I have been drinking the Vander Mill Ciders for a while now. I wanted to try and clone this cider with Cinnamon, Pecan and Vanilla. It is very dry and delicious in commercial form. I know from my beer making I can get the cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans at my local hbs but have not a clue about the pecan? Also, would these be added to a secondary or in the keg after using the Potassium Sorbate to kill off the yeast?
This cider is my wife's favorite cider, and I am working on a clone-ish recipe for it. I'm currently on version 2.0 of this. This is what I have brewed so far.
Make a 5 gallon batch of base cider. I use cheap Aldi Brand apple juice and WLP002. Base is 1.050 and will get be in the 6.5%-7.0% ballpark, depending on how the ferment goes. I ferment at about 65 degrees, low end for the yeast. It's a slow ferment, so expect a month or two in primary before it clears.
In the meantime, take 1 lb of halved pecans and crush them. I got them from Aldi as well, the indeegients said "pecans" and that was it. Put them in the oven at the lowest setting, about 270, for 5 minutes to get some oils to extract and pat out any oils. No longer, because it will start to cook your pecans.
In a saucepan, I boiled up a cup of water, a cup of sugar, and some vanilla extract. I'll stir the sugar in until dissolved. Add the crushed pecans to the sugar water and stir them in. I laid them on a cookie sheet to dry them out in the oven, again, low setting for about 30 minutes. The smell of this is the aroma that you will get in your cider. It is heaven. Really, you can find any candied pecan recipe and use that to find out what you like in your VM inspired cider, as long as it doesn't use fats like butter or oils.
I keg my ciders, so I will sorbate, sulfute, and cold crash my yeast in order to backsweeten. I transfer to the keg and "dry hop" the pecans in a sanitized paint strainer bag. I left the bag in until the keg kicked, but only a few days are necessary, like dry hopping a beer. The sugars from the candied pecans do all my backsweetening. After adding the bag, it may get cloudy from the pecan fragments.after a few days, it clears out. You can add gelatin at kegging in order to drop and fine particles out of suspension.
My next go will be the same process, but as you stated there is some cinnamon presence in the cider, so I'll be adding some cinnamon to the candied pecans. I've also toyed with the idea of dashes of nutmeg in this next go, but I think I want to see how the cinnamon stands out in the cider before I get all crazy.
It's not a true clone, VM is 6.8%, backsweetened with beet sugars, and their Cider in MI is pretty tight lipped about their apple blends and candied pecan process. In this case, trial and error is going to get me close, which is all that matters.
The cider came out great, and it didn't last long. It was a crowd favorite in the summer months, and I'm kicking myself for not getting more batches started sooner.
What are your thoughts? Any tweaks or glaring inconsistencies that you notice in the recipe or process that could get me closer?
