B. Nektar Zombie Killer Clone

Good to know about the trouble with dissolving the honey in the cherry juice. I started a batch on Saturday and that's exactly how I planned to add the honey and cherry juice. I take it shaking it up got it all distributed?

JonM said:

Good to know about the trouble with dissolving the honey in the cherry juice. I started a batch on Saturday and that's exactly how I planned to add the honey and cherry juice. I take it shaking it up got it all distributed?

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I didn't bother trying to mix again at this point, as it had been cold crashed for nearly two weeks and I didn't want to have to let it clear again. Most of the syrup came out in the first pint, with a lot of sediment, so the damage was done. I'd guess that 1/2-2/3 of the honey and juice got properly dissolved in my batch.

If you keg, just purge the oxygen and shake the hell out of it a few times over a couple days. I did shake well once when I first kegged it, and this wasn't enough. Otherwise, I'd stabilize and rack to a secondary or tertiary and mix really well before bottling.

If you heat up the honey it dissolves much easier. I add the cherry juice to the keg then slowly pour in the honey while racking over the cider. Seems to work pretty well.
Of course purging the oxygen and shaking it up probably does the trick too.

I put the honey and cherry juice in a 2-quart saucepan and heat it on the stove while stirring, till it reaches 170.

I pour it into the already-filled and chilled keg, purge headspace a few times, seal the lid, shake like crazy, then put in my keezer and hook up the gas. Never had any problems with un-mixed honey.

Well my off-smell is completely gone now. I think it was the sediment getting aerosol'd by the carbonation. Now that she is pretty clear, the smell is undetectable. The flavors are coming around now also. I'll definitely give this one another try soon. Thanks for the recipe.

Since I'm pretty much constantly making this stuff, and I can make it good consistently, I was thinking of trying something different: oaking it.

Anybody have a thought as to what kind of chips might be good? I'm thinking some oaky tannins might give it some more complexity.

QuercusMax said:

Since I'm pretty much constantly making this stuff, and I can make it good consistently, I was thinking of trying something different: oaking it.

Anybody have a thought as to what kind of chips might be good? I'm thinking some oaky tannins might give it some more complexity.

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What about soaking some french oak in sherry and using that?

Don't have any sherry, but maybe I'll try the French oak. Probably do 2.5 gals on the oak and leave 2.5 unoaked so I can blend if needed.

I too took a shot at this with some minor alterations. This is for a 5 gallon batch. I raised the honey content up to 4lb and used Wyeast Kolsch instead of Notty.

Additives
.25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate
2.5 tsp. Pectic encyme w/ 1.25 tsp. Wine Tannin
2.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
.25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate

OG 1.07 on 12/6/14
Gravity when racked on 12/22/14 - .001

The cyser was fairly cloudy at the point when I tasted and racked it, but WOW what a flavor. Very fruity with a sweet honey profile. I will be backsweetening with 32 oz Traverse City Michigan Tart Cherry Juice and honey to taste. It looks like I may have to rack it one final time. If so, i'll clear it with gelatin and cold crash. Progress to follow.

Ruckusz28 said:

I too took a shot at this with some minor alterations. This is for a 5 gallon batch. I raised the honey content up to 4lb and used Wyeast Kolsch instead of Notty.

Additives
.25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate
2.5 tsp. Pectic encyme w/ 1.25 tsp. Wine Tannin
2.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
.25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate

OG 1.07 on 12/6/14
Gravity when racked on 12/22/14 - .001

The cyser was fairly cloudy at the point when I tasted and racked it, but WOW what a flavor. Very fruity with a sweet honey profile. I will be backsweetening with 32 oz Traverse City Michigan Tart Cherry Juice and honey to taste. It looks like I may have to rack it one final time. If so, i'll clear it with gelatin and cold crash. Progress to follow.

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what was your schedule for additives?

I added .25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate 24 hrs prior to pitching yeast.

Added 2.5 tsp. Pectic encyme w/ 1.25 tsp. Wine Tannin when pitching yeast.

Added final pitch of 2.5 tsp Potassium sorbate .25 tsp Potassium metabisulphate when racked. FG was reached at 0.998 if memory serves correct. This stuff is CLEAR and ready to bottle.

I was wondering how does one pasteurize this without getting sediment in the bottles if you want it to be carbonated?

