Smith and forge
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Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Nope. Make your own.
Sorry for being brief like that, but unfortunately it's true. There are no recipes for cloning commercial or craft ciders. We don't have the same apples, so it's impossible to duplicate them.
There is a beginner's sticky here, and a recipe sub-forum. But at the end of the day, you take apple juice, add yeast, and get cider. Your own cider. We can help with details, but the one question we can't answer is how to clone someone else's cider.
If you love commercial cider just buy it. Keep making your own and you'll either get closer and start to like yours better. I started drinking woodchuck years ago. Wouldn't even think of buying one now. I make my own, different styles, and still buy the good stuff, i.e. small orchards and cideries.
there's a lot of secrecy behind this and it becomes lore especially for famous brands like Magner's/Bulmer's.
Even if we knew the types of apples they use, there's no guarantee that the ones grown in american soil with american weather will taste like the ones from Ireland! and apparently the Bulmer's fermenting vats in use for a LOONG time are oak. Even if i wanted to spend $$$ on an oak fermenting vessel, i cant speed up time to get the flavor they have from theirs being in use for years and years.
Even if we knew the types of apples they use, there's no guarantee that the ones grown in american soil with american weather will taste like the ones from Ireland! and apparently the Bulmer's fermenting vats in use for a LOONG time are oak. Even if i wanted to spend $$$ on an oak fermenting vessel, i cant speed up time to get the flavor they have from theirs being in use for years and years.
It's been said, but cideries apples and apple blends are hard to find. On top of that, then there is yeasts, processes, temperatures, ageing, etc. It seems cideries are not as open as breweries when it comes to this.
I might suggest starting with a homebrew batch of dry cider as a base, and do a side by side comparison experiment. Find your volume and add FAJC and/or acid blends and tannins in small increments until your flavors are close, or at least playing the same sport. Then, scale up your measurements to a full size batch, and see how it translates. It will be a lot of trial and error, so take copious notes. That may be the only way to go. Plus you can then share your results with the rest of us. :-D
I might suggest starting with a homebrew batch of dry cider as a base, and do a side by side comparison experiment. Find your volume and add FAJC and/or acid blends and tannins in small increments until your flavors are close, or at least playing the same sport. Then, scale up your measurements to a full size batch, and see how it translates. It will be a lot of trial and error, so take copious notes. That may be the only way to go. Plus you can then share your results with the rest of us. :-D
Agreed just looking for ideas just getting into this
TandemTails
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately these ciders are probably some of the harder ones to perfect for a beginner cider maker. Smith & Forge, Woodchuck, Angry Orchard, etc are typically very sweet and carbonated. This combination is tricky unless you have a kegging system.
Still + Sweet cider
If you don't care about carbonation then it's less complicated and here's what you'll need for a gallon:
* 1 gallon of apple cider / juice that doesn't contain any stabilizers (it's ok if it's pasteurized)
* yeast
* frozen apple juice concentrate for back sweetening
* potassium sorbate (stabilizers for use after fermentation)
* potassium metabisulfite (stabilizers for use after fermentation)
You can use pretty much any tutorial online that covers how to make a hard apple cider. Just use a sanitized fermentation vessel w/ airlock and ferment your cider for about a month. After fermentation ends, add the proper dose of k-sorbate and k-meta (i forget off the top of my head but the bottles have amounts listed per 1 gallon). Let that sit for 24 hours before adding the apple juice concentrate and bottling.
The easiest way to incorporate the apple juice concentrate is to add it to your bottling bucket and then rack the fermented cider onto it. The natural whirlpooling of the cider into the bucket should be enough to combine it together. I usually like to give it a gentle swirl with a sanitized spoon just to be sure.
Bottle it and enjoy. You'll have a sweet+still hard cider around 5% ABV. If you really want carbonation you can add a splash of soda water or sprite.
carbonated + sweet cider
Ferment your juice like normal. If you're kegging, stabilize the cider like above and add the FAJC to the keg and carbonate like normal to the desired CO2 level. If you're bottling, follow the steps from above but DON'T add the stabilizers. You'll need to bottle pasteurize after a few days so the yeast has had time to convert some of the sugar to co2 but kill it before you have bottle bombs. There's a really good sticky about bottle pasteurizing at the top of this forum (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=193295).
When I did the bottle pasteurization technique before, I had one 20oz soda bottle that I emptied and bottled my cider into to act as a pressure gauge. I bottled it like normal but squeezed out all the excess air that would normally have been the headspace and then put the cap on. I watched the bottle daily and as soon as the bottle was firm to the touch and the co2 had filled the proper headspace I knew i reached the proper co2 level and then pasteurized the glass bottles.
Still + Sweet cider
If you don't care about carbonation then it's less complicated and here's what you'll need for a gallon:
* 1 gallon of apple cider / juice that doesn't contain any stabilizers (it's ok if it's pasteurized)
* yeast
* frozen apple juice concentrate for back sweetening
* potassium sorbate (stabilizers for use after fermentation)
* potassium metabisulfite (stabilizers for use after fermentation)
You can use pretty much any tutorial online that covers how to make a hard apple cider. Just use a sanitized fermentation vessel w/ airlock and ferment your cider for about a month. After fermentation ends, add the proper dose of k-sorbate and k-meta (i forget off the top of my head but the bottles have amounts listed per 1 gallon). Let that sit for 24 hours before adding the apple juice concentrate and bottling.
The easiest way to incorporate the apple juice concentrate is to add it to your bottling bucket and then rack the fermented cider onto it. The natural whirlpooling of the cider into the bucket should be enough to combine it together. I usually like to give it a gentle swirl with a sanitized spoon just to be sure.
Bottle it and enjoy. You'll have a sweet+still hard cider around 5% ABV. If you really want carbonation you can add a splash of soda water or sprite.
carbonated + sweet cider
Ferment your juice like normal. If you're kegging, stabilize the cider like above and add the FAJC to the keg and carbonate like normal to the desired CO2 level. If you're bottling, follow the steps from above but DON'T add the stabilizers. You'll need to bottle pasteurize after a few days so the yeast has had time to convert some of the sugar to co2 but kill it before you have bottle bombs. There's a really good sticky about bottle pasteurizing at the top of this forum (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=193295).
When I did the bottle pasteurization technique before, I had one 20oz soda bottle that I emptied and bottled my cider into to act as a pressure gauge. I bottled it like normal but squeezed out all the excess air that would normally have been the headspace and then put the cap on. I watched the bottle daily and as soon as the bottle was firm to the touch and the co2 had filled the proper headspace I knew i reached the proper co2 level and then pasteurized the glass bottles.
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