Making cider taste like apples

[nwbrewer18]

So I have been brewing cider off and on for over a year now and I like to brew my ciders very dry. I don't leave any sugar behind, usually because i'm lazy or to busy to stop fermentation before. But is there a good way to back flavor it so it tags more like AO or another commercial cider? I read that people make 3 or 4 gallons then stabilize and add more juice... Anyone try that? Does it work?

 

[JonM]

Stabilize it and add apple juice concentrate to backsweeten. You can get it either from the store or, if you want to use concentrate from special farm-type cider, you can extract concentrate by freezing it.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Agreed with above, the only issue is you say you usually leave it pretty dry.

You'll need to go to bone dry, 1.000 or as close as possible. Use nutrients and wait till it's clear.

Add concentrate/juice. Juice will do the same thing, but will dilute it more and add less flavor than concentrate. This also acts as your priming sugar. You will need to pasteurize the bottles in order to prevent explosions.

 

[nwbrewer18]

Yeah I get it to about 1.000 anyway, because I'm lazy lol. If I stabilize using campden and its counterpart, would I still need to pasturize? I am under the impression that those additives generally stop fermentation from starting again.

 

[feffer]

Agreed with above, the only issue is you say you usually leave it pretty dry.

You'll need to go to bone dry, 1.000 or as close as possible. Use nutrients and wait till it's clear.

Add concentrate/juice. Juice will do the same thing, but will dilute it more and add less flavor than concentrate. This also acts as your priming sugar. You will need to pasteurize the bottles in order to prevent explosions.

Agree that sweetening with frozen concentrate is best. But first, stabilize the dry cider with k-sorbate, and probably some k-meta to prevent re-fermentation. You will end up with uncarbonated cider which you could either serve that way, or if you wanted to carb, do it in a keg with CO2. I don't know how you could use frozen apple concentrate to both sweeten and carbonate though; that would seem tricky.

 

[01TRV]

Agree that sweetening with frozen concentrate is best. But first, stabilize the dry cider with k-sorbate, and probably some k-meta to prevent re-fermentation. You will end up with uncarbonated cider which you could either serve that way, or if you wanted to carb, do it in a keg with CO2. I don't know how you could use frozen apple concentrate to both sweeten and carbonate though; that would seem tricky.

Not tricky at all. Back sweeten to taste and then bottle it up. You just have to use a plastic soda bottle as an observation sample. When the soda bottle starts to firm up with a bit of pressure like a soda has, it's time to open a bottle or two to check the carb level. If you like it, pasteurize or cold crash until you can.

 

[cider1]

I am new to all this cold crashing?

 

[01TRV]

I am new to all this cold crashing?

Cold crashing just means throwing it in the fridge. In this case, it can be used to suspend the yeast from carbing past the point you want. Using the method I mentioned, you have to use some method to stop the yeast after you back sweeten. If not the bottles will eventually explode. Last year I think it took a week or so until I had good carbonation. Then just threw them in the garage fridge and they went static. If you were to take them back out and not pasteurize the pressure will start to build again because the yeast will wake back up. There should be some reading on the topic in the stickies IIRC

 

[MindenMan]

The real question is, do you want still or sparkling cider? That will decide how you prime or back sweeten it.

 

[nwbrewer18]

I prefer still ciders. So would using a flavor extract be better? My LHBS sells some that are naturally derived and I think they are non-fermentable, but don't quote me on that. Any experience on going the extract route?

 

[ArcaneXor]

I usually add a small amount of Brewcraft apple flavoring, a little bit of liquid tannin, and backsweeten with apple juice to taste.

 

[Josh990311]

Im glad I found this post! Im brewing some cider now, I'd like to back sweeten before bottling but do not want it carbed. How should I go about this. My recipe does call for a stabilizer before bottling but I cant remember right now what it is. Maybe potassium sorbate. Im also bottling in wine bottles. Im going for more of an apple pie wine. Thanks!!

 

[Maylar]

Wine conditioner. Sweetener with potassium sorbate.

 

[cernst151]

If you want still (non-carbonated) cider then this is easy. When it's done fermenting you pasteurize with sorbate or something similar to kill your yeast then backsweeten with concentrate or juice then bottle. Since the yeast are dead you won't get any more fermentation in the bottle. You can do the same thing if you want to keg carbonate.

If you want to bottle carbonate it's a bit trickier. You can chill it when it's sufficiently carbonated if you have space in your fridge or you can heat pasteurize it. I've never tried that but I've seen instructions for doing it in a water bath on the stove or even doing it in the dishwasher.

Fundamentally though the best way to get apple tasting cider is to start with really good cider. I've done hard ciders from an assortment of off the shelf ciders and most of them were fine but had very little flavor in the end. The hard cider we made from apples we pressed ourselves had a very good apple flavor even after fermenting down to near 1.000.

If you can't press yourself then find a local orchard that sells freshly pressed juice and use that. Just make sure it's not chemically pasteurized. You'll probably want to heat pasteurize if you press it yourself, just make sure you don't boil it. You may find no backsweetening is necessary. Even if you do you'll get a much better hard cider.

 

[bernardsmith]

If you can't press yourself then find a local orchard that sells freshly pressed juice and use that. Just make sure it's not chemically pasteurized. You'll probably want to heat pasteurize if you press it yourself, just make sure you don't boil it. You may find no backsweetening is necessary. Even if you do you'll get a much better hard cider.

I suspect that one of the reasons for a loss of flavor is heat pasteurizing the juice or the cider. I may be wrong (I don't think so, but I am always willing to learn) but there seems to me to be no very good reason to heat treat apple juice. Heating volatile flavor molecules is certainly one way to destroy them if not vaporize them and boil them off.
If you buy freshly pressed juice look for a source that uses UV pasteurization to kill any e-coli and the like (from fallen apples). And if you pick your own apples and crush them then you will (surely) apply K-meta to them before you pitch the yeast. After fermentation there is no reason to apply heat: aging the cider and appropriate racking onto K-meta every couple of months or so will ensure that when you bottle there are no viable yeasts left and no sugars for the stragglers to munch on. If you want to backsweeten you can either stabilize and add fermentable sugar or add non fermentable sweetener with no stabilization.
If you want to carbonate your cider AND backsweeten it then you can add non fermentables to sweeten and fermentable sugars to prime. You might want to innoculate your cider with some additional yeast if you have aged the cider a long while.
Just because you can pasteurize cider does not mean that pasteurization is good for the cider.

 

[cernst151]

I suspect that one of the reasons for a loss of flavor is heat pasteurizing the juice or the cider. I may be wrong (I don't think so, but I am always willing to learn) but there seems to me to be no very good reason to heat treat apple juice. Heating volatile flavor molecules is certainly one way to destroy them if not vaporize them and boil them off.

When we pressed our own juice we were using a lot of apples off the ground from a lot of different yards so we definitely wanted to pasteurize it. We didn't want to use chemicals for risk of killing the yeast and besides, I try to avoid adding extraneous chemicals whenever possible. The stuff we pressed and heat pasteurized was by far the best cider I'd ever tasted and also the best hard cider I've ever tasted. The key is to use a low temp. I think we brought it to 130 degrees F and held it there for 30 minutes but it's been a few years so my numbers might be off. At that low temp it doesn't negatively impact the flavor or clarity but given enough time it kills all the bugs.