5 Day Sweet Country Cider

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Currently brewing based on this recipe. Just scaled for 1 gallon to start. Used local cider uv pasteurized no chemicals 1 gallon size. With 1 stick and 5oz light brown sugar. Winging the abv going to let sit in ferm for 3 days and maybe push to 4 depending on bubbles. Will follow up with 1 day bottle test then add second day if needed before bottle pasturizing to kill yeast. Will post followup shortly.
 
When you cold crash can you cap the bottle or do you have to leave the airlock on it? Thinking of fridge space and how I'm going to negotiate other stuff in there.
 
Just made a 5 gallon batch of this yesterday, only got it to 1.056. I plan on kegging this when its ready, for those of you that kegged it, what volumes of CO2 did you use?
 
bcamp21 said:
Currently brewing based on this recipe. Just scaled for 1 gallon to start. Used local cider uv pasteurized no chemicals 1 gallon size. With 1 stick and 5oz light brown sugar. Winging the abv going to let sit in ferm for 3 days and maybe push to 4 depending on bubbles. Will follow up with 1 day bottle test then add second day if needed before bottle pasturizing to kill yeast. Will post followup shortly.
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what was your starting SG?? I usually add sugar by the cup per gallon. anywhere from 1-2.5 cups per gallon depending on what I want for abv. still haven't done a pasturization... I just leave it in the fridge until it's time to drink.

TwistedGray said:
When you cold crash can you cap the bottle or do you have to leave the airlock on it? Thinking of fridge space and how I'm going to negotiate other stuff in there.
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my usual procedure is, cold crash with loose cap in fridge. let sit for a couple days to settle out, bottle with at least one of the bottles being plastic soda bottle. use that as your test pressure. leave out at room temp until you get a good firm soda bottle feel then cold crash all your bottles and leave refrigerated until you drink.


LiquidFlame said:
Just made a 5 gallon batch of this yesterday, only got it to 1.056. I plan on kegging this when its ready, for those of you that kegged it, what volumes of CO2 did you use?
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1.056 is my standard start sg for plain cider without any sugar added. makes for a good drinking cider with lower abv. I've gone up to 13% adding sugar with EC-1118 yeast... makes for a pretty good hangover if you aren't careful :drunk:
 
Made a variation of this in a 2 gallon batch (Mr. Beer fermenter).

Used:
  1. 2 gallons apple juice from concentrate
  2. 1 lb brown sugar
  3. Red Star Pasteur Blanc Champagne Yeast
  4. 2 cinnamon sticks

Heated up the cinnamon sticks in about 1/4 a gallon of the apple juice and the brown sugar. Added this to the rest of the juice in the fermenter.

OG was 1.070. After 72 hours (3 days) exactly, my FG was 1.023, leaving me with about a 6.17% ABV.

Bottled it without any additions, and it carbed VERY quickly. After 3.5 hours, it was perfectly carbed. All fermenting and carbonating took place between 67 and 73 degrees F. Currently cold crashing.

I drank one 24 hours after bottling and it was very tasty, semi-strong, not too sweet, some nice tart apple flavor, but a bit yeasty still. I'm excited how it will taste after a few weeks of cold crashing.
 
Well, it was probably closer to 1.056 but yeah I would have preferred it to have started higher. Seeing as I get my cider from a local mill and they are very consistent I am really doing a baseline with this batch, if need be I will bring up the OG on the next.
 
93JeepYJ said:
Well, it was probably closer to 1.056 but yeah I would have preferred it to have started higher. Seeing as I get my cider from a local mill and they are very consistent I am really doing a baseline with this batch, if need be I will bring up the OG on the next.
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Samesies. Followed tightly and got exactly 1056 OG. Bottled it last night at a nice sweet but tart 1014. Woke up this morning to a gusher, so I tossed it all in the fridge stat. Hoping to stop bottle bombs.

Any tips on if I should bring them back to room temp and pasteurize tonight after work or just keep really cold until consumed (tomorrow)?
 
Took a reading and taste test today, down to 1.038 and absolutely tasty but still way on the sweet side, cant wait until it's done.
 
Down to 1.026 today and all activity in the air lock is gone, pulled the air lock and gave it a gentle shake to get some air in there and stir up any settled nutrients so hopefully the gravity lowers some by tomorrow bit either way it's definitely taking longer that the original directions say.

Edit: temperature in the house is from 64-68.

Turns out my wife was shutting off the heat at night, must have been stressing the yeast or something bouncing around from 55-68 every night/morning. Anyways, its down to 1.020 today so its still going and getting close. Hopefully I can bottle tomorrow.

Also, I'm just going by taste at this point and not a target ABV (well, as long as its around 4% I'm good with that)
 
Bottled today, let it hit 1.00 and then back sweetened with a little simple syrup to taste (my wife was the taste tester) I don't need it carbonated so I just pasteurized it today as is. Going to give it a week and try one but as of now it is pretty tasty. Really like what the knotingham did here.
 
