Any hops that go well with Apfelwein?

[Gluten]

Or is this a big no no?

 

[wildwest450]

Since there's no boiling, you could dry hop, but who wants a dry hopped wine?

 

[ArcaneXor]

It might be fun to play with in small batches. I would suggest using an ale yeast to produce more residual fruit flavor, and dry hopping with a fruity or citrusy hop to accentuate the fruit character of the wine.

Nectar of the Hops, a delicious Redstone mead, is dry hopped, although I don't know what hop they use (or how much), and the flavor and texture of a mead is quite different from Apfelwein.

I like the idea - I think I'll be making a 1-gallon pilot batch of this soon using some leftover Cascade hops I have stashed in the freezer.

I am thinking the following:

1 gallon of pasteurized White House Apple juice from concentrate, no additives
1 oz of dark brown sugar, dissolved in 1 cup of boiling water along with 1/2 tsp of Wyeast nutrient
16 oz orange blossom honey
My custom blend of Koelsch and Cali Ale Yeast
3 drops of Defoamer 105
0.2 oz Cascade pellets (dry hop after 3-4 weeks of fermentation).

I'll make this in about three weeks (the next time I bottle and make a new batch of regular A-wein - I'll just steal some of the existing yeast cake to make this hopped batch with). Compared to my regular recipe, this one cuts down the brown sugar but WAY ups the honey, to give it a more mead-like taste and complexity to blend and complex with the hops.

 

[BubbaK]

Would a dry ale yeast work with this to give it a more fruity taste? I have an extra pack of Nottingham that came with an ale kit..

 

[Vic_Sinclair]

Would a dry ale yeast work with this to give it a more fruity taste? I have an extra pack of Nottingham that came with an ale kit..

I'm currently making a batch of Apfelwein with Nottingham in an attempt to avoid the extreme dryness the wine yeast gives you. Luckily, one of our members has experimented with these variations at great length, check it out:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/results-juice-yeast-sugar-experiments-83060/

 

[tagz]

I'm currently making a batch of Apfelwein with Nottingham in an attempt to avoid the extreme dryness the wine yeast gives you. Luckily, one of our members has experimented with these variations at great length, check it out:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/results-juice-yeast-sugar-experiments-83060/

That thread is bad ass.

 

[BubbaK]

Thats an excellent post... most of the questions I've got have been answered in there..

 

[BubbaK]

I want to try a gallon sample batch... how do I figure out how much Nottingham yeast to put in? It still needs to be hydrated to pitch? I've never seen any comments about putting fresh slices of apple in the mix.. is that a no no? Wouldn't that be adding to the sugars?

 

[david_42]

Brewer's Gold - Black currant, fruity, spicy
Challenger, Cluster, etc

Any spicy or fruity hop would work. I'd stay away from citrus hops completely.

BubbaK - you have to squeeze the juice out of apples, slicing them doesn't work.
Once a packet of dried yeast is opened, you have a week or two to use it, so just use the whole packet.

 

[BubbaK]

Thanks David... So you can't over yeast something? Will it ferment faster and shorter time, or still the same amount of time?

 

[david_42]

It will ferment faster, but apple juice rarely gives you a blowout, no foam-forming proteins.

You can over-yeast, but it takes a heap of yeast.