How Long?

[bernerbrau]

I know the rule of thumb for beer is 1-2-3, but I'm seeing a few different ideas for cider.

From what I can tell it's best to do 3 weeks in primary, a month or longer in secondary, and then up to 3 months bottle time (and I'm told outdoors conditioning works well as the weather starts to cool down).

My cider's almost a week in primary and I want to be able to serve it at Christmas. I'm planning on a month in primary, a month in secondary, priming and bottling at the end of September, giving it just under 3 months bottle-conditioning by Christmas time.

Also I'm not sure whether to leave it as a plain cider or add ingredients like nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, orange rinds, cranberries, etc. What are people's impressions of each? Benefits? Drawbacks?

 

[Arneba28]

I think that some spice would be very nice. However I would stick to only a few spices. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves or orange and cranberries, but not all 5 things together.

Whats the %abv. Sometimes with stronger ciders the spices will be good to kind of mask the hotness a bit. Also with the spices added you could warm it up and leave it uncarbonated.

 

[bernerbrau]

OG is 1.052 (adjusted for temp), so about 6.8% assuming full attenuation.

I'm thinking I'll get another 5g carboy and split the brew for secondary, half plain and half spiced (or half one spice combo and half another!), and compare.

 

[bernerbrau]

And then I could split the bottling as well -- 1/4 carboy #1 carbed, 1/4 carboy #1 uncarbed, 1/4 carboy #2 carbed, 1/4 carboy #2 uncarbed.

With 12oz bottles that's 13 bottles of each! Not bad...