Who all is making ice cider here, recipes?

I currently have a batch of ice cider going in my fermentation chamber (re-purposed freezer) and in the beginning I was holding a 60* F temperature which is at the bottom of the temperature range for the 4184 Sweet Mead yeast I am using. I am using Tree Top 3 apple blend juice fortified with "generic" apple juice concentrate to hit a 1.130 O.G.
The flavor is amazing on the tongue, peach/cantaloupe, and maybe a very slight touch of banana. The ice cider is now in a 34*F environment and it is still actively fermenting, I would have never guessed that would happen. I have read the colder an ice cider is fermented the better it can be, so maybe this batch will be great.

EDIT: 09/26/2016: I actually have two small batches of ice cider: the first batch is the one mentioned above, and it's flavor has changed slightly; to me it still doesn't really taste like apples. It is now much less viscous and sweet but still very stone-fruit flavor.
The second batch has had the same ingredients but it was started two or so weeks later, and is following the same sort of flavors at the same age of the first batch. It is almost all peaches and maybe a touch of cantaloupe right now and it is fairly viscous and sweet, but not cloyingly sweet. If it copies the character of the first batch, I am going to make a quantity of it as it takes a very long time to finish fermenting.:rockin:

I saw your post about this in another thread, I was just about to ask for the recipe, is there any difference recipe-wise to ice cider or is it just the change in fermentation temps?

I know I have another post about this, but I don't remember if I posted the recipe, here are the nuts and bolts of the thing and right now I am using two 1/2 gallon juice jugs as my fermenters. I keep the lids tight and burp the CO2 once or twice a day.

1 quart of TT 3 apple juice blend
3-1/2 cans of FAJC (so far)
A healthy amount of 4184 Sweet Mead yeast.*

*I purchased a smack pack a few months ago of the yeast and made a very big starter, the majority of went to a 5 gallon batch of hard cider.

I added 2 cans of FAJC to the quart of juice and pitched my yeast. The beginning temp was 65*F, and as soon as the major sweetness was gone, I added another 12 oz can of FAJC w/o a hitch At this point I lowered the temperature to 55*F and that is where the temp is staying.
I am pleasantly surprised this yeast is happy at 55*F, and also the amazing stone fruit flavors that are being generated. I will be adding another 1/2 can of FAJC to the first batch today for a total of 4 cans, but I know there will still be plenty of additions as I will push this yeast to it's limits of ABV%. I will keep you guys posted about my FAJC additions. I am now adding 1/2 can at a time as I don't want to overshoot the BRIX by too much, as I am concerned a year from now I might have something I am not too crazy about because the yeast died before I knew about it.
If anybody else has questions, ask here in this thread or PM me.
09/28/2016: Added 6 oz FAJC to batch one, and 4 oz FAJC to batch two.

After 155 views and no one has offered up any recipes, are there only two of us making ice cider here? Bueller, Bueller, Bueller?

well, I mean, there isn't much to the "recipe" ...As high a % of McIntosh as possible, over 50%. Honeycrisp most of the rest. There will be a few percent, <10%, of something very acidic that pleased me aroma-wise in every batch. Success with Northern Spy and Ashmead's Kernel in this the last couple times.
For yeast I prefer HST, fermented slowly in the 50's. Ice cider is one of the few I use nutrients with, Fermaid O, roughly half as much as I use with mead...but really, whatever it wants I give it.

Juice is iced to 35-36 brix. It stops on its own at around 1.075, which is, what, 10.5%? 36 is as high as I go - I stay away from super high gravity ferments as I have seen Riesling strains' tendency to produce VA at high osmotic pressure. It ages a long time. I generally blend young batches with older when I want to have some.

...I rarely drink it, and use some to backsweeten other cider more often than not. But I did finally give it a chance in a competition (GLINTCAP) this year. It was well-received.
http://glintcap.org/results/noncommercial/year/2016-glintcap/

good luck. I've got plenty but I might make some again next year.
--Michael

I edited my response ...I just noticed the "ice" qualification

So the difference between a regular cider and an ice cider is basically being fermented at lower temps (sub 60's), correct?

BILTIT said:

So the difference between a regular cider and an ice cider is basically being fermented at lower temps (sub 60's), correct?

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no, that is not the difference.

the juice (or sometimes apples) is concentrated by freezing and ice removal prior to fermentation. Icewine, but with apples.

