Who all is making ice cider here, recipes?

[BILTIT]

Ice cider is supposed to be much sweeter and keeps more apple flavour because you concentrate the sugars/flavours before fermenting. Ice cider also is said to be best when fermented at low temps, 60 or below.

I haven't made any ice cider yet as I don't have a way to get my fermentation temps down that low.

 

[BILTIT]

Nice.
So, you do this after primary fermentation or is this the final step before racking to glass bottle?
Do you need to sterilise the plastic bottles after each freeze/thaw?

I will mention that you should take the cider all the way to secondary and allow it time to clear/sit. Thus will ensure all the yeast is done and at the bottom. After this you proceed to "jacking" the cider.

I jacked after the primary on my first batch and alot of sediment was present in the ice when jacking it. There was still some sediment after jacking was done too, some yeast taste in the final product. I rushed it, going forward I will wait much longer before jacking.

 

[MindenMan]

Has anybody thought about adding a small amount of orange zest to their preliminary ice cider before jacking? I would not want any zest in my applejack bottles during aging as it might taint the finished product. My applejack quality is getting better in many ways and I am wondering if I should invest in a budget filtering system for my hard ciders.

 

[MindenMan]

Last night I opened a 18 month old bottle aged applejack and it was smoother than I can describe using words... yes it was definitely apple, but it wasn't at the same time. This is the first bottle I have ever opened with than much aging time in the bottle; although at 1 year there is something magic about the applejack, at 18 months there is even more.

 

[BILTIT]

Interesting. I have some that has been aging for a year or so, i should try it.

I too have thought about a filtering setup, just havent justified it for the little amount i have been making lately.

 

[MarkKF]

I had a bottle or two sitting around for a couple years. I had to run it thru a coffee filter before drinking it. It just looked yucky.

 

[MindenMan]

I do not need to filter my applejack as I cold crash my cider before I siphon it into bottles headed for the freezer.
I will say one thing that sure helps is bottling the applejack as cold as possible, that way when it returns to room temperature there is slight pressure generated in the bottle helping to prevent oxidation.
Some of what started as ice cider has become more an apple dessert wine; it isn't super sweet and the acid level is spot-on; a few seconds after the first taste the salivary glands start asking for more, and more, etc. I only have five 12oz bottles left at this point so they are going to have to be special occasion drinking only. I am going to try to ice cider part of my current apple peach cider; it should be amazing with a bit more residual sweetness than it has now. My apple wine has so far been a big hit with my home brew club members, and in my experience an apple-peach flavored "anything" is a great flavor combo.

 

[misha]

There are some here that have made a version of ice cider using almost pure concentrate and had favorable results, but the yeast selection for that high of an ABV are kind of limited. I use the step method and have had good results so far; I start @1.100 and add a small amount of nutrient. While fermentation is still very active, I will continue to add more concentrate until the yeast dies from alcohol poisoning.
I am using 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast and could not be happier; the stone fruit flavors being produced are amazing.

globell: if you leave it in the freezer long enough the natural cycling of the freezer's on-and-off modes, the water will freeze and thaw and push the sugar away from it. Ir doesn't completely separate but the richest portion of the frozen juice will come out first.

I'm at the stage of fermenting my ice cider - I made it by pressing full apples previously frozen then completely thawed - I used wild yeast - by pitching some cider I had made about week before(already at second fermentation)...I'm curious is there any huge difference between thawed and frozen apples in the final juice - is there more water et cetera. The juice was very sweet, clear, viscous - nothing to compare with previously pressed same sourced apples, so its promising - would be great to reach at least 8%alcohol.