Vodka Tincture Recipes for Cider

[AnnaH]

Hi everyone! I am a total newbie to both brewing and this forum. A friend and I are making cider for the first time and I wanted some advice on vodka tinctures. We've got two, 5-gallon carboys fermenting. One we're going to leave alone, the other we're fermenting with some brown sugar. For the latter, we want to add some spices for flavoring during bottling.

I've been scouring the internet looking for a vodka tincture recipe that would work and am getting all different kinds of conflicting info about what spices to use, how much vodka to use, etc.. I definitely want something with cinnamon, I've been looking up some chai spice recipes that look promising. We're going to be using ground spices (I know, I know) because time wouldn't allow for us to make a tincture out of whole spices.

My question: would any of you who have successfully done this before be willing to share your tincture recipes with me, measurements and all? We're hoping that this will be a decent winter cider.

 

[Jag75]

Mulling spices . Just be cautious of how much . It goes a long way. Ive only done cider once and I used cinnamon, anise, clove and orange peel . I just put the spices in a muslin bag after I boiled it and tossed it in the cider . Left it for a week or so then bottled .

 

[dmtaylor]

The nice thing about tinctures is..... you can add just like one teaspoon at a time until it tastes right. You don't need to add the entire tincture all at once. So, use whatever spices you like, mulling spices or "pumpkin spice", or whatever, soak it in a few ounces of vodka or make a tea out of them. Then only add about one teaspoon of the tincture at a time. Mix it in, taste the cider. Strong enough? No? Add another teaspoon. Strong enough? Probably. I would guess you'll need just about ~2 teaspoons, maybe 3, until it tastes good, but it depends how strong the tincture is, and depends upon your own personal preferences too of course (and we are all different!). Keep good notes of what you used and how much, then you will be able to repeat your results in the future.

Good luck.

 

[Pappers_]

What @dmtaylor said ^^^^^^ I've never added tincture to a cider, but have with a beer a few times. I don't measure anything in making the tincture - take a ball jar, throw in ingredients, fill with vodka and leave it sit for however long I have - weeks is better than days, but days works too. Then when its time to package your cider or beer, strain the tincture so you just have infused vodka left and add it to your keg/bucket a bit at a time, tasting, until its the flavor you're looking for.

If you want a more indepth discussion of tinctures, Randy Mosher did a nice write up with some suggested tinctures (for beer) in his book Radical Brewing, if my memory is correct.

 

[AnnaH]

Thanks everyone! I ended up making a gingerbread spice mix that I’m going to throw in some vodka for an hour (which is what I’ve read to do for ground spices). Next time I’m going to plan this out better and soak whole spices for a couple weeks. And the teaspoon at a time suggestion is nice too, I totally would have thrown the whole thing in there

And thanks for the book suggestion! I’ll look into that. Would love to play around with flavors for beer too.

 

[dmtaylor]

Thanks everyone! I ended up making a gingerbread spice mix that I’m going to throw in some vodka for an hour (which is what I’ve read to do for ground spices). Next time I’m going to plan this out better and soak whole spices for a couple weeks. And the teaspoon at a time suggestion is nice too, I totally would have thrown the whole thing in there

And thanks for the book suggestion! I’ll look into that. Would love to play around with flavors for beer too.

If you only have time to soak this for 1 hour, I would suggest microwaving the tincture for just 10-15 seconds. The heat will help the vodka to extract more flavor.

Cheers.