Adding spices to cider

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drewdav1

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Hi all,

Just started my first batch of cider about a week ago with fresh pressed cider and honey from a local farm with nottingham yeast. Fermentation is slowly chugging along and I figure I'll rack to a secondary after about a month.

I'm interested in splitting the batch in two and adding a few cinnamon sticks (soaked in a little bit of vodka to sanitize and extract) or possibly any other recommended spices to half the batch to experiment with some flavors.

Has anyone experimented with adding spices to a cider and if so, how much did you use and how did it turn out?
 
Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamon are all nice in cider/cysers. Whole spices, not powdered. I just rinse them in hot water, never bothered to soak in vodka. One cinnamon stick, one clove, 1/4 whole nutmeg for 1 gallon for about a month works. For a bigger batch, no more than 3 cloves for 5 gallons - they're powerful little buggers.
 
Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamon are all nice in cider/cysers. Whole spices, not powdered. I just rinse them in hot water, never bothered to soak in vodka. One cinnamon stick, one clove, 1/4 whole nutmeg for 1 gallon for about a month works. For a bigger batch, no more than 3 cloves for 5 gallons - they're powerful little buggers.

Yep, I agree with that. I went a little overboard on my last apple batch with cinnamon and cloves - tasted like one of those turkish deserts. So my turkish mate loved it, asked me to make more, but for a lot of people it wasn't really drinkable.

Personally I really enjoyed it because I like spices, but I have to backsweeten a fair bit to cut through it.
 
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