Black Strap Cider

Put together a batch tonight of something I'm calling Black Strap Cider.

* 4 gallons apple juice
* 12 oz of "full flavor" molasses
* 8 oz of lactose
* 0.7 oz black tea (Assam)
* 2 oz vanilla extract
* Wyeast Irish Ale yeast
* 1 gallon water
* a couple of teaspoons of pectin enzyme.


Put the molasses and lactose in the one gallon of water, and heated just to a boil, stirring to dissolve.
Shut the burner off and add the tea, vanilla and pectin enzyme.
Let steep for 5 minutes.
Poured all of the juice into fermenter.
Added the hot mixture to the juice and waited until the whole works cooled below 85F and pitched the yeast.

Any suggested tweaks for next time?

jwynia said:

Put together a batch tonight of something I'm calling Black Strap Cider.

* 4 gallons apple juice
* 12 oz of "full flavor" molasses
* 8 oz of lactose
* 0.7 oz black tea (Assam)
* 2 oz vanilla extract
* Wyeast Irish Ale yeast
* 1 gallon water
* a couple of teaspoons of pectin enzyme.


Put the molasses and lactose in the one gallon of water, and heated just to a boil, stirring to dissolve.
Shut the burner off and add the tea, vanilla and pectin enzyme.
Let steep for 5 minutes.
Poured all of the juice into fermenter.
Added the hot mixture to the juice and waited until the whole works cooled below 85F and pitched the yeast.

Any suggested tweaks for next time?

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What doi know, but how could it be worse than Ed's apfelweiner cider?

That's definitely one way to look at it. I've been looking for cider-based drinks with some more depth and complexity to the flavor instead of the "light/crisp" aim many recipes have. I've got a batch of graff that's bottle conditioning right now and thought I'd try something simpler, but still with some depth from the molasses and tea. A little lactose for a hint of sweetness and some body.

Of course, it may end up tasting like crap and I'll just dump the whole batch.

well, it might turn out grreat. Good luck. and let us know!

Here's a shot of the Black Strap Cider brewing.

I hope it goes well for you. Anything I have tried with molasses in it has tasted pretty bad.

Well, at an orchard tasting of ciders, of the 18 tasted, this was the taster favorite. Everyone who has tasted it likes it (and quite a few have tasted it now).

Any pics of a glass of this? What is the ABV? Sounds like a good recipe. Can you try to explain the overall taste.

Sweetland Orchards by any chance? I was upset I missed that tasting.

Yep, that was the tasting. Lots of good stuff. It was only after we tasted everything that we noticed that people kept going back to this recipe for their refills.

Here's a photo of the glass I'm drinking right now.



The flavor is "deeper" and more complex than most "pure" ciders. There's a distinct aroma of molasses, but it's not overpowering. The vanilla and tea combine with that "darker" flavor and make a really nice, smooth complexity. I carbonated it so it's pretty actively sparkling. The lactose makes it a little bit sweet, though that's probably the part most will have to adjust to taste.

Overall, it goes down really easy and is a real crowd pleaser.

Yep, that was the tasting. Lots of good stuff. It was only after we tasted everything that we noticed that people kept going back to this recipe for their refills.

Here's a photo of the glass I'm drinking right now.



The flavor is "deeper" and more complex than most "pure" ciders. There's a distinct aroma of molasses, but it's not overpowering. The vanilla and tea combine with that "darker" flavor and make a really nice, smooth complexity. I carbonated it so it's pretty actively sparkling. The lactose makes it a little bit sweet, though that's probably the part most will have to adjust to taste.

Overall, it goes down really easy and is a real crowd pleaser.

Sounds good. I'll definitely have to try that now.

Black strap molases is feed quality , I've only heard of it being used for distilling , try fancy molasses for better results

This sounds like it would taste good with an oak cube chucked in the secondary.

Nice! I've also used molasses in the Apfelwein recipe. I like your addition of vanilla, will definitely try that next time. Did the tea come through?

Do you have a favorite brand of molasses to use? I've tried both Black Rabbit and Grandma, of which Black Rabbit appealed to me be more. Grandma's has sort of a dry feel to it and a somewhat tart taste.

Of the three, I primed half of batch 1 and left the other half still. The primed batch was better and earned several nice compliments from cider fans at a recent party.

In each of these batches I used at least 1 gallon of "all natural" juice with a lot of trub in it, I didn't get nearly the nice clarity you've got.