If you're bottle-conditioning, you're going to get some level of sediment, but if you cold crash and rack carefully it can be very very small (a light dusting on the bottom of the bottle).

Thanks for the tip

I took a stab at this a couple of weeks ago and made it close to what I believe was QuercusMax's original recipe - I took a 3 month old batch of Honey Apfelwein (5 gallons of apple juice fermented with 2.5 lbs of clover honey using Lalvin D-47) and racked it on top of 20 oz of RW Knudsen's Tart Cherry juice and 2 lbs of Clover Honey.

I used the method in this thread of heating up the honey in the tart cherry juice before placing it in the keg and had no problems with unmixed honey in my cider. I did not sorbate or stabilize, but placed the keg immediately into the kegerator - I did not have any problems with fermentation restarting. The gravity measurement I got just before sealing the keg was 1.020

I just have to say - DAMN - Thank you for the recipe guys, excellent work! Everyone who tried it has LOVED it - The entire 5 gallons was gone in less than a week and I didn't even host a party at my house. I will be keeping this permanently on tap at my place from here on out! The cashiers at Costco are going to look at me weird when Im doing my 15 gallon apple juice purchases...

I intend on trying a variation of this with some of the RW Knudsen Black Currant juice and I will let you know how it turns out.

Oh man, black currant cider sounds killer! My parents used to have a whole row of black currant bushes... love that stuff.

So I made a batch of Zombie Killer (Which I renamed to White Walker Killer for our GoT premiere party) but instead of cherry juice I used 24 oz of RW Knudsen's Black Currant juice along with 2 lbs of honey.

I have to say I like this a bit better than the cherry version as the super-tartness of the currant really stands up to the honey sweetness.

This is a great base recipe. Basically the same recipe I use for all my creations. One of these days I'll post them in the recipe section.

Arpolis said:

I just got done reading a ton of reviews on rate beer dot com. I think it would be good to age this on some light toasted French oak and the tart cherry juice to be added after fermentation & stabilizing. Just my 2c

Edit:

OK this thread has my head buzzin with ideas so thought I would share.

From B. Nektar site this is a 5.5% abv drink

So starting gravity of 1.04 & cold crash/stabalize as close to a gravity of 1.008 as possible then back sweeten with tart cherry juice to 1.02 & age for 1month on lightly toasted french oak cubes. ingrediants for 5 gallon would be as follows.

3 64oz bottles of Apple Cider
3lb of Star Thistle Honey, might need a little more to hit 1.04 gravity
Water to 5 gallon
2.5tsp yeast nutrient (SNA)
2.5tsp yeast energizer (SNA)

Stabalize with 5 camden tablets and 2.5tsp of potassium sorbate

Back sweeten to 1.02 gravity with Montmorencey Tart Cherry "Juice" not concentrate. Should take about 2 64oz bottles worth.

Age on 1oz light toasted frech oak 1 month.

Rack untill clear and force carb. DONE!

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Arpolis how did this turn out. Sounds great.

I must admit I never got around to trying it. That was a theoretical recipe based on past experiences. One of these days I may give it a shot. Just have too many other projects happening.

I do have a cyser that is clearing now and slightly different then how I stated the original recipe. I used local honey from my bee hive rather than star thistle honey and the primary had a much higher OG with fresh apple chopped up in it and then the gallon was split between two carboys and topped up with 1.5 liters each of cider. At second racking I can add the oak and tart cherry juice to top up one of those and report back. After a month or so.

I made a batch similar to this using about 1 pound of honey per gallon of apple juice. Then adding a blend of honey and cherry juice at the time of bottling.

How was it?

I thought it was alright, but all my friends really liked it.

i made the recipe 2X (3 gallons cider, 1 lb. honey, 1 lt. tart cherry juice, US-04 yeast) before I got around to trying the real thing. The clone tasted nothing like the real thing BUT IMO, the clone was better. ZK had little apple flavor and even less honey. To me it was just a tart drink. I could taste apple, honey and cherry in the clone. The second batch I did was I used pomegranite/cherry juice...it was perhaps a tad better.

We did a version I called Zombie Blood. It was a zombie killer clone but we increased the honey and used tart cherry juice. Made a crazy good tart/sweet dessert Mead that never got to age, 3 gallons were killed in a week by our friends. Starting our 2nd batch this weekend.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1433298890.509817.jpg

I've always wanted to brew a batch of mead that actually turned out. The one time I tried, I brewed a one gallon batch that was horrible beyond words.