Ah, so you 'jack' the juice before fermenting. Much like you make applejack but it's done post fermentation.

I may try this, Jack the juice and then into applejack after.

Mike, congratulations! You definitely have something figured out. If I may ask, how long and in what did you age the winning ice cider?

BILTIT:
Basically, yes. Applejack has the cider fermented first and then the ice is removed by freezing, and ice cider has the juice separated from the ice before fermentation.

A couple of months back is when I got "serious" about making top shelf applejack; of course I need top shelf cider to start with; my brewing partner and I came up with a recipe for out hard cider destined for applejack. I am rather ignorant of most wine yeasts, and I discovered the 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast strictly by accident. Now I have found what great things 4184 does at low temperatures, I am willing to see where it goes. Everything I have seen done by commercial ice wine makers when they they cold crash and rack off of the lees, I don't really have that option available. Once I find out where 4184 hits it's alcohol tolerance, I will be able to "take for granted" where the maximum ABV% is and be able to add the appropriate of cider concentrate to get the desired final result.

MindenMan said:

If I may ask, how long and in what did you age the winning ice cider?

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it was roughly 3/4 a 2012 batch and the rest a one-year old batch. Looking to combine the emphasized brown sugar/caramel of an aged batch with the bright acidity and tropical fruit character of fresh. Neither is quite as satisfying as the blend. Ferment in plastic, age in glass mostly. I've wood-aged but I generally want an amount that makes people say "is that oak? hmm, I think so" and not more.

I know it's tough to wait if you've just got a batch or two of beer/mead/cider going but if one makes a ton of cider (even more so with mead) it is easy to make yourself "forget" about a batch and avoid drinking it.

Mark, thank you so much for your insight and answering my question. My first batch of ice cider was started on 08/29/2016, and the flavor of it is unlike anything else I have ever made. I too ferment in plastic and age in glass, so I am comforted knowing you do too.
I have lots of neighbors with apple tress they don't harvest all for themselves, so there are a lot of newly fallen "drop" apples around my house to be be picked up on a daily basis. I do not know which varieties these apples are so there is usually a batch of "whatever we gleaned (x) year" hard cider. Some of it has to be made into applejack of course...
We did not harvest any apples the last two years as the trees around here just didn't produce; two back-to-back seasons of early frost that killed the blossoms made sure of that. So I am collecting all the apples I can, when I can, and hoping for the best.

BILTIT, I have read of ice cider being made into applejack, and I am sure at some point I will try it myself. I learned by accident that dry cider (to me anyway) does not make great applejack; there must be a significant percentage of residual sugar in order to get the correct "mouth feel" and flavor, even though the applejack does not come across as sweet-tasting.

Ya i have a semisweet cider brewing now, going to jack some of it and see. ice cider will be down the road for me, i currently have no way of cooling enough while fermenting to keep it slow. Turns out my basement is the hottest part of the house

I my try some ice cider and ferment at my normal temps though just to see the difference (~68-70).

Thanks for all the info!

There are not a lot of yeasts that are happy at that temperature: Saison yeast works happily when "warm". One of the major issues of making cider at warm temperatures is the tendency to get an "aroma of acetone." It has happened to me personally so I know about cider that smells like "nail polish remover." There are large plastic buckets called "rope handle buckets", there are better known as the 1/2 buckets a keg and ice are put into. One of those buckets and some frozen water bottles make a decent fermenter holder if nothing else is available. Do you have a bathtub that you can use to hold "buffer" water for your fermenters?

I do have a bathtub available, I will try that when I am home after the weekend.

So what about making ice cider from strictly fajc? I picked some.up and going to do a 1 gal test. Fajc has og of 1.169. Just not sure what yeast to use, depends on the final product I want I guess. I have ale yeast, British ale, and lalvin 1118. I am thinking I will make this into applejack anyways so maybe I should just go for the 1118?

This might be a silly/obvious question but when you freeze AJ (and I'm talking fresh pressed), does the top ice up and the concentrate sink? I currently have 6 gallons frozen - and SO interested!!

