Trying to get it right

[mdwmonster]

I'm trying to make a decent cider for my wife. She prefers them to have good apple flavor, in the semi-sweet range and sparkling. Since I do not keg, my only option is to bottle condition.

I've read the stickies, and think I understand, but I'd like to make sure. So, in an effort to get the taste she is looking for, here is my plan. Please let me know if I am off, or if you have a better suggestion.

1 - Use fresh cider from the farmers market (should be available in a month or so). If I recall, it is still pasteurized, but is much more flavorful than juice from the supermarket. Should I also consider a can of frozen concentrate to further enhance the apple flavor?
2 - Use ale yeast. I'm thinking either Nottingham or US-05. I'm hoping these are less attenuating and will leave some flavor/sugars behind. Would they finish around 1.009 or so?
3 - Use brown sugar to boost the OG. From what I understand, brown sugar is less fermentable than white sugar, and leaves behind a bit of a caramel flavor, which should be nice with the apple.
4 - Have some lactose or Splenda on hand and taste before I bottle. If it tastes too dry, add some unfermentables in to get to the desired level of sweetness. The only issue here is, I don't know if that will take a cup or 10 cups. Any idea?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Nanobru]

Ive used both really expensive fresh juice, and the cheapest juice on the shelf (concentrate/pasturized/vitamin c). What Ive found most important is the finishing gravity to retain the flavor. I like to use an ale yeast and pay close attention to the fermentation because it will finish extremely low. I stop at about 1.015 or higher by sticking my carboy in the fridge to drop the yeast out of suspension and even add a clarifier if I dont plan on immediately drinking it. Havent used splenda, but lactose works ok. Back sweeten by adding a wine conditioner available at most brew shopes. Its made from other non fermentable sugars

 

[mdwmonster]

I stop at about 1.015 or higher by sticking my carboy in the fridge to drop the yeast out of suspension

I'm a bit confussed here. I've cold crashed beers to get the yeast out of suspension, then added the priming sugar and bottled. However, in those cases, fermentation was complete before I cold crashed.

If I cold crash at 1.015, what stops the yeast from reporducing in the bottle and finishing? Would you still add the priming sugar to carbonate? Would cold crash at 1.015, bottle then leave the entire batch in the fridge? I don't want to misinterpret what you are saying and end up with a basement full of bottle bombs.

 

[ryane]

1 - Use fresh cider from the farmers market (should be available in a month or so). If I recall, it is still pasteurized, but is much more flavorful than juice from the supermarket. Should I also consider a can of frozen concentrate to further enhance the apple flavor?

Up to you, using concentrate will add a lot of sugar as well

2 - Use ale yeast. I'm thinking either Nottingham or US-05. I'm hoping these are less attenuating and will leave some flavor/sugars behind. Would they finish around 1.009 or so?

It will ferment to complete dryness, even using notty/ale yeasts it will eat everything in there leaving it pretty much bone dry

3 - Use brown sugar to boost the OG. From what I understand, brown sugar is less fermentable than white sugar, and leaves behind a bit of a caramel flavor, which should be nice with the apple.

Brown sugar is essentially 100% fermentable, the color is from an extremely small amount of molasses added to white sugar, it will completely ferment out and add the slightest hint of molasses, which by itself can lend a metallic flavor, apple juice has a pretty high OG to begin with, by adding sugar you will dry it out even more by increasing the alcohol in the cider

4 - Have some lactose or Splenda on hand and taste before I bottle. If it tastes too dry, add some unfermentables in to get to the desired level of sweetness. The only issue here is, I don't know if that will take a cup or 10 cups. Any idea?

I add lactose to a cider i brew every year, it doesnt really add any sweetness its more of a body enhancer, when comparing the sweetness of sugars, sucrose (aka table sugar) is given a value of 100, lactose is 16, so it is ~6 times less sweet than table sugar

assume that you add 1# of lactose to a 5gal batch, and it is 16% as sweet as sugar so its like adding (16oz x 0.16 ~= 2.5oz) 2.5oz of sugar to sweeten a 5gal batch, thats like pissing in the ocean, you might know that you did it, but no one else can tell

The easiest way to have a sweet bottle conditioned cider is to add a bit of simple syrup or apple juice concentrate to the glass and then add cider, this will sweeten it and add a bit more apple flavor

the hard way is to do something called keeving which results in a sweet naturally carbonated cider, its a pretty advanced technique and takes a lot of playing around though, ive started trying but i am not consistent yet

One last idea that Ive tried is to caramelize apple juice heavily, making a darkened syrup, I did it in this recipe, last i tried it was still very young and yeasty (takes 12mos or so to taste good in my opinion) given time the apple flavor should really shine through

 

[JLem]

One last idea that Ive tried is to caramelize apple juice heavily, making a darkened syrup, I did it in this recipe, last i tried it was still very young and yeasty (takes 12mos or so to taste good in my opinion) given time the apple flavor should really shine through

I like the caramelized juice idea a lot - I think I'll have to try that. Your FG of 1.008 sounds perfect - I just tested some of Harpoon's cider and it comes out at about 1.012. A little drier than that would be good I think.

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[ryane]

Id love to hear how it turns out if you try

becareful with the juice syrup, it is amazingly flavored and youll want to use it on all kinds of things besides the cider......

 

[Pappers_]

Hi Monster. My swmbo also likes sparkling cider a lot, and here's some ideas for you:

Skip the sugar - it will dry out the cider, require more time to age and one of the charms of sparkling cider is that it us light and crisp.

Consider using a stove-top pasteurizing technique. In short, you let the cider ferment to the right balance of sweetness you are looking for - I use both tasting and hydrometer readings to judge. When it's right, bottle it. I add priming sugar, because I don't want the cider to get drier. Then, after a week, open a bottle to check on carbonation. Do that every couple of days until your carbonation level is right. Then pasteurize by heating a large stock pot of water to 190 F, take off heat, add the bottles without crowding them, let them sit for 10 minutes then remove. Check water temp and add heat if necessary, repeat. Takes a little bit of time, but is really simple, works well, and avoids using chemicals or additives.

Best wishes!

 

[CvilleKevin]

The method that Pappers described is probably the most reliable for first time cider makers to get a sweet sparkling bottle conditioned cider.

When it comes to cider, you can pick any three: sweet, sparkling, bottle conditioned, or easy - but not all four

I've been cold crashing for years and it works great. I use unpasteurized juice from organic (low nitrogen) apples, which I suspect makes the cold crashing more reliable. Keeving is essentially a nitrogen reduction step. It is a lot easier to start with low nitrogen apples. Most commercial growers pump up their apples with fertilizers to get the juice yields

If you have a local orchard nearby, you can probably get unpasteurized juice (in VA this can only be sold where the juice is pressed). The other advantage of going right to the press, is that usually someone at the press knows a bit about hard cider and can let you know if/when they do a pressing specifically for fermenting