Flavoring Cider

[MrK]

As mentioned in another thread, I have been using fresh ginger root in some of my ciders. I've peeled a small section and sliced paper thin, dropped in vodka for about 30 seconds and transferred the slices to my bottles and pasteurized. Adds a very nice flavor to the cider. I've also changed the flavor a bit by adding a VERY small amount of green apple extract. Adds a touch of bitterness to the otherwise sweet back sweetened cider.

I'm sorry if i come off as a little intoxicated...

Anyway, it sounds like you have a great attention to all of the cider tastes that exists, bitterness and that cozy zest that I mentioned.

To BeastYeast,
I've tried mainly the yeasts that I've been using for my beers (I always keep a snippet for my cider) and what I've found is that the English white labs yeast works pretty well, as well as the white labs cider yeast. There is a lot of natural flavor there, fruity and sweet in the English yeast. But for me personally, WL Cider yeast is magical. Keep note that i have not even used a dry yeast yeast (except In my bread) before. And I
also use a particular amount of brown and cane sugar I hope you gain some insight form this.

Mr. Terry
Long live homebrewing!

 

[HopSong]

Re Yeasts.. My first two batches I used M2 yeast (not M-02) I like the results. If using pasteurized, but unfiltered AJ, it doesn't clear very fast.. and may not clear w/o crashing very well at all.

My most recent attempt is a yeast called Mangrove Jack cider yeast. Was highly recommended by my LHBS. It is also clearing very slowly. It's actually pretty well finished and bubbling about once every 20 minutes. I'm inclined to rack that one into a couple of 1G jugs and some larger swing tops and crash clear.. then figure how I want to deal with flavoring.. if necessary.. or even blending with a prior batch. It's all fun.

 

[BeastYeast]

Thanks for the replies! I haven't tried any of the yeast recommendations just yet as I scored a deal on some other types and I'm working through them one batch at a time

I have a question regarding Lyle's golden syrup. I came into 28 gallons of frozen pear cider from this falls harvest and I've got to get it in a fermenter this week as it just thawed.

I'm kicking around some ideas for flavoring and I saw Lyle's being briefly discussed in a cider thread. Thoughts on this syrup for back sweetening and flavor? I ordered 3 lbs of it to play with. I'm aiming for toffee pear cider, perhaps complimenting with something added.

Also, I really want the pear flavors to come out in the keg, so I'd like to add some pear cider after 2ndry. Will probably freeze a couple gallons of the cider for back sweetening. Would you recommend pasteurizing the cider before using it for back sweetening? I typically use potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite when racking to keg and then degass it with a whip right before crashing and putting the C02 at it.

Another quick share - Last winter I used Upstate Mike's basic cider recipe and made a delicious strawberry cider (sweet) and a completely dry apple cider with 2 oz of dried citra hops in 2ndry. The strawberry was good, but the citra hopped cider was EXCELLENT! I highly recommend.

 

[MindenMan]

I looked through most of this thread, I didn't see the mention of aging your cider to get a solid flavor. Yes, when it's done fermenting it normally doesn't taste like a whole lot, but let some time pass and the apple flavor comes back out. What tastes borderline ick today, 12 months from now is really nice. Adding one 12oz can of frozen apple juice concentrate to one gallon of juice will not only raise your ABV to 7% or so, but it also adds a huge amount of apple flavor to your cider.

EDIT: The past few batches I have been using Red Star Pasteur Yeast. NOT Pasteur Champagne yeast. It has an unbelievable range of fermentation temperatures; from 65-80*F, if I remember correctly, and even getting a 7% ABV hard cider to start with, it still tastes like apples up front, and I don't have anything older than 2 months stashed away to compare to. I wish I would have been using this yeast last year, because some apple jack made with ale yeast I had stashed away for 13 months was so much more than I ever thought it could be. I am now on a quest to make at least two batches of different fruit hard ciders per month getting two 12oz bottles of high proof apple jack per gallon. One for (X) quantity of months from now, and one for maybe a year from bottling, or even longer. Due to the residual sugar I intentionally leave in the apple jack, no light and cool temperatures during bottle conditioning, just may give it the kind of amazing shelf life that some mead's have. No, it is not mead, and it will never be in the same class, but that is okay, maybe it needs to be in a class by itself.

EDIT 2: PM Yooper, she is the go-to gal when it comes to anything that used to apples, and now is is wine or hard cider. Go, YOOPER!

