Apple Cider

Well over the weekend we made the trek to Trax Farms for pumpkins and Cider. I picked up 13 gallons of cider and will be making a 12 gallon batch. I will be using Keller's Spiced apple recipe although going lighter on the cloves. My initial sg was 1.044 I kmeta'd Sunday after we arrived home, added pectic enzyme and sugar to 1.084 on Sunday. Yeast was pitched Monday morning with nutrient prior to heading out to press Muscadine grapes. Little yeasties are very happy now. I ended up using 1116 and 1122 for yeast as that was all I had (poor planning on my part for not having a supply). We are getting very strong apple and spice odors as of yeasterday afternoon from the fermentation.

Doug I am not sure if I posted the recipe I got from Rod or not. When I made it I converted to make six gallons.

Apple Wine From Juice

This recipe makes 1 US gallon. All ingredients, with the exception of yeast, may be multiplied for larger volumes. 1 packet of yeast is sufficient for up to 6 US gallons.

Ingredients:

1 gal apple cider
2 cups sugar, enough for an 1.085 sg
2 tsp malic acid (may substitute tartaric acid or acid blend)
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1/2 tsp grape tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp bentonite
1 cup dried cranberries (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1 campden tablet, crushed
1 pkt yeast (Lalvin ICV-D47 or Red Star Côtes des Blancs recommended)
Super Kleer KC (optional)

Method:

Add 1/2 cup hot water and bentonite to blender. Blend on high speed for 2 minutes to make a slurry. Leave covered and set aside until needed.

If using dried fruits, put into a bowl and pour just enough boiling water over to cover. Let sit for 30 minutes to allow fruit to rehydrate. After 30 minutes, put fruit and liquid into a blender or food processor. Pulse several times to chop up fruit. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl combine 1 cup warm water, 2 cups sugar, acid, pectic enzyme, tannin, yeast nutrient, and crushed campden. Mix well. In fermenting bucket, combine the apple juice and sugar mixture. Add bentonite slurry. Stir vigorously for two minutes.

Add chopped fruit mixture to bucket. You can also put the fruit into a small muslin straining bag or clean nylon stocking if desired.

Cover primary and allow to sit overnight. The following morning, uncover mixture and give one final stir. Rehydrate yeast according to package directions and pour into juice. Do not stir.

Cover primary loosely with lid or plastic tarp. Once fermentation begins, stir daily. If possible, try to ferment on the cool side; 60-65° F is ideal. After 5-7 days, rack into a carboy, leaving most of the sediment and fruit pieces behind. Do not worry about topping up completely at this stage. Add rubber bung and airlock, and allow fermentation to complete.

Once the SG reaches .996 or less, fermentation is finished. Rack off of the sediment and top up the receiving container (any cheap commercial white wine will work fine for this purpose). Allow wine to finish clearing. If it takes longer than 30 days to clear, Super Kleer KC can be used to accelerate the process. Follow the package directions. It will generally work in 7-10 days.

When wine has finished clearing, rack into a clean container, top up, and add 1 crushed campden tablet. Filtering is recommended if you have the equipment available. At this stage you can also sorbate and sweeten if desired. Sweetening is a matter of personal taste. I prefer apple wine with residual sugar around 3%, but feel free to adjust it to your liking.

Good Deal Dan,

Here's the recipe we used modified to what we used.
• 6 Gallons Apple Cider Juice
• 2-1/2 lb. chopped raisins
• Sugar to 1.085 sg
• 3 oz. cloves
• 6 5-inch cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
• 7 oz. shredded ginger root
• Acid blend to .60-.70%
• 3 tsp. pectin enzyme
• 1/4 tsp potassium meta-bisulfite
• Lavin 1122

Put juice in primary fermentation vessel with all ingredients except yeast and nutrient, cover, and set in warm place for 24 hours. Add yeast and nutrient, stir, and cover for four days, stirring twice daily. Strain liquor into secondary fermentation vessel and fit airlock. Rack after 30 days and again after two months. When clear, rack again and bottle. Taste after six months, but allow one year for maturity.

ffemt128 said:

We are getting very strong apple and spice odors as of yeasterday afternoon from the fermentation.

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Is this suppose to be some kind of subliminal message?

djrockinsteve said:

Is this suppose to be some kind of subliminal message?

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Honest, the paranormal creature hiding in my keyboard made me do it....

Checked the SG, we're sitting at 1.050 now. Fermenting nice and slow as I want it to. Good activity visible and audible from the yeasties when you take the lid off to stir. Smells wonderful.

Mine is stabilized now and I through in a few Cinnamon sticks. Might back sweeten next week.

Runningwolf said:

Mine is stabilized now and I through in a few Cinnamon sticks. Might back sweeten next week.

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Sounds good. I figure at this rate I'll transfer into carboys next weekend. You really should try the ginger root in your next batch. I can tell a difference between the 1st and 2nd batches we did. This will be really tasty next fall.

I just picked up enough for a 3 gallon batch. I'm also looking for a recommendation on a recipe. These two are very different. Can anyone comment on the end result? I'm looking for a rave review from someone on an Apple Cider recipe. Looking at the two of them I would probably lean towards Dan's recipe but then I admit I know nothing about this.

