Cider

I am still fairly new to the brewing scene (only 3 batches in) and I am looking to make an apple cider. (hopefully for the christmas holidays)

I found this recipe (http://beerrecipes.org/showrecipe.php?recipeid=896) which calls for

5 gallons, sweet cider
3 pounds, brown sugar
3 pounds, honey
2 packs, champagne yeast

couple quick questions as I have yet to make a cider:

It takes roughly 3 weeks to ferment but how long after bottling? 4 weeks?

What kind of honey can be used? I noticed on the Austin Homebrew Supply site that have a couple different ones. (http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_21_73_405) Or could I just use regular old honey from my local grocery store?

I'm new to this, still waiting to taste my first batches, but from everything I have seen, you will be looking at many months before that is ready. That's around 1.100 SG, and will taste harsh to start out.

you can use other yeasts like S-05 and cotes de blanc. they will give it a sweeter taste and will retain more of a apple note in the process.

That's a very vague and poor recipe, you'll be making apple-honey Night Train (hmm...)

Cut out the honey and the sugar completely. The cider should go dry and give you ~7%~ ABV with just the juice. For every 1 you drink, it's like drinking 2.5 PBR's, and will be ready for the holidays.

If you want to add sweetness, you'll have to use splenda along with priming sugar when you bottle, or pasteurize (see sticky) or force carb.

By listening to Fletch, you might be able to drink something at Christmas. Using your recipe it will be rocket fuel for a year or two.

Wow, I didn't realize how far off I was. Thanks.

I am gonna give it a try without the sugar and honey and hope it is drinkable in time. If not then, o well.

I recently made my first cider.

5 gallons cider/Juice
1.5 lbs sugar (to get SG to 1.060)
Ale yeast

At 3 weeks I transferred to secondary (needed the fermenter). It tasted great; I had a couple of pints of it while I doing some other work (that's the worker's share). Apart from being very cloudy, it was really good.

If you didn't care about the appearance it could go very quickly.

However, based on advice I have read here, I have placed the 4 smaller (each an Imperial gallon) carboys in the crawl space to mature for at least a few months. Probably check them once a month to ensure the airlocks stay full, and bottle one of them in 3 months time to see how it is going.

TrueSlacker said:

Wow, I didn't realize how far off I was. Thanks.

I am gonna give it a try without the sugar and honey and hope it is drinkable in time. If not then, o well.

Click to expand...

I just started my Christmas cider this evening, my money is where my mouth is.