Noob question about cyser

[FermentusMaximus]

I'm about to make my first cyser next week. I've heard you don't want to use ciders with preservatives in them. Is there anything else I should know about what I'm looking for in a cider, and where do people here get there cider from? I'm trying to make a moonlight meadery
apple pie clone by thanksgiving so I'm going to need to get started ASAP. Farm stand cider isn't exactly in season so I may need to go brand name. Any suggestions?

 

[ACbrewer]

Most cider this time of year would probalby have some preservation method. In terms of ingredients, sorbates and benzonites are killer preseratives, while they can be over come by more yeast, better to avoid if you can. Metabi sulfates however will off gas, or rather if you agitate them over a 24 perod of being left to the air, the metabi's will go away and not cause a problem. Ths is very common to make a must with fruit and then put hte potasium metabisulfate in and after 24 hours pitch the yeast. this is to kill wild yeast.

Cider is unfilter apple juice, so you coudl do something with apple juice. Up to you. Look for 100% either way.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

This came pretty close to theirs in mouth-feel and cinnamon (but its not a direct clone or attempt at it, just came close from what I tasted and this should be a good jumping point).

1 gallon batch.

3 lbs mesquite honey (or other neutral honey that won't compete)
5 Granny Smith apples minus the cores, chopped
1 cup brown sugar, NOT Packed
1 LARGE cinnamon stick (4 inches +) or 2 smaller ones.
3 cups of apple juice
Red Star Cote des Blancs

1 pound of honey into the pot. Cook it until it starts to boil. After a couple of minutes of foaming action throw in your chopped apples. It will stop boiling. When it starts to boil up again, add your apple juice. Keep on heat just until the apples start to get soft. Once the apples are soft, strain them from your must into somewhere to cool for just a bit. Add water and brown sugar. Now that the must should be a bit over room temperature, dissolve the rest of your honey. Pitch the yeast and add one cinnamon stick.

Put your soft, chopped apples in a freezer safe container and well, freeze em. They will be added in the secondary.

This was also fortified later with 5-6 shots of low proof apple pie liquor

Starting Gravity 1.113 Final Gravity 1.000

What it's going to need. It's going to need some back-sweetening with more juice/ cider< Mine is dry, theirs is not. And a pretty serious vanilla bean addition in the secondary.

Note: When your cooking that first pound of honey you don't have any water in the pot yet. Remember to strain the apples over a pot or cup and add the strainings back into the must.

Don't forget your SNA either!
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Another option would be to ask Micheal for the recipe clone in an email. He's a pretty cool guy and may give you some tips or actual ingredients list.
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Edit: You're in Providence RI, there is a Farm in Ipswich MA that has Awesome Awesome cider, But its going to be a bit of a drive for you.

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Thanks for the info. Don't know if you guys have seen this but it's a very interesting podcast about making mead through an interview session with the guy who started moonlight meadery in NH.
http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/07/2...ith-michael-fairbrother-beersmith-podcast-43/

I watched it, tried the apple pie style, now I must try to make it

 

[FermentusMaximus]

The guy from moonlight said he prefers not to boil his honey. Does this present a greater risk for infection? Will the meta bi sulphate take care of these risks?

 

[ACbrewer]

I wish I could lay my hand on the article about making mead, but basically the 'no boil' has come into fashion for several reasons. 1 bacteria can't grow in honey - it is to dry. that doens't mean honey is sterl, just not a growth medium. 2. Boiling drives off the lighter volitales, aka honey flavor. Meta bi sulphate will kill things, but that also isn't really needed. boiling honey could create some carmelization which could be desired - there is a whole mead substyle devoted to 'burnt honey' which is basically this.

A good reason for heating/boiling is to soften for easier mixing, but this isn't needed either, difussion will eventaully mix in all the honey. Usually I put in my water, honey, neutrients, and yeast. I let the k-meta go in at the end after several rackings and I'm ready to stop it all.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

I wish I could lay my hand on the article about making mead, but basically the 'no boil' has come into fashion for several reasons. 1 bacteria can't grow in honey - it is to dry. that doens't mean honey is sterl, just not a growth medium. 2. Boiling drives off the lighter volitales, aka honey flavor. Meta bi sulphate will kill things, but that also isn't really needed. boiling honey could create some carmelization which could be desired - there is a whole mead substyle devoted to 'burnt honey' which is basically this.

A good reason for heating/boiling is to soften for easier mixing, but this isn't needed either, difussion will eventaully mix in all the honey. Usually I put in my water, honey, neutrients, and yeast. I let the k-meta go in at the end after several rackings and I'm ready to stop it all.

I would like to clear up just one little thing. Boiling the honey and heating / boiling a honey water mixture are two different animals. When you heat / boil the honey mixed with water you are indeed just cooking off all the aromas and delicate flavors. When you boil honey on its own, you start to caramelize sugars and change the characteristics of the honey to add some earthy, sweet notes. But yes all in all, heating the honey is not needed unless you are going for the new characteristics . You can also heat close to about 150 before any real aroma loss becomes a factor. So warming up some water to 100 or so for easier mixing is not an issue.

During the Moonlight tour I took, I asked Micheal if he'd ever tried making a bochet (with the caramelized honey) and I got a response about cooking off the aromas and don't heat your honey etc. I'll be entering my Bochet in the competition in August and see what happens.

