Angry Orchard

[HawleyFarms]

So I'm curious. I have wanted to homebrew for quite a while and bought all my supplies about a month ago with the intention of starting a mead or cyser. Being it is corn season here in Western NY, I have not had time to start anything. Today is the last day of corn, so this weekend I intend to start a batch of SOMETHING. With that being said, we acquired a cider press over the summer and have been experimenting with different blends of apples to find a perfect mix for making sweet cider. We have found a mix of 3 varieties of apples that interestingly enough taste exactly like the new B-A brand of hard cider that is made just 3 counties away, Johnny Appleseed. Now, I have been lurking here as a non-member since before I bought my equipment, looking for different ideas for a nice apfelwein, mead or cyser when I came across this clone thread. So my idea now, of course, is to make an attempt of a JA clone. Until trying JA, I hadn't really found a decent cider other than the occasional Woodchuck. AO, Redd's and the like are just too sweet and wine-cooler-like for me.

So now the question is this: Who thinks they have the best starter recipe for me? I am going to make a 5 gallon batch of our home-pressed cider. I would like to use honey as an added sugar as I have read here on several other threads that using honey will keep it from going too dry and not need a lot of back sweetening.

I plan to break the batch into 3 before bottling to try using 3 separate priming sugars: honey, brown sugar, and maple sugar.

I already bought a champagne yeast to use when I intended to make a mead or cyser but am thinking this will produce too dry of a cider. Should I use a Nottingham ale yeast instead? My LHBS is more wine focused so my selection of cider yeast is limited and I am running out of time as apples will be going out of season soon and I'd hate to buy bland, $6 a gallon store cider to use.

Any thoughts, opinions or recommendations that can help me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

So I'm curious. I have wanted to homebrew for quite a while and bought all my supplies about a month ago with the intention of starting a mead or cyser. Being it is corn season here in Western NY, I have not had time to start anything. Today is the last day of corn, so this weekend I intend to start a batch of SOMETHING. With that being said, we acquired a cider press over the summer and have been experimenting with different blends of apples to find a perfect mix for making sweet cider. We have found a mix of 3 varieties of apples that interestingly enough taste exactly like the new B-A brand of hard cider that is made just 3 counties away, Johnny Appleseed. Now, I have been lurking here as a non-member since before I bought my equipment, looking for different ideas for a nice apfelwein, mead or cyser when I came across this clone thread. So my idea now, of course, is to make an attempt of a JA clone. Until trying JA, I hadn't really found a decent cider other than the occasional Woodchuck. AO, Redd's and the like are just too sweet and wine-cooler-like for me.

So now the question is this: Who thinks they have the best starter recipe for me? I am going to make a 5 gallon batch of our home-pressed cider. I would like to use honey as an added sugar as I have read here on several other threads that using honey will keep it from going too dry and not need a lot of back sweetening.

I plan to break the batch into 3 before bottling to try using 3 separate priming sugars: honey, brown sugar, and maple sugar.

I already bought a champagne yeast to use when I intended to make a mead or cyser but am thinking this will produce too dry of a cider. Should I use a Nottingham ale yeast instead? My LHBS is more wine focused so my selection of cider yeast is limited and I am running out of time as apples will be going out of season soon and I'd hate to buy bland, $6 a gallon store cider to use.

Any thoughts, opinions or recommendations that can help me would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome! You are (IMO) on the right track with NOTTINGHAM. I love using it and get great results. Remember that ale yeasts for the most part have a lower abv tolerance than wine, so don't try to make a 18% cider with NOTTINGHAM!

If you would like to try a wine yeast, steer clear of 'champagne' yeast and look for varietys that bring out fruit flavors and contribute those same fruit flavors. D-47 is a favorite of mine in that line of yeasts.

Hope this helps, aand good luck!

 

[HawleyFarms]

Thanks for the reply!

So if I am looking for around 8% with 10% as my max I could still use Nottingham then? The temp where I will be keeping the brew will range from 55-75 but will generally stay around 65 and I believe Nottingham will still work well down to 55, correct?

Now how much honey would I want to add to the cider to end up with around 8%. The cider is sweet but has a little bite to it.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Thanks for the reply!

