Planning a cyser

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emr454

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So I'm going to attempt making my first cyser. I've done a few batches of cider and beer, so this is new to me. Here's what I have:

3 gallon carboy
3 gallons apple juice
~4lbs honey
Nottingham ale yeast
nutrient/energizer

The plan is to add enough honey to the apple juice to eventually overwhelm the yeasts' alcohol tolerance so I end up with a sweet still cyser. It has been reported by others on the forum that Notty will handle roughly 10% abv. Obviously I shouldn't start off with too much honey, so I'd like to hear some ideas from the group as to how much I should add incrementally. I also plan on doing staggered nutrient additions too. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

Eric
 
I've had some good experiences using beer yeast with honey. Nottingham or safale 05 both work great and leave a ABV aroung 9-10%. The batch I did was a vanilla methegyn, not a cyser, but after bulk aging for 9+ months it turned out smooth with little to no alcohol bite. No yeasty beer flavor either. Best of luck. Beer yeast should owrk great for you!
 
That's good to hear! I have some other yeast but I like how Notty leaves some good flavor behind compared to some of the champagne yeasts I've used.

After doing some calculations, it seems 3 lbs of honey will give me an O.G. of 1.090, so I may not max out this yeast after all. I suppose I could try to make a sparkling cyser.

Eric
 
You can always use a little less honey...

I suppose I will.

My original plan was to keep adding honey to the point where I'm left with a sweet, still cyser. After I did the math, though, I realized I don't have enough honey to overwhelm the yeasts' alcohol tolerance, so now I'll just shoot for a ~9% abv sparkling cyser,

Eric
 
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