Experimental Cider Critique (Give your opinion!)

[OedipusRex]

As fall is coming here in the north woods I wanted to make an alcoholic beverage that really captures the season. So I sat down and started thinking about everything I wanted this to be and I decided on a cider. Now, I have never done a cider before soo.

Please let me know what you think of this experimental recipe .

Now I am thinking of something that is the personification of a perfect fall day. (more then a little subjective I know.) So that means a amalgamation of brown sugar, cinnamon, apple flavor and assorted spices; not to mention a sour bite at the end. With all that in mind and no further ado.

Fall in a bottle
1. 5 gallons orchard fresh cider
2. 1 pkt. Nottingham's ale yeast
3. enough dark brown sugar to raise the abv. to 6%

Primary Fermentation​

Ferment in primary for 3 weeks

Secondary​

Bake and mash 2lbs of Winesaps or Jonathans ( this is for that sour kick)
let ferment untill 6% abv then kill the yeast in your preferred method.

Flavoring​

Now rack your cider into another fermenting vessel and now we're going to add some more baked apples but these ones are going to be delicious what you're going to need.

Ingredients:
4. 2 teaspoon butter
5. 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
6. 6 teaspoons vanilla sugar
7. 6 teaspoons ground cinnamon
8. 2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
9. 12 large Honeycrisps - peeled, cored, and sliced (keep the peels for extra flavor)
10. 1 tablespoons water
you can double this for taste
steps
Now preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a large baking dish with the butter.
Mix brown sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Layer about 1/3 of the apples in prepared baking dish; sprinkle with 1/3 of the sugar mixture. Repeat layers twice more.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Pour water over apples and continue baking until tender, about 15 minutes more.
Once tender put in a large mixing bowl and mash until you have small chunks. Lay these chunks back in the baking dish add a drizzle of maple syrup maybe a little molasses and the smallest sprinkle of allspice.
funnel or spoon this back into your cider and let sit 1 week - 1 month purely to taste.
Now I have never made this before and want to know if you think this will turn out how I am envisioning it .
Give me some constructive criticism below

 

[rocketsan]

Skip the butter, even in that small amount, the fat won't jive

 

[oldmate]

Agreed with rocketsan, skip the butter or any form of oil. It will separate and sit at the top of the fermenter and go funky, especially the milk solids.

Otherwise sounds good. I don't think you will need much brown sugar to start with as apple juice usually has enough sugar to get to approx 6% ABV. Cooking the apples will give you a cooked apple taste but it seems to be what you're going for, it will be drinkable but different so might as well try it. For good measure I would add some pectinase to help with clearing, add in your secondary vessel.

 

[OedipusRex]

Is there a way to sanitize apples without cooking them? Because I do think the winesaps would have more pop if they were raw but I fear that it would infect the batch if it's unpasturized.

 

[TandemTails]

If you juice the winesaps and johnathan apples and then add 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon and wait 24 hours before adding to the rest of your cider, it will kill all natural bacteria. That way you won't have to mess with trying to cook/boil them which will probably end up making a mushy mess in your fermenter and cause the pectin to set causing a hazy cider.

You can also use campden tablets on the initial cider before pitching the nottingham if you're really concerned. Just wait the 24 hours before adding your yeast.

 

[MindenMan]

Nix the butter, that is an accident waiting to happen. That is not to say a butter flavoring added would be a bad idea...
Butter "extracts" are very hit and miss among brands, IME they all taste more like butterscotch than butter. I also agree with not cooking the apples as the flavor changes drastically. There many stories of adding flavors at the beginning of fermentation tasted great and after they were fermented they found the sink as the only thing willing to drink it. A little, a very little amount of cinnamon in the beginning can work well, but any amount of nutmeg at the beginning is a very bad thing just waiting to happen.
The aromatics that you want your finished cider to have will mostly go out the airlock with the CO2; that is why most ciders are "spiced" at bottling.
I could be completely wrong and your idea might make a killer cider; I have been making cider for years now and every once on a while I still have what sounded like a great idea for a cider had to become vinegar because it just wasn't consumable as a beverage.

 

[ericbw]

No butter. No cooking.

How do we get butter flavor when we don't want it in beer? Diacetyl! Ferment warm and cool it down before the yeast cleans up. Use a yeast that gives a lot of that flavor.

I agree with MindenMan about fermenting your flavors. We did one with molasses. Once the sugar ferments, you're left with a metallic taste.

Also, killing the yeast at 6% sounds easy but isn't exactly.

 

[OedipusRex]

I am looking for that apple pie flavor so I do think I'm going to try the baked apples in the flavoring stage but not the secondary fermenter. I will let you guys know how it went once I try it.

 

[ericbw]

I think you need to figure out if baking the apples will really get you "baked apple pie" flavor. Maybe baked apple pie is the combination of crust, the fruit, and the spices, along with some caramelization - you know when the juice leaks out of the crust and gets brown and gooey?

But that apple baking thing you described? Make that, sprinkle with granola, top with ice cream. Eat while doing your research.