honey crisp recipe?

[jmccraney]

I just found out I'll be receiving 6 gal of fresh pressed honey crisp juice this weekend! I've never made cider, nor do I have time for a test batch, but I would still like to make the most of this windfall. Does anyone have any good recipes or suggestions on how to best use the honey crisps? I've done my homework, both here and elsewhere, so I'm not worried about the technical details, but from what I've read honey crisp isn't necessarily a cider apple. Is there another variety I can blend to produce a good finished product? (Hopefully something available in the Seattle area.) Again I'm no cider expert, so any tasting notes or other resources on the different varieties would be appreciated as well.

 

[Randzor]

I'm not sure about the juice, but never use Honey Crisp for baking, it turns rubbery and nasty. It was selected by the University of Minnesota solely on eating characteristics. Zeaster and Sweet Tango I think were choose to have better off characteristics, but again not sure about how they'd taste as cider. I'd look into an old orchard, as they tend to have the old varieties(mackintosh, etc.), and many of those are terrible eating, but much better at the other uses.

 

[RebelliousVanilla]

I have some honey crisp apple juice and I just signed into ask if this would make a good cider. The juice is delicious!

 

[skills0]

There are definitely some commercial cider companies here in Vermont that have done hard cider with honeycrisp. It's certainly no cider apple, but to me you would probably get a better flavor profile than using something like Macs, which to me have no flavor. If you had some crab apples or something else wild around it would probably round it out nicely.

 

[Randzor]

I'd be interested in the results. I did try a commercial hard cider from a local winery, but it was flat with no taste and to sweet. I went to school and had the scientist that helped developed honey crisp and Zester, so It'll be interesting with the results.

 

[Archer]

Going to be planting some trees next spring and interested in how the Honey Crisp cider turns out as well. Please keep us posted. Thanks.

 

[RebelliousVanilla]

Going to be planting some trees next spring and interested in how the Honey Crisp cide turns out as well. Keep us posted. Thanks.

These are my favorite apples. If not for cider they are delicious apples just to eat. I'd plant some of this variety if I had the space. I have the juice and it is delicious. I don't see why it wouldn't make a good cider. It's both sweet with a tangy brightness to it.

 

[jmccraney]

Thanks everyone for the comments, thought I would check back in to let you know how it turned out. The juice turned out to be a blend of mostly Honeycrisp with some Gala and Granny Smith. I went with a dry cider with some corn sugar to bump up the alcohol a bit, then fermented with EC-1118 and Nottingham (split batch). Overall I'm pretty pleased with the results. You can see the full tasting notes at my blog here. It was a fun experiment and I definitely learned a lot about cider along the way.

 

[mallard75]

I made a 1 gal batch with just honey crisp like you have and pitched London ale yeast (wyeast). No added steps or sugar. Turned out great. Not too dry and tart. Good luck.

Og was 1.050 on just the juice. Fermented at 70 degrees. Bottle conditioned for two weeks.

I now have a 5 gallon batch cooking and it will get cold crashed, filtered and kegged next week!!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[gilliganmc]

I made a 1 gal batch with just honey crisp like you have and pitched London ale yeast (wyeast). No added steps or sugar. Turned out great. Not too dry and tart. Good luck.

Og was 1.050 on just the juice. Fermented at 70 degrees. Bottle conditioned for two weeks.

I now have a 5 gallon batch cooking and it will get cold crashed, filtered and kegged next week!!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

This is the first positive post I have read about honeycrisp apples! Thank you!! I bought 5 gallons of 100% unfiltered honeycrisp Apple cider from Trader Joes. I plan to start it within the week. I am going to keg it.

Any additional tips or advice would be greatly appreciated as this is my first cider!!

 

[ejcrist]

This is the first positive post I have read about honeycrisp apples! Thank you!! I bought 5 gallons of 100% unfiltered honeycrisp Apple cider from Trader Joes. I plan to start it within the week. I am going to keg it.

Any additional tips or advice would be greatly appreciated as this is my first cider!!

I have three batches currently underway with (1) Trader Joe's unfiltered Honeycrisp and S-04, (2) Musselman's unfiltered Honeycrisp and Nottingham, and (3) Tree Top unfiltered Honeycrisp and WLP002. I have another batch I put together with Tree-Top 3-Apple (Red and Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp) with WLP028. None of my batches are done yet and these are my first attempts at cider so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. So far they all smell good. I've only sampled the first batch with Trader Joe's juice before racking from the bucket to a carboy and it tasted pretty good in my opinion. I added malic acid to all my batches because they were a little high on pH (~ 3.8) and low on acid (TA ~0.30-0.40) so I brought them into the same range as wine at about 3.5 and 0.70. I'm guessing if you don't add acid they'd be slightly bland but that's only a SWAG on my part since I've never finished any yet. I'll let everyone know how they turn out.