There are some here that have made a version of ice cider using almost pure concentrate and had favorable results, but the yeast selection for that high of an ABV are kind of limited. I use the step method and have had good results so far; I start @1.100 and add a small amount of nutrient. While fermentation is still very active, I will continue to add more concentrate until the yeast dies from alcohol poisoning.
I am using 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast and could not be happier; the stone fruit flavors being produced are amazing.

globell: if you leave it in the freezer long enough the natural cycling of the freezer's on-and-off modes, the water will freeze and thaw and push the sugar away from it. Ir doesn't completely separate but the richest portion of the frozen juice will come out first.

globell said:

This might be a silly/obvious question but when you freeze AJ (and I'm talking fresh pressed), does the top ice up and the concentrate sink? I currently have 6 gallons frozen - and SO interested!!

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Interesting topic, I've made ice cider several times, using whatever leftover apples I have in December for the final batch of cider for the year and then letting the juice sit out side and freeze.
The basic process is this: Get some plastic jugs, I like 1/2 gallon, I freeze them down at 0 degrees F, then bring them inside (or take out of the freezer) and let them thaw . Pour off the liquid when its about
1/3 thawed. Let the frozen jug thaw all the way and then re freeze it and repeat the process. You want to get the juice reduced by about half.
Depending what the gravity is, I'll further concentrate the results, trying to get it as high as possible.
I've also tried using Granny Smith Apples that froze on the tree, letting them thaw about 1/2 way and pressing them whole. This made a very acidic cider that I thought was a failure but looking back on it now I should have used as a blending ingredient.
My results haven't been that great, I don't really care for the ice ciders I've made and have mostly used them for blending with other cider or even some beers.
After reading this I'm going to try to be more selective of what apples and yeast I use and will try aging for a few years and see what happens.
I'm also going to try using the frozen concentrate along with some juice.
Claude Jolicoeur covers ice cider in his book (look on Amazon) and there is a Youtube video where he explains a few ice cider methods. If I remember correctly, he recommends, R2 wine yeast for the ice cider. My LHBS doesn't carry it and I haven't tried it yet.

I did not take gravity readings on my first attempt at ice cider; the math tells me I created a equivalent of 1.135 Original Gravity. As I have mentioned before, the peach-pear-cantaloupe-banana flavors are amazing actually, and I would be thrilled to get a 5 gallon batch to taste the same as my 1/2 gallon bottle batches do.

News update: my first jug of ice cider has finished fermenting it seems, but I don't want my ice cider carbonated, so I will keep swirling the jug until no more gas is released, cold crash for 4 or 5 days and then bottle. And then wait some more, and more and more. I believe the longest year of life is about to start as I want to taste my ice cider aged. Okay, maybe I will make a really small bottle--8 oz or so to try 6 months down the road with whom as of yet I am not sure. :fro:

Does the mead yeast stop at a certain percentage? Ice ciders are normally very sweet so how do you get the extra sweetness in later?
What's the best method to get rid of the ice and be left with concentrate? Doesn't the apple juice freeze too?

Yes different yeast strains stop at different alcohol percentages. Ice ciders are sweet because there is so much sugar in the initial juice that the yeast cannot convert it all into alcohol before they hit their alcohol tolerance and die.

I haven't tried freeze concentrating juice but I have freeze concentrated hard cider (called jacking). Jacking works much better than I would have thought. You have to remember the type of ice that is formed is different than freezing straight water. I think with the high sugar content freezing juice would be very similar to Jacking hard cider.

The mead yeast is supposed to stop making alcohol at 12% ABV, but of course YMMV. 4184 produces flavors I want in my ice cider(s) and I haven't found out exactly yet what the ABV% of this yeast will really do.
If my ice cider ends up at 14% or even 15%, I will have no problem with that outcome, I will just have age it longer before drinking.
Yeast selection, IMHO, is really the secret to getting out of your ingredients what you have put in. You would not use a lager yeast to brew a Imperial Stout, nor would you use a ESB strain to brew a Hefeweizen. To get all the fruity, floral, stone fruit, and raisin flavors you need to use the right yeast, at the right temperature, and use the best juices you can find or make.

How is the juice concentrated?
I've got no problem putting it outside in winter but how do you separate it out?

Think of a container of sorbet; the sugar stops the sorbet from freezing solid; the water will freeze and basically push the sugar out. The way to recover the "syrup"... put the now frozen juice upside down over a container to catch the loquid that comes out, and when the juice has lost all of it's color, stop collecting.

Here is a visual for you.

First pic is hard cider that has been frozen and is thawing to collect the concentrate.

Second pic is a close up of the concentrate.

