Beginner - Recipe for Strongbow-like Cider?

Let me start off by saying that I've never brewed a batch of cider in my life. In fact, my only brewing experience is the jug of mead that I started last week and is currently bubbling away slowly in the corner of my workshop.

I'm a software developer & probably close to 20 years ago, was in Toronto for a developer's conference. While I was there, I had a Strongbow cider that was on tap in a bar/restaurant. It was the first time I'd ever heard of alcoholic cider & I have to say that I absolutely LOVED it!!! It was nice and sweet, mild alcohol flavor, and not bitter at all. (From somebody who does not like the taste of beer, it was like a strong beer without the crappy taste of beer.) I may have over-imbibed every night of the conference after discovering this wonderful drink, but we won't go into that... (They did serve mighty large glasses of the stuff for only $2 - how could I say no? ) In fact, I wanted to bring back a few kegs of it, but couldn't as I live in the states and customs frowns on bringing back anything alcoholic. I have looked at every store I could think of for years and have never seen it for sale.

So I was wondering if it might be possible to brew something that tastes similar. I've watched a few youtube videos on brewing cider, but they seem kind of hap-hazard & the guys get a very dry drink more often than not. (Some use wine yeast, others ale yeast, and others bread yeast.) I found this forum when searching for what type of yeast to buy & from what I've seen, you guys should know if anyone does!

Does anybody have any recipes, hints, or tips for me as I begin this endeavor?

To get a sweet alcoholic cider, you might need to use an artificial sweetener, like sucralose. Or you can make a dry cider and sweeten it in your glass at serving time (use a thin sugar syrup for this) Some people heat pasteurize their cider after it's carbonated, but I don't trust this process.

I've had my best luck using white wine yeast (not champagne yeast), cheap bottled apple juice, and very little added sugar.

Thanks for the info z-bob - that certainly sounds easy! I would like to avoid artificial if possible - just don't like the taste of all the artificial sweeteners I've had.

Continued reading since posting this and have read to 'cold crash' after the fermentation to kill the yeast. Haven't been able to find a good explanation of this process, but since I'm in Michigan, could just put it in the garage this time of year if it needs to get cold. (How cold though?)

If I did this, I should be able to add regular sugar to the dry cider before putting it in bottles, correct? (Sorry - really green at this & trying my best to understand and apply the knowledge I'm gaining.)

Would Lalvin D47 yeast be appropriate? I've got half a packet of that left from the mead, but am certainly not adverse to buying a different type.

D47 should be fine. I have some white grape juice fermenting with it now, but I've never used it before so I don't know for sure.

Cold crashing won't kill the yeast. It will slow the yeast way down, and also it reduces the pressure of the CO2 in the bottle. Eventually the yeast will eat all the sugar you added and turn it into CO2 and alcohol -- the cider will be dry and overcarbonated, but it might take a long enough time to get there for you to drink them all. (I'm a programmer and I hate race conditions)

Have you tried Splenda sweetener? It just tastes like sugar to me.

Don't forget about making the cider dry and adding a little syrup to your glass when you drink it.

Other people pasteurize their cider after it's carbonated but still has sugar in it. Just be careful if you do that so the flying glass is contained if a bottle explodes during the process.

For a cider more like Strongbow, I'd look at Nottingham ale yeast instead of wine yeast. Predictably wine yeast will result in a more wine-like cider (which personally I enjoy). But the Nottingham will result in more fruity flavors and perhaps a little more body and residual sweetness than a wine yeast will.

That being said, Notty will still take your cider down to dry. This isn't a bad thing, as you will at least know that your cider is stable and won't ferment any more. Adding non-fermentable sweetener is considered the safest, easiest way to "backsweeten". I've not done it, but I've heard that Xylitol is one of the best, non-fake tasting sugar substitutes. YMMV.

If adding regular sugar to the cider, the only way I know for sure to kill off the yeast is pasteurization. As you've probably seen it's a risky business, as you have to bottle condition (carbonate) the bottles, then place them in a hot bath for a certain period of time, hoping that you don't blow them up. Done carefully, it's possible, just not easy.

Dosing your cider in the glass with sweet juice or even sugar syrup is another method, but obviously not as sexy as just popping a top and pouring out your crystal clear sparkling cider

One thing I can mention as well is that most of the recipes you'll find call for adding sugar in the beginning of the process, before you add the yeast. All this does is bump up the ABV to something like 7 or 8%, and causes and even longer maturation time (months) and a more rocket-fuel flavor. Regular juice right out of the bottle is typically 1.048 or so, which when fermented dry, is going to get you a respectable 6 to 6.5% with some residual apple flavor.

Hi Ruler2112 - and welcome. A large part of any cider is your choice of apples. Very little chance that any cider you will make will taste anything like the cider you had. The mix of apple varieties will be very, very different. I think Strongbow uses a lot of French varietals. Moreover, any commercially made apple juice will likely be more acidic and perhaps less sweet than the blend of apples used to make quality hard cider (or brands like Strongbow).
That said, you might use 71B to ferment the jucie. 71B has an affinity for malic acid (malic is the predominant acid in apples ) and 71B has the ability to transform this acid to lactic acid - a far smoother acid than malic and an acid with a lower pH).
You can back sweeten if a) you age the cider many months, racking every couple of months; b) THEN repeatedly cold crashing close to freezing and racking off the yeast that will have then dropped out of solution; c)) THEN adding K-meta and K-sorbate to inhibit any referementation. At that point you can freely add whatever sweetener you wish. Good luck!

Strongbow, being English, probably leans heavily on the Kingston Black crop as well as the Normandy sources.

