Pumpkin Pie Hard Cider recipe idea

[TandemTails]

I'm trying to plan ahead and start my Thanksgiving/Christmas inspired hard ciders now so they'll have plenty of time to ferment, clarify and sit.

Pumpkin pie has always been one of my favorite desserts and I want to try to carry over those flavors into a cider. I've found a few recipes around the web but none of them seem to be very promising (the results are really lacking pumpkin flavor). I'm hoping to remedy this by making a syrup out of the pumpkin and adding that to the cider.

Goal
Hard cider with creamy mouthfeel and hints of pumpkin pie. Reduce pumpkin spices to a syrup to condense the flavors and also add a “mouthfeel mixture” to help with the drinkability.

Test Size
1 Gallon

Ingredients

• For the syrup mixture
• - 15 oz 100% pure pumpkin puree (Libby’s brand)
• - ½ cup brown sugar
• - ½ cup granulated sugar
• - 1 tsp vanilla
• - 2 cups apple cider
• - 2 tsp cinnamon
• - 1 tsp ground Allspice
• - 1 tsp ground Ginger
• Make a “mouthfeel mixture” (to provide more mouthfeel)
• - 1 cup of water
• - 1 bag of black tea
• - 10 raisins
• - 1 key lime (juiced)
• 1 gallon cider
• ¾ tsp Wyeast beer nutrient blend
• 2 grams Safale S-04 Yeast
• ¾ tsp pectic enzyme

Steps

• Warm 1 cup of apple cider and pitch yeast with yeast nutrient
• Make the syrup
• - To make the pumpkin spice syrup, combine syrup ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and let cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally
• - Let syrup cool slightly
• Make the “mouthfeel mixture”
• - boil the water, add the tea bag, lime juice and raisins
• - let sit for 7 minutes
• Add syrup and tea (with raisins) to cider in the 1 gallon glass jug and shake to combine
• Take OG reading
• Add pectic enzyme
• Add pitched yeast, attach airlock and let sit

Estimated Fermentation
Primary: 2-3 weeks
Secondary: 2 months?

Anyone have any thoughts, comments, suggestions, concerns, etc before I get this started?

 

[sneep]

Anyone ever try this? Or know of a pumpkin cider recipe?

 

[TandemTails]

Mine's fermenting in secondary right now.

I changed the recipe around a little bit and threw the pumpkin pie syrup into secondary instead of primary. It smells really good coming through the airlock but the downside is that the syrup mixture took up a good 1/4 of my 1 gallon carboy so I'm not going to be left with much of the result (whether it tastes like pumpkin pie or not we'll have to wait and see).

I also used whole spices instead of ground (to make racking cleaner and easier).

 

[illogicallyovercome]

I'll be interested to hear how this turns out. We currently have sugar pumpkins growing in our garden and I was thinking of using some of the pulp to make an apple / pumpkin cider. I like the idea of the spices too. I am thinking about making a syrup with the pumpkin and adding that to an apple cider recipe in secondary but that would possibly leave it very cloudy too.

 

[ericbw]

We did a pumpkin spice cider last year. It was ok. I did a pumpkin dubbel before with fresh pumpkin in the mash and boil. Tasted like real pumpkin (squash)

 

[illogicallyovercome]

Pumpkin dubbel?

 

[ericbw]

Pumpkin dubbel?

Yes it's a Brooklyn Brew Shop recipe from their first book. I can post what I did if you want.

 

[illogicallyovercome]

Yeah. That would be cool to see.

 

[Silentdrinker]

Oh man, a few years back I made a pumpkin pie Graff. It was so damn good...

I made a light pumpkin beer mashing with Libby's. I did all grain, but I'm sure extract works, but you'll have to steep the pumpkin or something.. I also added some brown sugar to the pumpkin and baked it to roast it and caramelize. I also mashed with nilla wafers and graham cracker, but I don't know if it really did much after fermenting -- it did add a lot to the wort flavor pre ferment.

I did 2/3. So I took 2 gal beer then added 3 gal cider/apple juice.

Then I made tinctures of all the spices and vanilla. Vodka + spice. I did whole cinnamon sticks, split vanilla, whole but crushed nutmeg, whole cloves...etc. This method gave me way better control over the spice ratios vs boiling it.

I used ringwood yeast for its known high output of diacetyl and coached it out via temps...etc. That was for a buttery flavor, for the "crust."

I let it ferment, rest...etc. Then I added my flavors from the tinctures. Lots of vanilla, then cinnamon, little less nutmeg, all spice and cloves were used very sparingly.

It turned out freaking good. I brought a growler to a fall wedding. People went crazy for it.

 

[illogicallyovercome]

That sounds awesome! I like the idea of making specific tinctures and adding them one at a time to control flavor. Great idea! Oh, and I had not thought of baking the pumpkin but that makes so much sense and it should strengthen the pumpkin pie flavor.

 

[ericbw]

Definitely bake it with spices and sugar. That is a great side dish anyway, so make extra.