticks, cloves and ginger and boil for another 10 minutes. When the liquid is cool (about 30 minutes) add to carboy using fine sieve over funnel. Let stand overnight. Top up to 5 gallons with remaining cider and pitch the yeast, and then add the yeast nutrient. Ferment at 55 to 72F until bubbles stop.

When fermentation is complete, rack off into secondary. For back sweetening: Stir in three cans of thawed apple juice concentrate.

OG no sugar: 5.5% abv, 1.04
OG w sugar: 12% abv, 1.09

Tomorrow I pitch the yeast!

jimbostarr said:

4 gallons of apple cider without preservatives
1 gallon of cider for top-off
2 lb dark brown sugar (4 cups)
4 C white sugar
6 cinnamon sticks
1 Tblsp cloves
3 Tblsp cytalized ginger
½ tsp all-spice
1 Tblsp yeast nutrient

Nottingham English ale yeast e11

Put 4 gallons of cider in carboy with ½ tsp Potassium Metabisulfate.

Boil the brown and white sugar in half of the remaining gallon of cider for 10 minutes. Add the cinnamon sticks, cloves and ginger and boil for another 10 minutes. When the liquid is cool (about 30 minutes) add to carboy using fine sieve over funnel. Let stand overnight. Top up to 5 gallons with remaining cider and pitch the yeast, and then add the yeast nutrient. Ferment at 55 to 72F until bubbles stop.

When fermentation is complete, rack off into secondary. For back sweetening: Stir in three cans of thawed apple juice concentrate.

OG no sugar: 5.5% abv, 1.04
OG w sugar: 12% abv, 1.09

Tomorrow I pitch the yeast!

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Hi Jimbo, it's been a month, how is it doing?

I skipped the back sweetening- it was fine at 1.022.

OG no sugar: 1.04, abv 5.5%
OG w sugar: 1.075, abv 10%
FG 1.022

11/25 1.075
12/2 1.06
12/5 1.04
12/8 1.03
12/11 1.022 Racked to secondary. Cold crashing on back deck at 32 degrees.
12/16 added Super Clear and more spices. Strong smell of yeast. Cold crashing again.
12/19 racked again.
12/21 bottled- but not clear yet
12/26 clearing more, but smell of yeast still present (let a non cider drinker sample and she loved it- I told her to no smell it tho'!)
I will taste it again in two weeks.

hennesey1 said:

I back sweeten mine and bottle carb no problem. Don't be scared

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Did you just follow the OP recipe and bottle or did you add extra priming sugar? Also, did you pasteurize of cold crash the bottles?

Want to make something like this, spiced winter cider with ginger, clove (be careful, I know), cinnamon, perhaps allspice, pepper, anise and/or cadamom.
My question is; I'm considering whether I should boost the ABV by using (dark) brown sugar as suggested in this recipe or perhaps instead use honey and or DME. The last suggestion comes from having great success with making graff, but I can not imagine how ginger and malt might work together. Then again, I cannot imagine ginger and honey (after fermentation) or ginger and dark brown sugar (after fermentation) either.
Any suggestions on whether any of those suggestions are completely no-go or does it all comes down to preference of one over the other?

I made a ginger ale that used 40oz of ginger 5lbs dme 2lbs honey and used northern brewer and halliture hops. i
It turned out great. It's super smooth. Although for your recipe I would use a little less, when you boil the ginger it tones down the flavor. Mine was a ginger beer which is why I used 40 oz. In your recipe I would use 10 to 15 oz if you are boiling it for the full hour depending on how much ginger flavor you want. I would do 3/4 of how ever many oz you choose and the other 1/4 in the last ten minutes. Don't dry hop with it and use muslin bags for the boil. Also grate your ginger first. Your idea seams fine to me.

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Okay, good to hear that. I was bit worried that ginger and DME might not play together so well, but it sounds like you had great success, I'll give it a go.

Time to brew before summer temperatures come along and makes brewing impossible. Cheers!

ItsTheBrent said:

Just put this in bottles last night after a month in primary. I tasted before I back sweetened and it was actually really good, tart, and strong. Can't wait to see how this is in a month.

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Sorry, late to the party. How did it finally taste? If you remember of course.