Wyeast Irish Ale for all three batches. Takes about 8 weeks to ferment.

Last night, I had a Crispin "Lansdowne" cider. It's their "artisinal" cider using molasses and Irish stout yeast. It had WAY more molasses flavor than this recipe does. Too much for my taste. I dramatically prefer this recipe. It's much more balanced.

While blackstrap molasses is feed quality, so are a lot of other brewing ingredients. Fact is that blackstrap is the most flavorful form of molasses, coming from the 3rd boil. That said, I generally use the "full flavor" form rather than blackstrap when I want a little less intense flavor.

What I've usually got on hand is the Black Rabbit "Full Flavor". That's my "go to" molasses unless I'm specifically going for stronger or different flavor.

Neither the vanilla nor the tea is directly identifiable in the outcome, but a small test batch where I skipped it, there's something "missing". The vanilla adds a nice "sweet", smooth flavor without adding a sticky sweetness. The tea adds tannins and some more complex, dark flavor. The tannins are often added in other recipes via specific apples or just as powder. I just figure I might as well get some flavor as well.

I'm planning on doing some split batches with a variety of teas. A good starting place is the number of teas specifically intended to work with apple flavors like these.

It's tea combinations like those that made me think the flavor combination of cider and tea could be good. I'm probably going to also try to amp up the tea a bit and see what that does.

I do think this really needs carbonation to taste "right", myself. I've tasted it still as well and just don't like it as well.

As for the clarity, I fermented in a carboy before putting it into a keg. I primed with corn sugar in the keg because I figure if it's going to sit and age, I might as well carbonate without tying up a CO2 connector at the same time. It sat in the keg for a few months. When I pulled the first drinkable glass off the keg (after the first one which is all yeast/trub), it was pretty much as clear as you see. However, as I started with a "transparent" apple juice, rather than an unfiltered juice, that might be part of the ease in clarifying.

I agree on the Irish ale yeast for this kind of cider. I've since done another similar batch (with maple syrup instead of molasses) and think the Irish ale yeast is a great choice.

Overall, I think this basic approach of 4 gals of juice and 1 gallon of tea with a flavorful sugar addition is a good formula/framework for experimenting around.

For instance, my next batch is going to use "burnt" honey (cooked until it caramelizes) as the flavorful sugar. I'm hopeful.

Yeah, that Crispin cider is where I got the inspiration to try this style. That cider is pretty nice, but the homebrew version is just as good or better - and a lot cheaper!

One thing I noticed about the carbonation is that I didn't really get any head foam in the glass at all, even though there was some pretty well disolved CO2.

Will definitely be making the tea and vanilla addition next time.

After my first batch with the Irish Ale, I pitched onto the cake and it cut about 2 weeks off my fermentation time.

Now I just need my Brandon O's Graff to finish up so I can try this one!

What is the ABV for this recipe? And how long from start to finish does this recipe take to age?

jwynia said:

For instance, my next batch is going to use "burnt" honey (cooked until it caramelizes) as the flavorful sugar. I'm hopeful.

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I've used that with my caramel apple cider. It gives a lovely caramel taste straight up, and then as you swallow it tastes like the smell of cooking honey. It's great.

chromedome said:

What is the ABV for this recipe? And how long from start to finish does this recipe take to age?

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My last batch I did a smaller 3-gallon batch

2 G Treetop (1.83# sugar)
1 G All-natural organic apple juice (1.06# sugar)
12 oz Black Rabbit Molasses boiled in 1 pint water

1.052 OG down to 1.014 SG in 5 weeks
down to 1.012 after 6 weeks where it held steady.

Total of 8 weeks in primary with a sexy 5.4% ABV.

So last time I made this was about 6 months ago when I didn't know as much about Final Gravities...

Now I'm looking at it and thinking that .012 is about 23-25% of the total sugars. And my 12oz of molasses was also about 23-25% of the total sugars.

So either my yeast pooped out early or the molasses didn't really ferment much. Hmmmm...

oldmate said:

I've used that with my caramel apple cider. It gives a lovely caramel taste straight up, and then as you swallow it tastes like the smell of cooking honey. It's great.

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How much of the darkened honey do you use in your caramel apple cider?

I used 250 ml and boiled it down to taste.

put together another batch of this, but did the "mild flavor" molasses instead of the "full flavor". Also put the tea leaves into the fermenter. We'll see how it changes the flavor.

Awesome, let us know how it goes!