Apple Ale Clone

[AdamBomb]

First of i suppose I should introduce myself. I am from Kentucky and have been making wine since early 2004. Even though I have been in the game for quite some time I have never made beer or anything carbonated (at least not on purpose).

Now to set the scene. My dear wife has been on a Redds Wicked Apple Ale kick for the last few months. After much trepidation I tried it and although I didn't care for it I thought it would be a fun project to try and create something similar.

The plan I have come up with doesn't sound to me like the best solution but thats why Im here. I don't have any way of carbonating without doing it in the bottle. I need to reach a finished SG of 1.030 after carbonation. Heres what I intend to do:

-Make apple wine 1.065 starting gravity to get desired ABV
-Add priming sugar and let condition in 1 gal glass jug
-Stabilize and add apple flavoring and sweeten till 1.030 or till she stops complaining. LOL

There has to be a better way to do this. I am concerned Im going to lose to much carbonation by screwing with it after its carbonated.

What are yalls ideas?

 

[EVILsteve]

Im not familiar witht Redds wicked apple but theres lot of cider threads on here especially related to deviations of ed worts apfelwien and strong bow that could probably set your on you way.

From reading your post I get the impression your thinking about using 1 gallon shiner jugs for carbonation. DO NOT DO THAT. You need a bottle designed to hold pressure, these will not work.

Your also not going to be able to back sweeten adding sulphites to stop fermentation like you would in wine making or you will not be able to carbonate traditionally in the bottle by priming. Using a wine yeast it will ferment dry making any back sweetening essentially the same thing as over priming and even beer bottles will explode.

You can experiment with different ale yeast that will leave the desired residual sweetness and ABV your looking for then prime to bottle carbonate. You could also backsweeten with non fermentable sweeteners then prime and bottle like normal. kegging and force carbing would be the only other way to carbonate and use fermentable sugars without making a bottle bomb.

 

[madscientist451]

If you want to clone Redd's wicked apple, making an apple wine isn't going to work.
Redd's isn't cider or wine, its Ale with apple flavor added.
Redd's wicked is 8% ABV, its produced by Miller, so do some tests by adding apple flavoring to Miller beer products. I'd start by trying Miller's Malt Liquor and using frozen apple concentrate, but their Steel Reserve high gravity is 8% just like Redd's wicked, so they may be using that as a base. Once you figure out the flavor profile, you can try to clone it. You can find a recipe for almost all commercial beers.

 

[Weezy]

it will be hard to do without getting your hands in the exact apple extract flavoring they use.

 

[markklug]

Definitely needs to be malt based.......essentially a Graff

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/

 

[AdamBomb]

From reading your post I get the impression your thinking about using 1 gallon shiner jugs for carbonation. DO NOT DO THAT. You need a bottle designed to hold pressure, these will not work.

Thank you Steve, that is exactly what I was fixin to do.

Thank you everybody for your replies! If back sweetening is out of the question what ale yeast will cease fermentation leaving 1.030.

What are these non fermentable sweeteners you speak of? Like Splenda?

I might have to try that Graff.

 

[Maxkling]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

 

[EVILsteve]

Spenda is non fermentable and would work well.

Most ale yeast will finish around 1.015 with about 5%. It wouldn't take much Splenda to sweeten to taste from there. I'm fairly certain you can't use the hydrometer to measure to a certain FG with splenda, it's all to taste. You may find that sweet enough without.

the only other option I can think of would be to select a yeast with your abv close to the upper rated for the yeast. Then you could add enough fermentables so it will fall dormant at around your target and leave enough sweetness. You'd Probably need something around 8% to make that work. It will still prime the same the fresh shot of simple sugars will wake up the yeast but it could take longer because the alcohol level will slow up the process.

Those two ideas have both worked previous brews of mine. The trial and error will be the flavors the ale yeast imparts on a cider.

1oz / gallon is all you need for priming to bottle carb.