Caramel Apple Hard Cider

That syrup is some good stuff. Was trying to funnel it into a beer bottle for storage in the fridge and managed to spill it between the stove and the cabinets.

Tried to RDWDAHB, but wifey insisted it be cleaned up right away.

I just tried making this one and ran into an issue. I bottled the cider, but after only 4 days I had bottle bombs! 3 bottles exploded in my kitchen and the rest were so over-carbed I had to dump everything. Not sure where I went wrong. We are going to try and make this again and maybe go for still cider this time.

Did you use a soda bottle for testing purposes?.....This has potential to carb very fast because of all the sugar and the yeast are still very active when you add the syrup. I stabilized mine and then kegged except for a 6 pack for gifting. The bottles have remained still.

I had similar problem, I used plastic bottle to check level and still missed the window, ended up cracking the seals and letting some pressure out which turned everything flat but still tasted ok, just more of a wine than beer

illusio said:

I just tried making this one and ran into an issue. I bottled the cider, but after only 4 days I had bottle bombs! 3 bottles exploded in my kitchen and the rest were so over-carbed I had to dump everything. Not sure where I went wrong. We are going to try and make this again and maybe go for still cider this time.

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My first post did say "If you are carbing in the bottle, be aware that this will carb up fast (4 - 5 days) due to all the sugar."

I'm guessing temperature is going to be the issue here. I usually bottle condition in the basement, where the temp is 65-70. I will guess your kitchen has been 75 or higher recently.

Did you use a plastic pop bottle to check for carbonation? If not, I would recommend doing so, for every batch you plan on doing bottle conditioning.

Unfortunately I had to dump all of mine out a few days ago. I had walked into my dining room (where I store everything) and found a big puddle of cider on the floor. After cleaning that up I heard the pop of another cork flying across the room. In the end, every wine/beer bottle I opened of this stuff shot carbonated liquid out of the mouth.

The important thing to note here is....I added 5 Campden tablets AND Potassium Sorbate when I racked off the yeast at 1.010. The bottles still carbed up and would have exploded had I not gotten lucky with a few popping corks. I think it would be better to ferment this dry, add campden and sorbate, then backsweeten with the caramel syrup.

southlake333 said:

The important thing to note here is....I added 5 Campden tablets AND Potassium Sorbate when I racked off the yeast at 1.010. The bottles still carbed up and would have exploded had I not gotten lucky with a few popping corks. I think it would be better to ferment this dry, add campden and sorbate, then backsweeten with the caramel syrup.

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Did you wait any length of time between stabilizing and backsweetening?

Dumping it all seems a bit of over reaction. I woulda popped the corks to relieve pressure, rebottled as necessary and pasteurized. Too tasty a brew to feed to the sewer rats.

Yes, I waited a full day between stabilizing and backsweetening. It was so overcarbonated that popping the top didn't just relieve pressure, it created a guyser in every bottle. I didn't feel comfortable trying to rebottle that. Plus I had quite a bit of yeast sediment in all of the bottles which was very unattractive.

I went ahead and started a batch of my normal cider (that I ferment dry) which I will sweeten using the caramel syrup so I'll have more soon enough.

If I'm looking for a semi-sweet cider could I halve the apple juice concentrate and caramel syrup called for in the recipe? Will it carbonate at the same speed?

mcevoy said:

If I'm looking for a semi-sweet cider could I halve the apple juice concentrate and caramel syrup called for in the recipe? Will it carbonate at the same speed?

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Cut back on the concentrate (to taste) but I'd used the recommended amount of caramel syrup. It will probably still carb up fast, so keep an eye on it.

Bottled.

Taste from the bottling - green, but excellent.

I put together this recipe on June 25th exactly as written except I used Kroger 100% apple juice ,pasteurized with vitamin c added. My gravity reading was 1.060 when I pitched the yeast in my glass carboy. It really never has shown much airlock activity with few bubbles and I have shaken it a couple times to try and get it to pick up. I took a gravity reading yesterday and it read 1.030 and tasted the sample and tasted like plain old apple juice. I was thinking of repitching some more Notty and try to get it to finish out or should I just leave it alone and see if it will slowly finish up ? This is my first cider and I have never had this problem making beer.

Just started up a batch of this for my 2nd cider, thought I'd try a different recipe than plain apple juice. Got an OG of 1.056 and used table sugar instead of dextrose as I heard they can be pretty much interchangeable. Hopefully I will get a good brew that the girls at my college will like!

