Holiday Cider

[Chavi]

So, I have made 3 or so batches of apple honey cider but for this Christmas i was thinking about changing up the recipe to make it more holiday-esque. What are some good ideas? I was thinking about adding cinnamon and allspice and some crystal (not meth). Maybe some honey grain or vanilla extract? Ive never gotten more complex with it. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I'd use whole/cracked spices instead powdered; that way you can remove them when the desired level of spice flavour is reached. You can easily put them in a hop bag & weigh it down with sanitized marbles, or just let it float. Some of the spices (in addition to the ones you mentioned) you might want to use would be ginger, nutmeg, anise, lemon and/or orange zest, lemon grass, some people like cardamom, but I'm not one of them. Regards, GF.

 

[Ricketycricket]

I made a batch that I stabalized after primary fermentation and then added cinnamon sticks (maybe 3), 4 or 5 cloves, a whole nutmeg and some cranberry/applejuice frozen concentrate (to backsweeten) and it is great. I did keg it though. Next time I will add maybe a bean of vanilla and some coriander to see how that affects it. It dosent hurt to get a little crazy every now and then.

 

[Chavi]

these are all great suggestions thanks a lot for the info gratus and rickety