Help me score point with a dry cider

[Mellow52]

In a never ending attempt to keep SWMBO happy I promised to make her a apple cider drink as close as I could to a product she loves from the old country, South Africa. So se loves a Savanna.

http://www.savanna.co.za/about

All that I know is that it is a dry 100% apple cider of 6% abv. I have no clue how to brew a cider so any help would be great.

 

[mbobhat]

my brother and I did one last fall with fresh apple cider from orchard, which gave a nice flavorful cider. We half primed carbed in bottle and half didn't carb and just capped, the still cider(not primed with corn sugar) was a hair sweeter if I recall.

Its very similar to wine, in that its hard to get a sweetness to it without using potassium metabisulfite to kill yeast before they're done with the job.

If it is dry though, then no biggie. Try EdWort's appelwein recipe.

 

[BigBlueDog]

Consider making Brandon O's Graff. Much easier than a traditional cider, which typically needs to be back sweetened. It is terrific.

 

[Beernip]

If he is looking for a dry cider it doesn't need to be back sweetened. The problem with trying to replicate a cider is that it is dependent on getting apple juice mix exactly the same as they produce. It looks like Savanna Dry uses apples from the Elgin region of South Africa. Your best bet would be to get juice from that area to create the cider but getting it shipped that far without preservatives (which inhibit the cider yeast) would be almost impossible. Your best bet would be to try Edwort's Apflewien recipe and go from there. I'd recommend you use a traditional cider yeast as opposed to the wine yeast he uses.

 

[mparmer]

there's a great article in the sept/oct issue of Zymurgy magazine. I made a really easy dry hard cider and I love it.

 

[veritas524]

Edwort's apfelwine all the way. Simple to make with award winning results.

 

[Mellow52]

Thanks for the help. I will check out Edwort's apfelwine with a cider yeast.

This one? https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/edworts-apfelwein-33986/

Also I see it comes in at 8.5% abv. Do I reduce the sugar to get it closer to 6% abv, say half the sugar?

Cheers!

 

[Mellow52]

I'd recommend you use a traditional cider yeast as opposed to the wine yeast he uses.

Like the White Labs WLP775 English Cider Yeast? http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp775.html

 

[veritas524]

I'm partial to the wine yeast myself.

 

[beergolf]

This is a pretty good recipe.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/grahams-english-cider-107152/

I tried it and it does take some time but it gets good with age.

 

[Fizzycist]

A dry cider is really easy with a wine yeast. My first cider was made with Lalvin EC-1118 and it came out very dry with no effort at all. As for replicating a flavor, that would depend heavily on your apples. Try a batch using plain old store bought juice, then start branching out to local orchards if that doesn't satisfy SWMBO.

 

[Mellow52]

OK I ordered two 6 gal better bottles and got 10 gal of 100% organic apple juice from BJ's and decided to stick with the Montrachet Wine Yeast and follow Edwort's recipe 110%.

Thanks again guys!