The closest I've gotten to strongbow is using mangrove jacks m02 yeast and fresh pressed juice. Backsweeten keg and force carbonate. I actually like it better than strongbow now.
The juice makes the biggest difference. I've never tried it with juice from the grocery store though.

I'm one of the rare persons that doesn't love Nottingham yeast but safale s04 is also an English ale yeast and may fit the bill.

Drinking one of my cider now! Cheers

Thanks to everyone who responded. Looks like I have some experimentation to do, though that's not really a bad thing; mixed up my first batch tonight.

I've read at different sources where cider should be kept cold as it brews and that it should be kept warm. Which is preferable? I'd assume a warm location would make it ferment faster - is this correct? What advantage is there to going more slowly?

Ideally you pitch your yeast at room temp to get it started then once fermentation is under way cool it to the lowest temp the yeast can handle.

A cool ferment will be slow. A slow ferment retains the most flavor and aroma from the apples.

I too would like to be able to create a Strongbow (Golden Apple) type cider. Not so much for myself but because everybody I give one to just gushes about how delicious! I have a fledgling apple orchard which is coming of age. I think in the Fall of 2017 I will have surplus apples to take a swing at a sweet hard cider so I follow this with interest! I've read many books on the subject - watched a good many youtube videos - but what I watch for most is a "Stongbow clone" announcement. I would be on it like white on rice.

I like the suggestions on apple varieties here, (Kingston Black and French ..varietals - Hey Dabinette maybe?)...as I have these trees - wishful thinking I think. Now, my impression, (please be kind) Because Strongbow is a macro in every sense, there probably is a whole lot of artificial (flavoring and sweetening) going on there (my impression) - the apple juice used is probably highly processed for consistency and sweetened with God knows what (high-fructose corn syrup for example) the cheapest most available whatever liquid (water), flavored to the be-jesus with fresh from the lab chemicals....yum! (it is delish - cannot argue), but actual apples in the stuff? Would love to hear.

Better yet a recipe like: 15 lbs of apples to the gallon: 8 lbs golden delicious, 4 lbs Kingston Black, 3 lbs Dabinette - EC1118, rack it twice and bottle...a dead ringer for Strongbow Golden Apple!

I hate my cynicism - but I is what I is. Please forgive.

Nobody can tell us exactly what the mix of apples is for any given commercial cider, it's not something that they share. If you've read the books, then Claude Jolicoeur's "New Cider Maker's Handbook" talks about apple varieties and how to mix them for the ideal cider.

As for your cynicism, British cider geek Andrew Lea ("Craft Cider Making" and http://www.cider.org.uk/) talks about how some English commercial ciders (no mention of names) do exactly as you suggested. They add gobs of sugar, ferment quickly with champagne yeast, dilute the result with water and add sweeteners and flavorings. British law doesn't control cider or require labeling the contents. He claims that one brand he checked only had 30% apple juice. So, good luck with making a clone.

And you're right about Strongbow being "macro" - they have the largest fermentation tank in the world, at 1.5 million gallons I believe.

That is the best book out there if you can only have one.

This thread reminds of the Angry Orchard commercial where they mention "2 whole apples go into every bottle", or something similar; anyone who has ever juiced apples knows on a good day you might get 6 ounces of juice from 2 apples; which raises the question, what is the other 6 ounces of liquid in that bottle made of? I also vote for Claude's Cider book. He has a couple of great videos out there too, one of them being about the economics of commercially making and selling Ice Cider.

I've never tried to make a "brand name" clone. I just keep trying to make a better cider. If I really love a commercial cider I just buy it.

You guys mentioned cool slow ferment to increase apple flavor, do you mean refrigerating at 1 week and sitting for severs more? As an example,.. 1+2 3 weeks total ferment.

Thanks

No. A cool slow ferment means fermenting at the minimum temperature the yeast can handle and allowing it to take 3-5 months to complete.

Maylar said:

No. A cool slow ferment means fermenting at the minimum temperature the yeast can handle and allowing it to take 3-5 months to complete.

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thank you.
Just starting out,

mikerlynch26 said:

For a cider more like Strongbow, I'd look at Nottingham ale yeast instead of wine yeast. Predictably wine yeast will result in a more wine-like cider (which personally I enjoy). But the Nottingham will result in more fruity flavors and perhaps a little more body and residual sweetness than a wine yeast will.

That being said, Notty will still take your cider down to dry.

Click to expand...

I love the taste of cider using Notty yeast. If you are going to drink it quickly (like I do), you can do this;

cold crash
pour the cider off the yeast cake at the bottom
back sweeten with frozen apple concentrate (I use 1/4 cup per 1/2 gal cider)
Then keep the sweetened cider in the fridge

The result is a sweet, very fruity cider. I make a 1/2 batch about every month. In the fridge the cider will carbonate just a little, but never cause problems in this length of time.

I can send my super simple recipe if you want it.

The cider is done and I taste-tested it tonight! I used 2.5 tablespoons of white sugar in a 64 ounce jug of Kroger 100% apple juice and about half a packet of Lavlin D47 wine yeast on February 3. I found a recipe for the caramel apple hard cider & made a variation of this: 1 spoonful of honey in ~0.5 cup water and 2 heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar and mixed everything until dissolved. Microwaved it several times for ~45 seconds each, then added about a cup of the same apple juice.

The cider by itself isn't bad, but very dry and somewhat tasteless. Adding a small amount of the syrup and WOW! Transforms it into something I can see myself really enjoying.


Thank you to everybody who contributed to this thread; I haven't been that talkative, but because I have had nothing of use to add. Been reading the updates every day.