Hi, I'm Pedro and I wanted to start making Cyser. I spent hours searching and i could not find how much apple juice or water i have to put per kilogram (1 kilogram = 2 pounds) of honey. Can anyone help me? I'm new to all of this so i don't know very much of brewing. And one more thing, i saw that Cyser seats on 12% - 14% of Alcohol percentage, could I make one ate 5% to 7,9% at max? Thanks!
Apple juice in Mead
- Thread starter Rolkouski
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I answered on your other post.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Sorry, Rolkouski. The answer is very unlikely. Here's why: apple juice is likely to have about a half kilogram of sugar for every 4 liters of juice so the starting gravity of the juice is about 1.045 - 1.055. An SG of 1.050 has a potential ABV of about 6.5%. A pound of honey when added to water to make a gallon likely raises the gravity of the water to about 1.035 - and so a pound of honey (a half a kilo) will have a potential ABV of about 4.5% so adding 1 lb of honey to apple juice will create a must with a starting gravity of around 1.085 or about 11% ABV. Sure, you might dilute the apple juice with water... but then why waste apple juice. Simply dilute the honey with water and flavor the mead with a tincture made from apples OR backsweeten the mead with apple juice so you will get the flavor and the sweetness but the sugars in the apple juice won't be fermented. You need, of course, to stabilize the mead before sweetening. Yeast don't know you want the juice to sweeten the mead. They treat all sugar as fair game.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
If you put in less honey it may not have the quality of a mead. It may be more like an apple wine. Your call, of course.
How to backsweeten? After the active fermentation has ended (so the gravity is about 1.000 or less and you have racked the wine or mead or cider off the yeast, you add K-meta and K-sorbate. The K-meta can kill a small colony of yeast and the sorbate prevents those that survive from reproducing, so you can add any sugar you wish and the yeast will be unable to ferment it - more apple juice concentrate, honey, table sugar, corn sugar, etc. Best to bench test to determine how sweet you want it. Easy to add more sugar , not so easy to remove it once added. Per gallon, you might want to add about 4 oz of sugar (to bring the final gravity up to about 1.010 -1.015 but you may like it more sweet or more dry (less sweet).
How to backsweeten? After the active fermentation has ended (so the gravity is about 1.000 or less and you have racked the wine or mead or cider off the yeast, you add K-meta and K-sorbate. The K-meta can kill a small colony of yeast and the sorbate prevents those that survive from reproducing, so you can add any sugar you wish and the yeast will be unable to ferment it - more apple juice concentrate, honey, table sugar, corn sugar, etc. Best to bench test to determine how sweet you want it. Easy to add more sugar , not so easy to remove it once added. Per gallon, you might want to add about 4 oz of sugar (to bring the final gravity up to about 1.010 -1.015 but you may like it more sweet or more dry (less sweet).