 

[gilliganmc]

I have three batches currently underway with (1) Trader Joe's unfiltered Honeycrisp and S-04, (2) Musselman's unfiltered Honeycrisp and Nottingham, and (3) Tree Top unfiltered Honeycrisp and WLP002. I have another batch I put together with Tree-Top 3-Apple (Red and Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp) with WLP028. None of my batches are done yet and these are my first attempts at cider so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. So far they all smell good. I've only sampled the first batch with Trader Joe's juice before racking from the bucket to a carboy and it tasted pretty good in my opinion. I added malic acid to all my batches because they were a little high on pH (~ 3.8) and low on acid (TA ~0.30-0.40) so I brought them into the same range as wine at about 3.5 and 0.70. I'm guessing if you don't add acid they'd be slightly bland but that's only a SWAG on my part since I've never finished any yet. I'll let everyone know how they turn out.

thank you for the response. How long before they finish for you? I do not have a PH meter or a way to measure the acid content so I most likely will not add anything except yeast and yeast nutrient.

I plan to keg it as well.

 

[ejcrist]

Being I'm new at this I'm not exactly sure when the first batch will be ready, but if I had to guess I'd say probably around Christmas at the earliest.

You can get a good Hannah pH meter from Midwest Supplies (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/checker-1-economical-ph-tester.html) that costs around $60 or so with shipping, and an acid test kit for around $12 from the same place (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/acid-testing-kit.html). Also if you have a local home-brew shop around they'll have them too. You can get away without using them and just go by taste but I'm of the opinion the more you can quantify about your wine/mead/cider earlier in the process the better you can adjust if necessary for a better outcome, and repeat what you liked. But you definitely don't "need" them to make good cider or any other fermented beverage.

 

[gilliganmc]

Some recipes say 14 days... I hope mine is sooner than Christmas.

I'm excited to try it..

 

[ejcrist]

Some recipes say 14 days... I hope mine is sooner than Christmas.

I'm excited to try it..

When you say "finish" are you talking about primary fermentation? For me finished means bottled and ready to drink, but if you're talking about finished primary fermentation, the first batch is undergoing secondary in a carboy now and the second batch will get racked from the fermenting bucket to a glass carboy w/airlock this weekend. The last two have about another 2 weeks in their primary buckets before racking to carboys. I won't rack them into carboys until their gravity is 1.010 or less since I'm starting around 1.050 and using ale yeasts at 65F. If I were using wine yeasts that ferment to bone dry I'd rack at around 1.000 which would take about a week fermenting at room temperature.

 

[gilliganmc]

When you say "finish" are you talking about primary fermentation? For me finished means bottled and ready to drink, but if you're talking about finished primary fermentation, the first batch is undergoing secondary in a carboy now and the second batch will get racked from the fermenting bucket to a glass carboy w/airlock this weekend. The last two have about another 2 weeks in their primary buckets before racking to carboys. I won't rack them into carboys until their gravity is 1.010 or less since I'm starting around 1.050 and using ale yeasts at 65F. If I were using wine yeasts that ferment to bone dry I'd rack at around 1.000 which would take about a week fermenting at room temperature.

I was referring to having it in a keg. However I could see the keg / bottle conditioning time effect the flavor. What about the yeasts made for cider?

 

[ejcrist]

Roger that. I've never kegged anything but I'd assume it's the same as bottling so I'd figure it would be decent after about 3-4 months at the shortest, but that's just a guess on my part.

I haven't tried any of the cider yeasts yet but they look to have similar profiles as wine yeasts, so I'm guessing they ferment to complete dryness and can tolerate sulfites if you're using them. I want to try cider and wine yeasts probably on the next batches I make. I know Lalvin 71B-1122 makes a really good mead so that will definitely be one I want to try. I also heard great things about D-47 as long as you keep the temp around 65F-68F. I've read White Labs WLP775 is a great cider yeast as well and has an optimum temp of 68F-75F so it should work good at room temp in the fall/winter. I haven't read much good about Wyeast 4766 cider yeast but that doesn't mean it isn't good. It also says ideal temp is 68F-75F. Sometimes people will give a bad report on a yeast but they didn't keep things within the correct parameters so of course it doesn't work out as well as it could. D47 is an excellent example - I've read good and bad things about it but it's ideal temp range is 59F-68F which probably doesn't work good at room temp in the summer and I'm guessing accounts for some of the bad reports.

 

[gilliganmc]

I have done some reading and I believe you are on the money for using the s-04. I will follow your footsteps for the first batch.

I am considering getting another carboy and using it as a secondary to ferment the cider in for the required time. If I cold crash it in a keg the yeast will go dormant and the cider probably won't change. So a long secondary, or warm keg for months would be my options.