Third pic is the ice that is left over after the concentrate has all thawed out.

Keep in mind this is the second or third time I did a freeze/thaw cycle on it so it really shows the color difference. Might be more pronounced than freeze concentrating just juice, I am not sure.

Nice.
So, you do this after primary fermentation or is this the final step before racking to glass bottle?
Do you need to sterilise the plastic bottles after each freeze/thaw?

For applejack, yes I do this after primary fermentation. I sterilize the bottles the first round but not after that. It wouldn't hurt to sterilize them each cycle though.

BILTIT said:

For applejack, yes I do this after primary fermentation. I sterilize the bottles the first round but not after that. It wouldn't hurt to sterilize them each cycle though.

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Is there much difference? In ice cider you freeze/thaw before fermentation?
Is there any risk in that as normally you're not supposed to refreeze foods. I assumed it was the same with liquids.

How much time is required to thaw?
Presumably, you need to catch it at the right point to prevent water getting in.

Ice cider is supposed to be much sweeter and keeps more apple flavour because you concentrate the sugars/flavours before fermenting. Ice cider also is said to be best when fermented at low temps, 60 or below.

I haven't made any ice cider yet as I don't have a way to get my fermentation temps down that low.

ThePrisoner said:

Nice.
So, you do this after primary fermentation or is this the final step before racking to glass bottle?
Do you need to sterilise the plastic bottles after each freeze/thaw?

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I will mention that you should take the cider all the way to secondary and allow it time to clear/sit. Thus will ensure all the yeast is done and at the bottom. After this you proceed to "jacking" the cider.

I jacked after the primary on my first batch and alot of sediment was present in the ice when jacking it. There was still some sediment after jacking was done too, some yeast taste in the final product. I rushed it, going forward I will wait much longer before jacking.

Has anybody thought about adding a small amount of orange zest to their preliminary ice cider before jacking? I would not want any zest in my applejack bottles during aging as it might taint the finished product. My applejack quality is getting better in many ways and I am wondering if I should invest in a budget filtering system for my hard ciders.

Last night I opened a 18 month old bottle aged applejack and it was smoother than I can describe using words... yes it was definitely apple, but it wasn't at the same time. This is the first bottle I have ever opened with than much aging time in the bottle; although at 1 year there is something magic about the applejack, at 18 months there is even more.

Interesting. I have some that has been aging for a year or so, i should try it.

I too have thought about a filtering setup, just havent justified it for the little amount i have been making lately.

I had a bottle or two sitting around for a couple years. I had to run it thru a coffee filter before drinking it. It just looked yucky.

I do not need to filter my applejack as I cold crash my cider before I siphon it into bottles headed for the freezer.
I will say one thing that sure helps is bottling the applejack as cold as possible, that way when it returns to room temperature there is slight pressure generated in the bottle helping to prevent oxidation.
Some of what started as ice cider has become more an apple dessert wine; it isn't super sweet and the acid level is spot-on; a few seconds after the first taste the salivary glands start asking for more, and more, etc. I only have five 12oz bottles left at this point so they are going to have to be special occasion drinking only. I am going to try to ice cider part of my current apple peach cider; it should be amazing with a bit more residual sweetness than it has now. My apple wine has so far been a big hit with my home brew club members, and in my experience an apple-peach flavored "anything" is a great flavor combo.

MindenMan said:

There are some here that have made a version of ice cider using almost pure concentrate and had favorable results, but the yeast selection for that high of an ABV are kind of limited. I use the step method and have had good results so far; I start @1.100 and add a small amount of nutrient. While fermentation is still very active, I will continue to add more concentrate until the yeast dies from alcohol poisoning.
I am using 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast and could not be happier; the stone fruit flavors being produced are amazing.

globell: if you leave it in the freezer long enough the natural cycling of the freezer's on-and-off modes, the water will freeze and thaw and push the sugar away from it. Ir doesn't completely separate but the richest portion of the frozen juice will come out first.

Click to expand...

I'm at the stage of fermenting my ice cider - I made it by pressing full apples previously frozen then completely thawed - I used wild yeast - by pitching some cider I had made about week before(already at second fermentation)...I'm curious is there any huge difference between thawed and frozen apples in the final juice - is there more water et cetera. The juice was very sweet, clear, viscous - nothing to compare with previously pressed same sourced apples, so its promising - would be great to reach at least 8%alcohol.