A Lazy Apple Bourbon cyser / hydromel

[SteveO820]

I ended up moving to the bay area and selling my all grain homebrew set up a few years back (forgot what info I used on here so made another account lol) . Sadly there isn't any space in an apartment for a 3 burner brew house and chest freezer fermentation chamber lol. Started feeling the itch again of wanting to ferment something and stumbled upon someone getting rid of a working wine fridge for free. I immediately thought "hey I ferment some small 3 gallon stove top ciders & meads in that thing!". Grabbed the essential tools (hydrometer, carboys, etc.) and today I threw together my first cyser / hydromel as I was wanting something light, crisp and refreshing that I can bottle somewhat soonish and drink a few of without getting too sloppy. I'm calling this a lazy bourbon and apple cause I'm using market bought juice and literally pouring a bit of bourbon in from my stash haha. Not sure which it will be, leaning toward using Larceny...

Ingredients:
1 Gallon Fresh Apple juice
2 Gallons Water
3lbs Orange Blossom Honey
Lalvin EC-1118
3/4 tsp Fermaid K
3/4 tsp DAP
Bourbon (will add post fermentation to taste along with some potassium sorbate. just want a hint of that carmel/oak/vanilla)

Process:
rehydrated the yeast, on a very low heat warmed up the water enough to help get the honey dissolved in with the rest of the mix. Pitched yeast after vigorously pouring into carboy and shaking a bit.

OG: 1.05

Notes: This did make too much must as I had about 2 cups left over and little head room in the carboy (can't wait to see that mess tomorrow morning...). If replicating try using 4 cups less water. In the tasting - this thing was gooood. Great balance between the apple and honey flavors. dabbled a little bourbon and found the taste I was looking for. Can't wait to have this finished....

Will keep this updated through the fermentation to bottle and final product to see how quick it is and how it actually turns out in the end!

 

[bernardsmith]

I am curious why you diluted the apple juice with water? If you were simply looking for a low ABV cyser you might have used more apple juice , added less honey and cut out the water altogether for a richer flavored cyser.

 

[SteveO820]

Hey Bernard!
I was thinking if I did more apple juice and less honey I'd end up with something closer to an apple cider. I went with water to (hopefully *fingers crossed*) keep the profile balanced between apple and honey and keep the ABV down and hasten fermentation. I'm also aiming for something light, delicate, and refreshing that I'm going to drink chilled and still. Not really looking for something rich in this batch, I'm looking for a dry pilsner of mead I guess. This is all a first time experiment so we'll see how it goes!

This world of honey/fruit fermentation is completely new vs grain so feel free to give me pointers! I was really surprised this morning when checking that it's bubbling away like mad but there was no mess on the fridge floor! Had that been one of my past beers it would've been nasty in there... Assuming it's the low foaming yeast that is helping that? If so, I'm in love lol

Update:
Last Night (around 9pm) I checked on it. No bubbles but had a nice thick krausen that had formed. This morning at 11:00 no krausen but plenty of visible activity! Just as another reference it's fermenting in a wine fridge set to 65* (it has a 3* variance, this morning it was 67*).

 

[SteveO820]

Week 1 update/note: Activity dropped and was time to take a gravity reading as well as rerack. Shockingly, it nailed out a 1.00 on the nose already. Aroma has some funk (kinda sulfur like) but seems promising. Taste was spot on. Light and crisp with prominent notes of the orange blossom honey, a little malic acid, a slight essence of apple hiding in the background. Appeared fairly pale and transparent off the primary.

Reracking I found I had more headspace than I wanted and became slightly fearful of oxygen. I tossed a couple peeled apples (4 medium sized apples chopped in chunks no seeds or core), 3oz of bourbon (ended up using Larceny), some DAP and Fermaid K. Let it start kicking away again (a bubble every min or so) then dumped in some sulfites and sorbate to knock the yeast activity back so I hopefully don't have it ferment all these new sugars (ended up a little drier then I wanted so maybe I can backsweeten this way? May add apple juice to backsweeten later if needed and bring out more of the apple flavor and aroma...

I also was a dummy and forgot my temp probe was outside and measuring the ambient temp, not inside the carboy measuring internal which would be warmer during fermentation (doh!). I lowered the temp to 57 degrees from 65 yesterday. Wont change any yeast notes now that fermentation is done but I can gradually start cold crashing now. Will drop it again tomorrow to a 45* temp (lowest this fridge goes).
Here is some pretty images.

 

[SteveO820]

Been a while but had some personal things I needed to take care of so the mead got to chill in the fridge a little longer. It cleared up so nicely and then like an idiot I decided to backsweeten and bottle out of the secondary ( I know, I know, Doh! >.< ) which after pouring I had to stir and the little bit of lees and the mushy apples all hazed up the batch. Welp, learned a lesson for next time to take an extra step to keep it looking pretty.

I added more sorbate and back sweetened this batch using 64oz of apple juice and 3 Tbsp of Orange blossom honey. Applied low heat to mix in the honey and poured in. With the extra juice it provided some more apple taste to balance out the honey prominence and the sugars needed to bring this back up to 1.01. Using some dilution math, I figured it dropped from a 6.4% abv to a 5.4%-5.1% abv. (.0643 abv x 352 approximate volume = 22.63 ounces of alcohol. 22.63 / 416 volume after dilution = .054) . This is all depending upon the approximate starting volume being 2.75gal which with the apples and head space could be a little lower.

Anyway the brew came out wonderfully besides the haze but I can nail that next batch. It came out light and quaffable with a floral and freshness (eucalyptus?) blended with apple and super light orange. Perfect for a warm afternoon. The tiny 3oz of bourbon didn't really pull through so curious to maybe try the next batch without and try a bourbon soaked oak stave. Can already tell this isn't going to last long at all as I've already had a couple... Gotta get started on the next batch!

 

[SteveO820]

Haze has dropped out and settled on the bottom of each bottle after another couple weeks. Comes out pretty clear now