Just took my first sip after cold crashing the carboy for 3 days while I was gone for the weekend. Pitched it at 1.076 and crashed it at 1.044. Not sure where it is now because it's way too cold to get an accurate reading and I don't feel like waiting around tonight - but... WOW... This stuff is delicious! It's definitely lower than 1.044, but also not dry, I'd guess somewhere around 1.03 ish.

Also, it cleared up REALLY nice - especially considering it's less than a week old and isn't really fermented.

The only note I have is there's a slight off-taste or aroma that I keep getting. Nobody else notices it except me, but I keep smelling or tasting something very faint but that seems similar to a new rubber stopper - any idea what that's from? Again, it's very possible it's completely in my mind. I plan on keeping it cold tonight and then bottling tomorrow afternoon. Then, starting another 4 gallons as soon as I can get some more nottingham in. My father in law is brining down several bags of honeycrisp apples this week, so I'm thinking of juicing those bad boys and giving this a shot with them.

Also, once this is bottled and pasteurized, how long should it keep? Do I need to keep it refrigerated, or can I just keep it boxed somewhere fairly cool?


Thanks!

Again - WOW!
 
Okay here is my recipe.

Musselman's Cider - 3 gallon

Brown Sugar - 1.8 lbs

Cinnamon Sticks - 3

Montrachet Wine Yeast ( LHBS suggested it because they didnt have Notinghams )

Steps:

1 - Disovle the brown sugar in 3/4 gallon of cider on stove. Add cini sticks

2 - Cool and add the rest of the cider to fermenter

3 - pitch yeast

4 - Ferment at 63 F.

5 - OG at 1.070

--------------------------​

Okay so it's been 24 hours and I took a gravity reading because I havnt seen any activity in my airlock. Gravity still reads 1.070. Any ideas what has happened?
 
I have a package of s-33 . Not sure why I got it. Would it work for this? Says its neutral flavored. What would I have bought this 33 for unless it was a mistake?
 
One month after bottling and this stuff is fantastic. Absolutely no - off flavors and people LOVE it. Pretty sure this is going to me my go-to cider from now on and I plan on keeping it in the pipeline... It's just too easy to not have a steady supply of this on hand at all times...
 
If I keg this there would be no reason for pasteurization right?

Also what yeast seems to work best? Good ol S05?
 
5 day sweet cider?
I do not understand. Won't the cider make a bottle bomb, if it is not finished fermenting? And all one gallon of cider I have tried to make was still bubbling after 7 days. So if it is still fermenting after 5 days, Won't it blow the bottles up?

Thanks

mtnman
 
mtnman68 said:
5 day sweet cider?
I do not understand. Won't the cider make a bottle bomb, if it is not finished fermenting? And all one gallon of cider I have tried to make was still bubbling after 7 days. So if it is still fermenting after 5 days, Won't it blow the bottles up?

Thanks

mtnman
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In the instructions, OP mentions that he pasteurizes after a very short bottle conditioning period.
 
This is mtnman again and I will tell you what I have done so far with my second batch of cider. I started Sat. afternoon, did all of the cleaning, put a gallon of apple store bought cider, gave it a shot of yeast, which started bubbling after about 20 minutes. Now it is Tue. morning checked it and it is still bubbling briskly. Right now my plans are to bottle Thur morning. By the way I did not use any sugar.
I am planning to hake it sweeter than the first batch and carbonate it, 1 question first to make it sweeter would adding a can of frozen consentrate make it a little sweeter? And do I add any more yeast for carb. Do I add the juice and yeast when I bottle it and then pasteurize or do I wait a little while to pasteurize it. I really would like for this batch to be drinkable. So any help and advice would very appreciated.

mtnman
 
Thanks to dayflyer55 for this recipe and thread. I'm giving it a whirl. 1 gallon of preservative-free, flash-pasteurized Vermont cider. 5pm I pitched 2g Montrachet, a half teaspoon of yeast energizer and a half teaspoon of yeast nutrient. No added sugar. Vigorous airlock action this AM upon waking and it's still full on bubbling away like the back of a jet ski. OG was 1.050. 24 hours later, reading was 1.040. I'm hoping to get to about 1.01 or right around 5% ABV. Wishful thinking without added sugar? Plan is to cold crash outside (still in the 30's), bottle, and pasteurize. I'll follow up with changes/results. Good times!
 
My previous post is directly above this one in the thread...