Quick comment...

the recipes above are apple Wine.. not cider.

if you are wanting to make cider..

cider is made from apple juice and cider yeast and fermented out on the natural sweetness of the applejuice.. the finished abv will be between 4-8% on average.

Allie

I just got 10 gallons at the local orchard. I think I might make 6 gallons of a spiced cider wine and 4 gallons of cyser. I saw cyser in the recipe section and decided if I'm going to venture into mead that is the one. Has anyone tried it before so I know what to expect?

WinoOutWest said:

I just picked up enough for a 3 gallon batch. I'm also looking for a recommendation on a recipe. These two are very different. Can anyone comment on the end result? I'm looking for a rave review from someone on an Apple Cider recipe. Looking at the two of them I would probably lean towards Dan's recipe but then I admit I know nothing about this.

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I would go to Jack Kellers recipe for a spiced apple wine and go from there. Thatr was the basis for my first batch. After it was complete I bought a gallon of Lucky Leaf apple juice and simmer to just over a quart and used that as a F-pac for the apple wine. It was divine.

Recipe I'm referring to is here;

Jack Keller said:

APPLE WINE (5) [Spiced]
12 lb. mixed Fuji and Gala apples
1 lb. chopped golden raisins
2-1/2 lb granulated sugar
1 gallon water
1 oz. cloves
2 3-inch cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
1 oz. shredded ginger root
1 tsp. acid blend
1/2 tsp. pectin enzyme
1 crushed Campden tablet
Sauterne or Champagne wine yeast and nutrient
Quarter the apples and run them through a mincer. Put in primary fermentation vessel with all ingredients except yeast and nutrient, cover, and set in warm place for 24 hours. Add yeast and nutrient, stir, and cover for four days, stirring twice daily. Strain liquor into secondary fermentation vessel and fit airlock. Rack after 30 days and again after two months. When clear, rack again and bottle. Taste after six months, but allow one year for maturity. [Author's own recipe]

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http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp

I transferred from the primary when sg was down to around 1.01. Racked to new carboys today as fermentation has slowed to almost no visible activity and there was a pretty heavy layer of lees. Sg was .994 in the 5 gallon carboy and .990 in the 6 gallon carboy. Both have been racked, I have a full 11 gallons now. Next racking will go into 2 - 5 gallon carboys but that won't be until the end of November.

St Allie said:

Quick comment...

the recipes above are apple Wine.. not cider.

if you are wanting to make cider..

cider is made from apple juice and cider yeast and fermented out on the natural sweetness of the applejuice.. the finished abv will be between 4-8% on average.

Allie

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Allie,

I realize that. We purchased fresh apple cider (no alcohol) from an orchard and are making wine from the cider.

ffemt128 said:

Allie,

I realize that. We purchased fresh apple cider (no alcohol) from an orchard and are making wine from the cider.

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Aah, it's a terminology mix up Doug.. in NZ it's apple juice and apple cider.. apple cider is the one with alcohol in it..

Allie, we got apple juice, apple cider, hard apple cider, apple wine, and apple jack.
LOL! Only 2 outta 5 are kiddie proof. That's kinda sad (for the kids).

Well this is just about 3 months old. It has been transferred from primary to carboy and racked 2 additional times since then. Last racking I stabilizes as it was at .992 and I added kmeta. That was about a month ago. I went to costco last night and bought 2 gallons of Kirkland Apple juice ($7.49 for 2) for an f-pac. Kirkland is 100% juice not from concentrate although it is pasteurized. Ingredients list nothing but Apple Juice. I'm in the process now of simmering down my first gallon and will be racking to a primary, backsweetening then racking back into a carboy.

I'm not planning on bottleing this until May or June unless I need the carboys sooner.

Boiled each gallon of juice down to 1/2 gallon. Need more of an fpac to get the flavor we are use to. Normally only made a 3 gallon batch not a 12 gallon batch.

ffemt128 said:

Boiled each gallon of juice down to 1/2 gallon. Need more of an fpac to get the flavor we are use to. Normally only made a 3 gallon batch not a 12 gallon batch.

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As stated above, I felt this needed a little more f-pac to suit our tastes. Rather than get more gallons of juice and simmer dow to make an f-pac, I bought 4 cans of Old Orchard frozen concentrate (12 oz cans). Since I had a partial gallon I experimented with that to determine how much concentrate to add. The gallon jug took about 3-4 oz. I added 20 oz to the 6 gallon carboy and 18 to the 5 gallon carboy. Simmering juice to get the same flavor would likely hvae required more juice which would have diluted the alcohol in the wine too much. I think it has really good flavor nowand I now have a full 12 gallons and a 750 ml bottle which will be used for sampling ..


When making this in the future I may take this approach from the start when it comes time to add the fpac.

Added about 300 ml of my cranberry wine to 6 gallons of the apple. Wine is crystal clear and tastes awesome. I will probably cold stabilize (not sure why), rack add some Gum Arabic and bottle before March.