 

[nbstl68]

Side question here based on the last comment. Being new, I think I may be missing something.
I'm curious how adding a 12oz can of concentrate can raise the ABV?
Aren't you diluting it basically?
Or am I to assume you mean to then let it continue fermenting out again vs. bottling out or kegging?
I have a 5 gal batch for example, adding 60 oz of concentrate sounds like a whole lot.
In my case, I'm done with fermenting and would like to add flavor back in before bottling\kegging.
Maybe I'm getting the priming vs. backsweetening concepts confused I think but it sounded like this was originally about flavor \ sweetening.
..sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread but this is kind of in-line with the original question.

 

[Roadie]

Side question here based on the last comment. Being new, I think I may be missing something.
I'm curious how adding a 12oz can of concentrate can raise the ABV?
Aren't you diluting it basically?
Or am I to assume you mean to then let it continue fermenting out again vs. bottling out or kegging?
I have a 5 gal batch for example, adding 60 oz of concentrate sounds like a whole lot.
In my case, I'm done with fermenting and would like to add flavor back in before bottling\kegging.
Maybe I'm getting the priming vs. backsweetening concepts confused I think but it sounded like this was originally about flavor \ sweetening.
..sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread but this is kind of in-line with the original question.

I believe he means prior to fermentation. The sugars in the FAJC raise the abv and he's saying that the bonus is that he gets more apple flavor in the finished product.

If you are finished fermenting and looking to backsweeten then you can add FAJC to the keg and rack on top of it. I did this a month or so ago and found that SWMBO liked 3 cans to get the sweetness she liked. That keg kicked 2 days ago so she liked it a lot.

If you plan on bottling any from the keg then you will need to sorbate first then do the FAJC thing, otherwise you may end up with bottle bombs as the temps of the bottles warm up and the yeast wakes up and starts eating those sugars.

I don't age ciders for the same reason I don't make wine; I just don't have the patience for it so will probably never find out how good my ciders could get with age unless I end up with a much larger "holding area" than what I have now.

 

[MindenMan]

Here is an idea, find a friend or family member that enjoys cider and has some room and put away two of everything, that way you both get to enjoy cider with some age on it. Your above response is exactly what I had meant.

 

[fosbrew]

I used 4 cinnamon sticks for four gallons of my cider, it wasn't over powering. The problem is getting them out of the carboy when the bark flattens.

 

[BeastYeast]

I used 4 cinnamon sticks for four gallons of my cider, it wasn't over powering. The problem is getting them out of the carboy when the bark flattens.

I use 1/2 sticks, or 1/3 sticks. They come right out of my better bottle

 

[AntKay]

This thread has been dead for a while but obviously very helpful as I just read the whole thing!

I have just got into beer brewing. Wife doesn’t drink beer and we both like cider so I decided to purchase 9L of unpasteurised fresh apple juice from one of the Orchards here in Norway. Used a pack a highly recommended Safale SO4 yeast.

I divided it up into 2 seperate containers to do some experimenting on. Hit an OG of 1046.

I keep wondering how exactly I’m going to back sweeten and carbonate after fermentation.

This is my plan. So once fermentation is complete, I’m gonna add some cinnamon, blueberries back to primary( don’t know if I will use a secondary for this experiment). Don’t really know how much quantities of fruit and spice to add without overpowering the flavour.

Will let this sit for like a week or so to get the flavours out.
I will then add concentrated apple juice for carbonation and reintroduce apple flavour and pour into my 500ml swing top bottles and a test plastic bottle. Once my plastic bottle is firm, I will pasteurise with a sous vida machine at 70-80C.

Think this will work or any tips to flavour and carbonate?

Also, won’t the abv be higher since you’re introducing more fermentables and how would you recalculate if so?

 

[zadamxtr]

I've experimented with sweetening in the bottle using Equal artificial sweetener. I've compared (500ml) bottles with 0, 2, 4, and 6 Equal tablets, and find the 6 incredibly sweet, like a comercial cider. There is obviously a little bit of an aftertaste due to it being an artificial sweetener. It's strange how much the sweeteness affects the perception of taste.... The 0 compared to the 6 tastes completely different, not just sweeter, but far more "appley".

 

[JulianDave]

I've experimented with sweetening in the bottle using Equal artificial sweetener. I've compared (500ml) bottles with 0, 2, 4, and 6 Equal tablets, and find the 6 incredibly sweet, like a comercial cider. There is obviously a little bit of an aftertaste due to it being an artificial sweetener. It's strange how much the sweeteness affects the perception of taste.... The 0 compared to the 6 tastes completely different, not just sweeter, but far more "appley".

Have you ever tried erythritol as a nonfermentable sweetener? It was recommended by a few other brewers and since I tried it it's all I use now. Tastes like sugar in reasonably low concentrations we use to make cider off dry. I see it commonly at the store in the US, not sure if you have it there.