So this takes about two months time trying to plan a start date. Meaning how long to get to the bottling point?

Knapptime said:

So this takes about two months time trying to plan a start date. Meaning how long to get to the bottling point?

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No, this takes about three weeks, from start to stovetop pasteurizing. Maybe 4 weeks, but I wouldn't figure much beyond that.

Yeah pretty curious as to where you were going when you said """I highly recommend that you fill and cap a plastic pop or beer bottle first, and use that as a guide to tell you when it will be time to Stovetop Pasteurize the batch.""" As far as I know it doesnt NEED to be pasteurized right? as long as there are no preservatives it should be good to go as is right?

Timo21 said:

Yeah pretty curious as to where you were going when you said """I highly recommend that you fill and cap a plastic pop or beer bottle first, and use that as a guide to tell you when it will be time to Stovetop Pasteurize the batch.""" As far as I know it doesnt NEED to be pasteurized right? as long as there are no preservatives it should be good to go as is right?

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From following the c onversation, they are paseurizing to kill the fermentaion process at the appropriate carb level, otherwise, too sparkly and too much explosive potential with the amount of residual sugar the yeast can gobble

robbyhicks said:

From following the c onversation, they are paseurizing to kill the fermentaion process at the appropriate carb level, otherwise, too sparkly and too much explosive potential with the amount of residual sugar the yeast can gobble

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Yep. To carb up a 5 gallon batch of libation, you add 3/4 cup of sugar. (I'm not getting into the weight vs volume here, bear with me.) the caramel syrup and back sweetening process adds more than 4 times that amount of fermentable sugar. Bottles will explode if you don't stop the process by killing the yeast.

Your other option, if you follow the recipe, is to add kmeta and sorbate to kill the yeast before back sweetening. If you do this, you will get a still cider unless you keg.

And my bottles were ready for pasteurization on the third day after bottling. It gets fizzy very rapidly.

This may be dumb but is there any worry about
Contamination when adding the syrup or concentrate? What's the best way to store the syrup after you make Otto prevent this?

Thanks.

mpbaideme said:

This may be dumb but is there any worry about
Contamination when adding the syrup or concentrate? What's the best way to store the syrup after you make Otto prevent this?

Thanks.

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When I make the syrup 24 hours in advance of bottling, I just put it in a plastic container, seal it, and let it cool on the counter to room temperature.

Not sure who Otto is.

UpstateMike said:

When I make the syrup 24 hours in advance of bottling, I just put it in a plastic container, seal it, and let it cool on the counter to room temperature.

Not sure who Otto is.

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Otto is the dude who autocorrects my fat fingered spelling mistakes on my phone...he likes to insert his own name sometimes so I don't forget that he's always lurking.

I'm assuming you sanitize the container and everything before you store the syrup overnight or is this unnecessary?

I'm checking because I have a batch fermenting and I just don't want to mess it up because it smells delicious already.

mpbaideme said:

This may be dumb but is there any worry about
Contamination when adding the syrup or concentrate? What's the best way to store the syrup after you make Otto prevent this?

Thanks.

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In addition to Mike's information, I just bottled this on Friday. I ended up following the steps here:
- 24 hours in advance of bottling, I threw the canned juices in the fridge to thaw
- when I had all my bottles and what not sanitized (30 minutes before actual bottling?) I made the syrup
- when syrup creation was complete, I pulled the cans out of the fridge (thawed now) and added them to the syrup to cool it down, mixed well, added to the bottling bucked and racked, bottled, capped.

We all have our ways of doing things, I just didn't want to leave the syrup out for 24 hours (this was my second batch - the first I did follow the 24 hour step). It worked out well for me so far this time around.

Good luck!

I live in AZ and keep my place around 75 degrees so it sounds like I can't use Nitty since 70 is the high end of it's range. The montrachet I used for my last batch of EdWort's left it super dry. Anyone know a good alternative to Notty that may result in a slightly sweeter flavor?

pwortiz said:

In addition to Mike's information, I just bottled this on Friday. I ended up following the steps here:
- 24 hours in advance of bottling, I threw the canned juices in the fridge to thaw
- when I had all my bottles and what not sanitized (30 minutes before actual bottling?) I made the syrup
- when syrup creation was complete, I pulled the cans out of the fridge (thawed now) and added them to the syrup to cool it down, mixed well, added to the bottling bucked and racked, bottled, capped.