 

[ACbrewer]

During the Moonlight tour I took, I asked Micheal if he'd ever tried making a bochet (with the caramelized honey) and I got a response about cooking off the aromas and don't heat your honey etc. I'll be entering my Bochet in the competition in August and see what happens.

Well clearly since as I said there is a sub style/catagory of Mead as Bochet (thanks for the name, I can't remember them all ) this is not an undesireable thing to do. Whether saving the one set of flavors or trading for another, I don't know. Also I'd expect the more volitale item are driven off if it is just honey or a must. The 150F benchmark however is helpfull, I know that a lot of these things are temp dependant, having that is a nice guide.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Well clearly since as I said there is a sub style/catagory of Mead as Bochet (thanks for the name, I can't remember them all

Oh I missed that completely. Pretty sure I read all but that sentence and went into mead rant mode. But its like you say, you don't even really need to heat at all to get it to dissolve, it just takes some elbow grease, but not that much.

 

[ACbrewer]

Oh I missed that completely. Pretty sure I read all but that sentence and went into mead rant mode. But its like you say, you don't even really need to heat at all to get it to dissolve, it just takes some elbow grease, but not that much.

NP, I mean I can remember seeing about 20 or more distinct catagories of mead. And can remember names for about 5 or 6 of them at a time. LOL.

Bochet - aka 'burnt mead' really carmalized
Methloglyn -
Pyment -

geeze I'm only at 3 and blanking and can't remember any of them - given you just defined the first LOL.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Pyment - Grapes or Pears
Metheglin - Spices
Bochet - Caramelized / burnt
Hydromel - light mead
Melomel - Fruit that doesnt fit cysers or pyments
Cyser - Cherries or Apples
Capcimel - peppers
Traditional - Honey
Show* - traditional with just honey water yeast (no nutrients) *at the end of the day its still a traddy

Have you read Ken's book? Its really great. I read it cover to cover and that honey chart is pure honey porn.

 

[ACbrewer]

Pyment - Grapes or Pears
Metheglin - Spices
Bochet - Caramelized / burnt
Hydromel - light mead
Melomel - Fruit that doesnt fit cysers or pyments
Cyser - Cherries or Apples
Capcimel - peppers
Traditional - Honey
Show* - traditional with just honey water yeast (no nutrients) *at the end of the day its still a traddy

Have you read Ken's book? Its really great. I read it cover to cover and that honey chart is pure honey porn.

No I think his book is in my amazon wish list... LOL see more there. I think gotmead is where I saw a longer list. And I can't spell Metheglin right. I was prtty sure that was spices you don't have Pyment, so maybe that one is grapes (as it isn't cyser or melomel) and then there is one with malts.

I should get his book. I think his was the article I read saying that there was a move towards no longer boiling. It also had an analysis on the bacterial count in honey - type and quantites...

mmmm honey porn .... mmmmm.....

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Is it safe to just use a pasteurized cider/apple juice and mix it with the honey without meta bisulphate? Not sure what the risks are, I know it was mentioned that honey is not a decent growth medium. Also (your dealing with a noob here) Meta bisluphates are just campden tablets right? Is there a certain amount I would want to use if Im trying to kill off wild yeast? I ended up buying two one gallon buckets and growlers so I could try the recipe posted earlier and maybe experiment a little with what I gathered from the podcast. It'll be fun comparing the two as they age.

 

[Lungus]

Is it safe to just use a pasteurized cider/apple juice and mix it with the honey without meta bisulphate?

Yes.

Meta bisluphates are just campden tablets right?

Yes

Is there a certain amount I would want to use if Im trying to kill off wild yeast?

A regular 5g. packet will be plenty.

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Lungus: thanks for clearing things up

MarshmallowBlue: I think I will try your recipe without sweetening it. It would be nice to have one sweet and one dry.

 

[nitack]

Acerglyn - honey and maple syrup

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Acerglyn - honey and maple syrup

That sounds dangerous, but delicious.

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Should I use the meta bisulphate if im using unpasteurized cider?
I may go up to Ipswich and get some cider there but they have unpasteurized cider that they keep frozen for the off season.

So Far I have:
1 Gallon
75% Cider
25% Honey
Lalvin 71B (Staggered schedule of DAP and Fermaid K 1st,2nd,3rd day fermenting and then once more 2/3 of the way through sugar consumption.)
(secondary)
1/8 tsp ground Vietnamese Cinnamon
.5 gram Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean (Whole, no scraping, cutting, etc... needed)

SG: 1.151
Est ABV: 16.8%

 

[nitack]

That sounds dangerous, but delicious.

If you ferment to dry you get maple flavor like oak chips add oak flavor. Woody, not sweet

 

[FermentusMaximus]

That sounds really good. Lol, I may find myself tripping over one gallon buckets in the near future.

 

[FermentusMaximus]

How often do you guys degas your mead?

 

[FermentusMaximus]

Well I got my mead to about 15% ABV. It's not 16.8% like Kurt's Apple Pie, but it tastes almost spot on. A little hot obviously as it still has to sit a while.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Well I got my mead to about 15% ABV. It's not 16.8% like Kurt's Apple Pie, but it tastes almost spot on. A little hot obviously as it still has to sit a while.

Mine also came out pretty hot. If its good to go for Myser cup next year that'd be great. If not, I'll drink it the fall after this one so its really smooth.