I got the gravity to 1.01 on the 3rd night and cold crashed her in the fridge. 1 gallon jug, so why not? Temp was low 40's. Bottled 10 brown twelve ouncers 24 hours later with no added sugar for priming. Left the bottles to carb up for right about 18 hours, then ran 'em through the dishwasher on sanitize setting to knock out the yeast. Never pasteurized before - MAN THEY GET HOT IN THERE! Got one nice and cold – big pop when I took the cap off. I thought oh, that's gotta be nothing but headspace Co2, but no --- really nicely carb'd! Nose was very apple-y. The taste was very sweet going into the bottles. It was not sweet post-pasteurization. But certainly not dry by any stretch. Scrumpy? I hear this term but am not sure what it means. Lots of character and plenty drinkable. I will share these and enjoy them fully myself. Not sure that I'll do this recipe again, but so happy I did it at least once. Nothing like venturing out of your comfort zone seeing as there's always room to learn. Cheers, guys. :mug:
 
I just completed this recipe. My OG was 1.07 before fermenting. I tasted it at 1.04, but still wanted a little less sweetness. I ended up bottling at 1.03 which tasted great to me. I left it in the bottles for about 22 hours before I opened one up to test the carbonation. The bottles overflowed when I popped the tops off. The recipe said wait a day or so. Could this have happened because I fermented to higher alcohol content? Kind of a bummer, but at least what was left in the bottle tasted awesome. I just figured I'd have to open the rest over a pitcher 😆
 
witchcraftbrew, I think others in prior posts said that it could be less than a day. I've done this recipe a few times and I think for me its been somewhere around 9-12 hours after capping that I needed to pasteurize. If it is at all related, I don't think the OG would cause faster carbing, rather that the FG of 1.030 would cause it. If you went lower to 1.020 then maybe it would carb up more slowly.
 
So, I have an update from my overflowing bottles. I heat pastuerized them on the stovetop, packed them in boxes (in case they exploded) and left them alone for 2 weeks. When I decided to open ine, I did it over a bucket and surprisingly, there was no overflow at all. It was absolutely delicious and clear. I have since opened and drank several more with no overflow problems. And no....there was no yeasty taste. So glad it ended up turning out👍🍻
 
Witchcraftbrew said:
So, I have an update from my overflowing bottles. I heat pastuerized them on the stovetop, packed them in boxes (in case they exploded) and left them alone for 2 weeks. When I decided to open ine, I did it over a bucket and surprisingly, there was no overflow at all. It was absolutely delicious and clear. I have since opened and drank several more with no overflow problems. And no....there was no yeasty taste. So glad it ended up turning out👍🍻
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Awesome! Congrats!!
 
Just did this recipe in 1 gallon. Came out great. OG 1.066 on 10/27. FG 1.040 on 10/30. Bottled up and after 4 hours put in dishwasher to Pasteurize. Worked great, really bubbly and sweet, thanks for the recipe and the thread got so many great ideas from the vinator to all the other tips. I just started brewing cider this month. We went to Vt. for vacation and my wife fell in love with Citizen Cider. So, I am trying some recipes.
 
Just tasted the cider (its at 1.05)
and the cinnamon is almost a skunky off taste. Did anyone has this and it clear up later? Have primary fermented with cinnamon before and have had this taste. It's not the taste on the spice thats overpowering - it's different. I actually tossed the previous gallon away because if it (month ago). Assume it'll just clear up with time.
or maybe it's the nottingham yeast - sure is stinky
 
HappyFermentations said:
One month after bottling and this stuff is fantastic. Absolutely no - off flavors and people LOVE it. Pretty sure this is going to me my go-to cider from now on and I plan on keeping it in the pipeline... It's just too easy to not have a steady supply of this on hand at all times...
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Cool What yeast did you use?
 
I decided to take a stab at this as part of a group brew day on Sunday. It doesn't get much easier, or cheaper. 4 gallons of grocery store brand cider, 1.5 lbs of brown sugar, two cinnamon sticks. Nice active fermentation after 10 hours, I'm down to 1.060 after 24 hours with tons of gas in solution.

Thanks for the inspiration @dayflyer55
 
A note to the skunky off taste to the cinnamon....talked with health food store and they said any old cinnamon (don't think mine was more than a few months old) will pick up off tastes from the environment. Keeping them in a sealed glass jar is better than a plastic bag and will prevent this sort of thing from happening so quickly.
 
hey dudes - If I whip this up and let it ferment for 5-7 days, rack it off into my corny keg and carb it at serving pressure while it's crashing, it should be gravy, right?
 
globell said:
A note to the skunky off taste to the cinnamon....talked with health food store and they said any old cinnamon (don't think mine was more than a few months old) will pick up off tastes from the environment. Keeping them in a sealed glass jar is better than a plastic bag and will prevent this sort of thing from happening so quickly.
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Yeah I just did a batch like that. However 5-7 days might be too long depending how sweet you want it. I did mine for 3 days and it was about 1.030 FG which is where I like it. I let it totally ferment out last year and I did not enjoy it at all. YMMV. Good luck!
 
dang, thats fast! okay. if I overdo it, I'll just dump a lump of FAJC in the keg. LOL
seems like can't go wrong with daily sample / grav check.
 
Trying 1 gallon of this now. 1 g cider, 1 cup Sugar.
1068 down to1048 in 3 days.
 

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