We all have our ways of doing things, I just didn't want to leave the syrup out for 24 hours (this was my second batch - the first I did follow the 24 hour step). It worked out well for me so far this time around.

Good luck!

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Thanks for all the helpful info. I appreciate it.

Vox said:

I live in AZ and keep my place around 75 degrees so it sounds like I can't use Nitty since 70 is the high end of it's range. The montrachet I used for my last batch of EdWort's left it super dry. Anyone know a good alternative to Notty that may result in a slightly sweeter flavor?

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Safale S-04 is a similar yeast, datasheet says is good for 24C / 75F degrees.

Safale S-04 Data Sheet

Actually the dude at the brew store said Nitty is optimal up to 72, but will work up to 80 degrees so I will give it a try. When does this stuff start getting good to drink?

Vox, the batch I just bottled actually sat at ~74-76 almost 100% of the time for me. For about 7 of the 14 days it was at 76....I've been testing the bottles daily (to not have a problem of bottle bombs) and I think the taste is just fine

Vox said:

When does this stuff start getting good to drink?

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You can start drinking it immediately. But if possible, leave some for a month. It is very good then.

UpstateMike said:

You can start drinking it immediately. But if possible, leave some for a month. It is very good then.

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Immediately? In only three weeks? The apfelwein you based this on needs to be aged for months.

I just bottled mine today after making the syrup. Managed to cool the syrup pretty fast by filling a frying pan with cold tap water, then placing the pot i used to make the caramel in that, so the water surrounded the part where the syrup was. Refilled the frying pan 3-4 times with the pot sitting in the pan for ~ 30 seconds each round and it got it down to temperature, let it sit for another 15 mins, then threw that into the batch and bottled it all. Worked pretty well for me, for as young as it is it tastes great! Thanks a lot for the recipe.

Just waiting to be made tomorrow!

Ok so I didn't wait for tomorrow. Here it is. 5.25 ish of Tree Top, 2 lbs. Dextrose, and Nottingham. 1.5 starting juice gravity with 1.7 after sugar was added. Watch out sugar, Sheriff Nottingham is in town.

Good lord, Vox. Somehow, my OG after adding sugar was only 1.058! I didn't realize how different the juices are out there. But, @ 6.1%, I'm good with where I ended so I can enjoy more than 1 at a time

I plan to make and keg this for my first cider. Three questions, what is the target CO2 vol. what would be a good serving pressure and will this flavor leach into the O rings and beer lines of my kegerator?

Don't know how to calculate co2 volume. I have mine set at around 9 psi and I like it.

Just kegged my cider today. Taste good so far but I'm eager to try with the caramel syrup added.

pwortiz said:

Good lord, Vox. Somehow, my OG after adding sugar was only 1.058! I didn't realize how different the juices are out there. But, @ 6.1%, I'm good with where I ended so I can enjoy more than 1 at a time

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Lol. Hopefully I get some remaining sweetness. My first authentic apfelwein was drier than the heat here in AZ and got us majorly drunk lol

Bubbling nicely at just under 24 hours.

Man....what a difference 24 hours can make. I've been testing these bottles every day since Friday night when I bottled. Last night there was very little carbonation....Today however I popped one open a little early for my wife because I saw some bubbles going on in the bottles. The thing wouldn't stop fizzing. But, as soon as it "fizzed out" the beverage itself actually had very little carbonation. Either way, I decided upon an emergency pasteurization. I pulled out my outdoor burner and larger pot and I'm glad I did now as I had one blow up right next to my feet as I was setting them down on the ground to cool off (first batch out of the pot).

I'm going to call this the summer of bottle bombs as this is my third batch (different stuff each time) that has had some type of carb issues. Out to pull the next batch out of the pot....

Man....what a difference 24 hours can make. I've been testing these bottles every day since Friday night when I bottled. Last night there was very little carbonation....Today however I popped one open a little early for my wife because I saw some bubbles going on in the bottles. The thing wouldn't stop fizzing. But, as soon as it "fizzed out" the beverage itself actually had very little carbonation. Either way, I decided upon an emergency pasteurization. I pulled out my outdoor burner and larger pot and I'm glad I did now as I had one blow up right next to my feet as I was setting them down on the ground to cool off (first batch out of the pot). Luck was with me - the bottle halves went either side of me.

I'm going to call this the summer of bottle bombs as this is my third batch (different stuff each time) that has had some type of carb issues. Out to pull the next batch out of the pot....