So if I am looking for around 8% with 10% as my max I could still use Nottingham then? The temp where I will be keeping the brew will range from 55-75 but will generally stay around 65 and I believe Nottingham will still work well down to 55, correct?

Now how much honey would I want to add to the cider to end up with around 8%. The cider is sweet but has a little bite to it.

Yes, about 10% abv would be where I would max out at, but some folks have pushed it to 12% from what I have read here on HBT. Temp looks good, and of course lower is better IMO to help preserve the fruit flavor.

Most cider has a natural starting gravity between 1.030 - 1.050, so check yours to see where you are starting from. With most honey giving you around 32 - 38 points per pound, you could add one pound of honey per gallon and get a 6.0 - 7.5% beverage. To get yourself up to around 8% I would shoot for about 1.5 pounds of honey per gallon.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Thanks for the reply!

So if I am looking for around 8% with 10% as my max I could still use Nottingham then? The temp where I will be keeping the brew will range from 55-75 but will generally stay around 65 and I believe Nottingham will still work well down to 55, correct?

Now how much honey would I want to add to the cider to end up with around 8%. The cider is sweet but has a little bite to it.

Yes, about 10% abv would be where I would max out at, but some folks have pushed it to 12% from what I have read here on HBT. Temp looks good, and of course lower is better IMO to help preserve the fruit flavor.

Most cider has a natural starting gravity between 1.030 - 1.050, so check yours with a hydrometer to see where you are starting from. With most honey giving you around 32 - 38 gravity points per pound, you could add one pound of honey per gallon and get a gravity of between 1.062 - 1.088, which translates into a 7 - 11% beverage. Alot depends on where the fermentation stops at!

 

[ohiochris]

I got darn close to angry orchard crisp with my last batch of econo-cider....by accident ( atleast to my taste buds anyway ) , though I never gave it time to age. It started out with ,...3 gallons of musselmans storebought cider , one gallon jug apple juice ( from wal mart ) , and 3 cans of nothing added ( dont get the kind with added sugar ) frozen apple juice concentrate. I used nottingham yeast and backsweetened with 3 more cans of concentrate , pasteurized the bottles after 3 or 4 days and had perfect carbonation.

Its not a perfect clone but close , atleast for such a simple recipe ,.. maybe somebody can use this or improve on it ????

I think the key is going oveboard with juice concentrate to get all the apple flavor at the end.

 

[atli126]

That sounds awesome

 

[Weezy]

I'd assume AO is fermenting their blended juice,
Filtering the yeast out of cider,
then backsweetening with the original juice blend to a target gravity.

Sound about right?

 

[javalin]

I'd assume AO is fermenting their blended juice,
Filtering the yeast out of cider,
then backsweetening with the original juice blend to a target gravity.

Sound about right?

That's what I did for my clone recipe.

My angry orchard clone is pretty simple.

I used the concentrate from a black rock cider kit, since it was cheaper than buying apple juice, and produces a great cider.

1. Boil water, and add 2.5 cups sugar per gallon (2kg for five gallons)
2. Pour into carboy
3. Add concentrate
4. Fill with water
5. Mix, allow to cool, and test SG. The goal here is to have a SG of about 1.080 (~10% ABV)
6. Add yeast (I used the black rock kits cider yeast here, but have had good results with ale yeast as well)
7. Allow to ferment 2-3 weeks
8. Rack to secondary and allow to clear.

Here's where my instructions might not be helpful to some of you, though I'm sure you can replicate the cider in your own way

9. Filter cider (I filtered mine twice through #2 filter pads)
10. Mix filtered cider with equal parts pure apple juice (I use sun rype or PC brand. If that's unfamiliar it's because I'm from Canada)
11. Chill cider
12. Force Carbonate
13. Bottle
14. Enjoy

A similar product may be produced by allowing the cider to clear sufficiently, bottle carbing, and pasteurizing, but that's not how I do things. Too many complaints of my ciders being yeasty.
So far this cider has gone over well, and is a close approximation in my opinion.

For those who are interested I use a Buon Vino Mini Jet filitration system, and a Liquid bread carbonation cap with a 5Lb CO2 tank.