First try at anything. A cyser, help please!

[Conr]

Ok, so i have talked with a few local brewers and thing i have came up with a decent idea of a cyser recipe. Critque it please. Wont be doing any detailed measurements, as all my local guys just kinda go with the way they are feeling and let the product do what it wants to.

ok so the cyser is going to be a sweet one. Trying to come up with the right yeast. This is going into the fermenter friday evening.

4.25 gallons of apple juice
16lbs of honey
Yeast (leaning towards red star champange yeast, but i kinda doubt it will be able to handle all of the sugars)
Yeast nutrient

remember i have never done any brewing so your help would be apprecianted

 

[lumpher]

no water added to that? that'll give you around 11 or so percent. i use montrachet yeast ( a red star champagne yeast)

 

[ACbrewer]

it would start out as about 5.5 gallons in the primary...
1, it will be SWEET, I don't know how sweet, I'm to tired to search out the expected OG, although if you used water, not apple juice, it would be in the 1.105 range. - so with apple juice, even higher
2. primary about a month, maybe longer, then rack to a carboy and leave it forever, becasue it will also be hot, not just sweet, and will mellow with age.

Let us know how it goes if you brew it. Do you have any gear? (container for fermentiong, etc ) You said you were new

 

[oldmate]

I think you have a bit too much honey, I would go for 3lbs a gallon (the apple juice will give you even more fermentables). If you want it sweet, you can always add some honey dissolved in juice after fermentation. You are right, there will be a whole lot more sugars than what the yeast can handle I think. This might cause them to undergo osmotic shock and you'll get a stuck ferment.

Lumpher, a cyser is classed as a mead with cider replacing water?

 

[Conr]

well i have two primarys, a couple of carbouys, airlocks, stoppers, siphon, bottling bucket.
Planned on bulk aging for 9-12 months, with another 3-6 bottle aged.

 

[lumpher]

champagne yeast is powerful stuff, and will ferment it down. i start with 1.1xx stuff all the time with montrachet, and sometimes it ferments down below 1.000, depending on recipe. nice catch on my miss on style, oldmate, but i think it'll handle it, as it should be good to 14%

 

[Conr]

Done some looking around and think I may have found a few changes to make. Tell me how you think it will turn out.

4.25 +/- gallons of Apple Juice
12lbs Wildflower Honey
8 Cinnamon Sticks
YS 605 yeast (Red Star Cote de Blanc)
Yeast nutrient

Ok so i think the plan will be to warm a few cups of the apple juice (proabably 3 cups) and make a "tea" with the cinnamon sticks. Cool the tea and remove the sticks. Dissolve the honey into the apple juice and tea mixture. The amount of juice will be altered to bring it to the 5 gallon mark. pitch the yeast.

Primary for as long as it takes
Secondary for a while (3-6 months)
Bottle age for as long as i can stand it.

Im hoping the cinnamon tea will help give it a little spice to accent the apples.
Does this look a lil better?

 

[oldmate]

Don't heat the apple juice too much or you will set in pectins which will permenantly cloud your brew unless you use some pectic enzyme. Other than that it looks much better to me!

 

[roadog]

Ok, so i have talked with a few local brewers and thing i have came up with a decent idea of a cyser recipe. Critque it please. Wont be doing any detailed measurements, as all my local guys just kinda go with the way they are feeling and let the product do what it wants to.

ok so the cyser is going to be a sweet one. Trying to come up with the right yeast. This is going into the fermenter friday evening.

4.25 gallons of apple juice
16lbs of honey
Yeast (leaning towards red star champange yeast, but i kinda doubt it will be able to handle all of the sugars)
Yeast nutrient

remember i have never done any brewing so your help would be apprecianted

I made a cyser a few years ago with the following:

5 gallons of apple cider
4 lbs of honey
I don't remember the brand of yeast but it was a champange yeast

OG: 1.078 FG: 1.010

It was almost a year before it was ready for drinking. Very dry but definetly worth the wait.

I'd be careful with your choice of juice. Most apple juices or ciders use Sodium Benzoate or the like to prevent fermentation.

 

[Texron]

What if you did a flavor extraction of your cinnamon sticks by soaking them in a few ounces of vodka? You could let it soak while the blend is fermenting and add the cinnamon elixir to the secondary.

 

[toolboxdiver]

Ok, so i have talked with a few local brewers and thing i have came up with a decent idea of a cyser recipe. Critque it please. Wont be doing any detailed measurements, as all my local guys just kinda go with the way they are feeling and let the product do what it wants to.

ok so the cyser is going to be a sweet one. Trying to come up with the right yeast. This is going into the fermenter friday evening.

4.25 gallons of apple juice
16lbs of honey
Yeast (leaning towards red star champange yeast, but i kinda doubt it will be able to handle all of the sugars)
Yeast nutrient

remember i have never done any brewing so your help would be apprecianted

I would buy apple cider not use apple juice it will give you a much better cyser

 

[Fathand]

This is the recipe I came up with...

8 lbs clover honey
4**gallon* cider
1 lbs brown sugar
1/2tsp Wyeast nutrient
Water top off to 5 gallons
D47

5 Golden Delicious Apples
5 Ida Red Apples

Staggered nutrients throughout first 3 days of fermentation

OG: 1.130
FG: 1.002

Brewed it in October and moved it to 2ndary in December. I just bottled this up a few weeks ago and plan to wait until the fall. Primed with 6 oz. of buckwheat honey.

Only advice I can give you is not to worry that early on there is no apple taste. It wasn't until I just bottled that I could detect apple. I have read this is normal for ciders/cysers.

Good luck with yours.