Beginner recipe advice- moving on from Apfelwein

[KyleinMN]

Sorry if this has been discussed previously, I've been making Edwort's apfelwein for several years and enjoyed the ease of it and the taste of the finished product but I'm looking to change it up. I'm looking for something that is similarly easy and cheap to brew but has less of the wine-like taste and maybe more body to it. Perhaps also something that didn't need to age as much to be really drinkable would also be a plus.

I was wondering if simply swapping the champagne yeast for something like an ale yeast or yeast specifically for cider could get me what I'm looking for. I don't mind it being dry and usually bump the ABV with some dextrose in addition to bottle carbing (so I may be stuck with the dryness regardless?)

Is there more to it then that or would just changing the yeast strain make a difference? Any recommendations on yeast strains that will allow me to get to that 8-9% range and get a dry or semi-dry easy drinking carbonated cider?

 

[gunhaus]

Yes. SO-4.

 

[Maylar]

The yeast won't make that much difference. Leave the sugar out and make 6% cider.

 

[Rick Stephens]

The easiest I have found, that everyone likes, is a gallon of store bought, take it to 3.4 pH with some ascorbic and or malic acids, pitch S04 or Nottie. Let it primary down 3 weeks until it bottoms out, should be around 1.001 or there abouts. Add a can of either AJC or SWMBO's favorite, blueberry/pomegranate AJC. Bottle it with one plastic coke bottle as a pressure tester. Pasteurize when it hits the carbonation spot you desire. Fairly dry result but with plenty of aromatics. Only really short time method I have done. Since I started pasteurizing I have done this 4 times and the bottles seem to just disappear.....

Maylar is absolutely correct on taste quality. 6% is a much more pleasant cider IMHO.

edit: reasoning behind the statement that 6% is more pleasant is that you have to choose between aging to mellow the alcohol taste or keep the ABV down so you don't have to age so much to get rid of the rocket fuel taste.

 

[Kees]

Rick, would you please explain how you do the pressure test?

 

[Rick Stephens]

Rick, would you please explain how you do the pressure test?

I keep it as simple as I can. The one plastic coke bottle has an inch or so of airspace. I give it a squeeze once a day to get an idea how it is proceeding on building up carb. When it gets hard, and only a little experience (and opening a few bottles) will teach you how hard, I will open a bottle and judge first the hiss/pop, second any foam (I like to see about a quarter inch form on open), and if it is really getting close, third, I'll pour a teensy bit into a wine glass and taste it. I always have a bottle cap sanitized when I do this and I just immediately recap with a different color cap and stick the bottle back in. Rinse and repeat as necessary until ready to hot bath pasteurize for a yeast kill. Never been able to tell the difference between bottles I opened and recapped and ones I didn't.

When I pasteurize I do a two stage heat using two canning kettles on propane burners - turned off when bottles are in the pots. First one is at 140ƒ for ten minutes, second one is between 175 and 180ƒ for ten minutes. That is plenty as it gets the 6-8 bottles up over 150 internal temps and meets the pasteurizing unit requirements without much thermal shock to the bottles - which dunking cold bottles directly into 180 water would..

 

[Maylar]

Or... make a pressure monitor -

 

[KyleinMN]

Thanks for the advice. I will pick up some SO4 yeast to try and will leave out the additional sugar. That makes sense regarding the aging/mellowing process as I always noticed the apfelwein tastes way better once it's around 6 months old and some of the apple taste/smell seems to return.

I imagine a higher ABV also thins it out more so maybe skipping the added sugar would also have a bit more "substance" to it as well?

Regarding bottle carbing; is it necessary to pasteurize? I like it pretty well carbonated and never had any issue with bottles blowing up in the past but I always used dextrose as opposed to apple juice concentrate. Not sure how much sugar that adds (like 1 or 2 cans per 5 gallons??) but I think I usually added like 4 or 5 oz of dextrose normally for a typical batch.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Using FAJC and pasteurizing is just one way of getting semi sweet with natural sugars and bottle carbing. The cool part is, the choice is all yours.

When I wanted a little sweeter in the past I used Xylitol, an unfermentable sweetener, and then added powdered corn sugar to prime for bottle carbonation. The end result is very similar. I had issue with the cost of Xylitol and it having some side affects for some people.

FAJC generally has 6 servings per can. Each serving in Treetop FAJC's case contains 26 grams of sugar. There are roughly 28 grams of sugar per ounce (weight). So a can of FAJC generally speaking has about 5.5 ounces of sugar in it. I typically prime with between 1 and 1.5 ounces of sugar per gallon. You get the equivalent with some added apple flavor when you prime with FAJC.

 

[Maylar]

If you like dry fizzy cider you can use anything you want for the priming sugar. There are online calculators for that. It's when you want sweet fizzy cider that pasteurization comes into play (or a keg).

 

[jseyfert3]

For unsweetened cider with store bought filtered juice my favorite yeast so far is D47 (and yes I have tried S-04). Makes a very drinkable cider in one month. I’ve not yet done a lot of aging experiments.

I too started with Edwort’s Apfelwein for my first two batches but after experimenting with no sugar added and various yeasts I’m not going back to the Montrachet he uses nor the added sugar. Well I may experiment with some added sugar on small batches but it will not be my go to for sure.

 

[KyleinMN]

Ok guys, I appreciate all the input. I now have 12 gallons of apple juice fermenting with SO4 and will try bottle carbing 6 gallons fully dry with the corn sugar and the other 6 I'll try for the semi-sweet variation using the juice concentrate.

I still have a lots of corn sugar left over and 2 more empty carboys so I might also brew up some stronger Apfelwein (like 14%) and stick it somewhere to age for a long time more like a regular wine and use up some of it.

I would also like to experiment with adding a bit of corn sugar to the above recipe to bring it from 6% to like 7-7.5%. Thats kind of my ideal ABV, do you think that adding like .5-1lb of corn sugar would dramatically reduce drinkability when young? I think the original recipe calls for like 2lbs+ and ends around 8.5% typically.