Haha what were your ingredients?

I can't recall the exact proportions, but I had clover honey, yeast nutrient, and water. Boiled it for about 15 to 20 minutes, cooled it down and put it in a gallon jug with some champagne yeast. Kept it in a dark, out of the way spot where I could maintain a temperature of about 70F. Waited until I saw little to no airlock bubbling, took a hydrometer reading for several days after that to verify that it was indeed done. I bottled it up and waited for a few months, but OMG WAS IT AWFUL TASTING! Wet cardboard and stale cereal is how I would describe it. LOL

Looking to take a crack at this with a slightly raises og and less sweet fg

apple juice with apple-cherry concentrate to og of 1.075 ferment to 1.003~ with an ale yeast
Back sweetened to 1.015 with honey and cherry concentrate.

pricelessbrewing said:

Looking to take a crack at this with a slightly raises og and less sweet fg

apple juice with apple-cherry concentrate to og of 1.075 ferment to 1.003~ with an ale yeast
Back sweetened to 1.015 with honey and cherry concentrate.

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Try 1L of tart cherry juice and 1/2# of honey and go from there. I still think my original recipe with half the honey(1# instead of 2) is a dead on clone though. Which reminds me I need to post it in the recipe section one of these days.

Any idea what the brought the fg to? My rough math says it should be around 1.010, assuming the cherry juice is the same sugar content as apple juice.

just wanted to add that I made the recipe as stated in post #24 and entered it into a people's choice contest at a local BBQ festival. I took 1rst place with more than twice the votes of second place. Thanks again to KeywestBrewing! Anyway, 2 people made me swear that I would make them some, so batch #3 is underway.

Women LOVE this (men like it too, but most women just rave about it). I'd like to be single with a jockey box full of this stuff on a beach somewhere for just 1 day!

I bottled mine still. I actually came across a bottle that was stashed in the back of my brew room and poured it the other day. This did not age well. It was best fresh. I did continue some experiments using grocery store juice and had great success; particularly from a welch's 100% grape juice. I made a red wine and aged it with a half lb of toasted oak chips. Bottled it in empty 40's of Tecate and handed it out to the family on easter. It was pretty tasty!

I'd have to agree. This is great as soon as it's carbed but doesn't do very well over time.

Has anyone tried making this with Tart Cherry Juice CONCENTRATE? I ask because Costco has Montmorency Tart Cherry juice concentrate on sale -- two quarts for $40. Each Qt makes 2 gallons.

is the recipe on the front page still the goto on this? I haven't tried the original yet but I've got a free carboy that needs filled

This topic is getting so bog it,s a drag to find what i need.

Can anyone post the base(good) recipy of the Zkiller?

And can someone explain whats force carbonating is?

Thx in front

Flimish-viking,

the recipe from #24 is a pretty good start for a smaller batch.

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3 Gallons Indian Summer Apple Juice
1 Pack Danstar Nottingham Dry Yeast
17 oz. Tart Cherry Juice
1 lb. Orange Blossom Honey

I fermented for 3 weeks, ended with an FG of 1.005 (ABV 5.91%) I kegged this, racked on top of the tart cherry juice, added the honey and shook the keg to mix it all up. Carbonated at 16 psi for 6 days at roughly 40F.
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Force carbonating is putting the fermented liquid into a keg and putting it under pressure with CO2, as opposed to adding priming sugar and letting the yeast carbonate it.

use whatever cider you want, just make sure that it doesn't have preservatives added to it. some use wine yeast some use nottingham or another ale yeast in the cider. the trick to this recipe is that you ferment the cider dry, and then back sweeten with tart cherry juice and honey. this additional sugar will start the yeast off again unless you do something to stop it. some ferment dry and then add sorbate to make the yeast so it wont reproduce and then after a day or so add the honey/cherry keg and force carb because the yeast wont do anything.
If you are bottling you skip the sorbate and have to pasturize the bottles after they have hit the right carbonation level or else risk bottle bombs.

Hope this helps.

-d

A big bow to give me such a great understandable answer on my question. I hope i will find all the ingredients here in belgium. Because cherry tart juice translated in dutch is the same as cherry pie juice 😛😜

Tart cherry juice is often a sour cherry juice. Montmorency cherry is the most common variety of tart/sour cherry in the states that I have used.