Hard Spiced Apple Cider Recipe

[dessertmaker]

Okay so I'm attempting to mix our family's apple cider recipe with an apple wine recipe and speed up the fermenting process to have it aging in the bottles by Christmas.

I've done some serious reading and I think I have this mapped out pretty well but I'd like to hear from anybody who has done this before.

I've never made apple wine and I've never made this large of a batch of apple cider before.

I have made wine before but only (dessert) white wines. (Wife's favorite. I'm a rum drinker myself, I just make wine cause it's cheaper than my wife's $25 a bottle hard to find semi sweet italian moscato. And because she makes me feel like superman every time she drinks a glass she likes.) Any advice is welcome.

I'm using an apple juice concentrate combined with an apple grape mash to add flavor and body.

I intend to add all of my spices at the same time I stop fermentation to avoid off flavors from the yeast digesting the spice.

10 cans Seneca apple juice concentrate
2 lbs washington apples
1 lb white grapes
1lb brown sugar
Pectic Enzyme
Red Star Cotes De Blancs Yeast
Potassium Metabisulfite

Spice mix: (Added when backsweetening to keep fermentation from altering spice flavors)
20 cinnamon sticks
5 ounces whole cloves (app. 60)
5 ounces all spice (10 tablespoons)
1lb brown sugar

Add 10 cans of apple juice concentrate to 2.5 gallons of ice water and mix vigorously.

Refrigerate overnight.

Remove stem and core from apples and mash them up. Mash the grapes up as well. Add mash to 1 gallon boiling water, slowly stir in 1lb brown sugar, cover and allow to cool to room temperature (72 degrees)
Add bentonite to 1 gallon of hot water and mix vigorously.
Add to primary fermenter
Add mash to fermenter.
Add apple juice to fermenter.
Add 4 tablespoons Pectic Enzyme
Mix vigorously.

Check SG. Should be at or over 1.09
If it is not, sweeten with 2:1 (sugarater) brown sugar syrup until it reaches 1.09 or above. If mixture is below 5 gallons, top to 5 gallons with any apple juice.
Mix aggressively
Cover and allow mixture to reach room temperature
Mix aggressively again. Allow to settle.

Insure mixture is at or cooler than 72 degrees Fahrenheit and then add yeast
After 1 week or when fermentation slows check SG and rack into secondary fermenter.

After 10 days add spices and Potassium Metabisulfite

Adding spices:
Bring 1/2 gallon water to boil
Add all ingredients but sugar and simmer for 1 hour.
After 1 hour slowly stir in sugar until dissolved
Simmer for 10 minutes
Allow to cool until lukewarm
Rack from pot into carboy (to keep excess cinnamon sediment and whole cloves out of the carboy).
Add 0.8 grams (3 quarter-teaspoons 1 sixteenth-teaspoon Potassium Metabisulfite) and Degas.
Top off with apple juice until 3 inches from bottom of bung.

Allow to sit for 2 weeks. If wine does not clear add chitosan or isinglass clarifier mix vigorously and degas wine again.
Allow to clear.

Check sweetness, if cider is bitter back sweeten with (2:1 sugarater) brown sugar syrup and add 0.25 grams (1 quarter-teaspoon) potassium metabisulfite If backsweetening, let sit for 2 more weeks before bottling.

Otherwise:
Bottle.

So: Any advice? Thoughts?

Also, what SG should I shoot for if I want to drop alcohol content down to something more like 7-9%? I think 1.09 ferments dry to 12%

 

[Kramnuko]

Following, it sounds great!

 

[dessertmaker]

Looks like I'm gonna have to try it the first time as a microbrew. My whites are gonna take another month till they're ready to bottle and if I want to be popping a cork on this stuff Christmas morning I can't wait that long.

Just bought a .75 gallon glass jug of cider from whole foods.

At least my primary fermenter is unoccupied at the moment.

Now to scale all these numbers down to .15

Lovely. :-(

 

[Poormanfarm]

You had better be careful with 60 whole cloves in 2.5 gallons. You better ask this question to some other folks. Most people only add about 5 cloves per gallon.

 

[Deezil]

Yeah i'd say its way overboard on the spices - you'll be asking yourself "what apple?"

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

I woud cut back on all the spices, you can always add more but if you overpower it theres not much you can do to get it out.

 

[dessertmaker]

The recipe is 5 gallons total. 1 gallon of water is added with the bentonite, 1 gallon of water is added with the mash 2.5 with the apple juice concentrate and finally half a gallon with the spice mix.

 

[steinsato]

following, I'm going to press 5 gallons of apples this weekend and want to make a good spiced cider. I've made a few applewines in the past but I want something with a little more complexity and body to it this time around.