Sweet Cider Help

[erichsmith]

I've been a home brewer since 1996 and my wife hates the taste of beer. Her dad makes wine and a few years ago we planted 50 apple trees. This year we have more apples than we can deal with and my wife has discovered she likes Ciders but only the sweet ones like JK Scrumpy. I've found tons of recipes for dry ciders but none for the sweet variety. She also doesn't like honey so I'm reluctant to use that as an adjunct sweetener. We have an apple press and all the beer/wine making supplies one would ever need. I also use Sanke kegs and really don't want to pull out and sanitize 50 bottles to bottle this. So a recipe that I can force carbonate would be best but I'm not opposed to keg conditioning if it will help. I only keg conditioned once with the Corny kegs and after clogging up the tube and almost losing a batch of beer I never tried it again. Sanke Kegs have a larger tube so I'm not worried about it getting clogged and if it does I can remedy it pretty easy. So all you seasoned Cider makers help and old beer guy make his wife happy.

 

[gregbathurst]

You need Claude Jolicoeur's new book, The New Cider Maker's Handbook.
It has some good instructions on how to make sweet cider.

 

[insanim8er]

add K-meta and Campden tablets to stablize, then back sweeten with concentrate.

I would recommend making a graff cider. I personally think its way better than any straight juice cider and its drinkable in weeks. I just posted my recipe for pumpkin pie graff. It came out fantastic. Its sweet, balanced and I didn't have to back sweeten it.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

+ 1 on graff. A couple of tips to make it tasty for your wife:
If she hates beer, she probably hates hops. You might try leaving the hops out. I've never done this, so I'm not sure just how sweet tasting it would be, you might need to adjust the recipe to compensate.

Something I have tried is to increase the crystal malt to 3/4lb-1lb, and use US Goldings hops (4.3AA). The trick with the Goldings hops is that all that hoppy goodness you & I like, but your wife doesn't; will age out. I've had graff with NO hop flavour or aroma, but still got the bittering. Since the AA% with Goldings is lower than the original graff recipe calls for, you get a sweeter graff to start with, the hop flavour & aroma age out, should be tasty for beer haters right there.

For higher ABV & more apple flavour add Frozen apple juice concentrate (FAJC), thawed of course, but NOT RECONSTITUTED. The water used in steeping/mashing dilutes the apple juice, so you need to add the appley goodness back using FAJC, and you can add more than enough to just replace the juice that was diluted, giving it more apple flavour.

Adding FAJC also adds more acid, both ascorbic & malic, making the graff more tart. The added sweetness will balance this nicely. I also like to use Cara Munich instead of or often in addition to the crystal 60, crystal 80 is really tasty too. Add a pound of raisins to give it a little more body & a touch higher ABV. You can contain the raisins in a grain bag, makes it really easy to remove them later.
Hope this info helps. Regards, GF.

 

[insanim8er]

+ 1 on graff. A couple of tips to make it tasty for your wife:
If she hates beer, she probably hates hops. You might try leaving the hops out.

Just keep your ibu down to ~ 10 and do about 4 gallons apple juice to 1/1.5 gallons wort.

I made my own all grain recipe and used 1oz crystal hops. .75 @ 60 and .25 @ 15. I also mashed my grain at 158. I got more body and sweetness with out having to back sweeten. The graff is better than any cider I've had. It's not too sweet or too dry. And it was awesome tasting before it even finished clearing—2wks from pitching. I kept mind at around 5.3% ABV.

It turned out so good I'm starting another batch today because my other one won't last 'till Halloween and I want one to share at thanksgiving.

I've done cider (using champagne yeast and using ale yeast), perry and apple wines. They all eventually end up drinkable and pretty good, but this graff is a whole other level in my opinion. For my daily drinking kegging ciders, I'm only making graff cider for now on. Ill probably still do the occasional juice cider for long term aging and gifting.

 

[DisplacedSailor]

GF,

Do you have a graff recipe that you could post? Saw that you built off of Brandon O's but didn't know how far you've come with your development. Barring an outright recipe, maybe just a post outlining lessons learned?

 

[Yooper]

I love beer, but can't stand graff. I don't think someone who wants a sweet cider would like graff either, especially if it's hopped.

Sweet cider is easy. Make the cider. I like just 100% good tasting fresh cider, and wine or ale yeast. I am not a fan of fermented brown sugar at all, plus sugar will make a more "wine" taste instead of "cider", if that makes sense.

The cider will ferment, to dry. Stabilize it with sorbate and campden, then sweeten to taste and keg. Carb up (many people like a higher carb level with cider, so even 3 volumes might be good) and drink. That's about it!

 

[erichsmith]

I'd be interested in a recipe as well. How long do I ferment? I got the press welded back together. Thankfully I'm an AWS Certified welder & own a welding & machine shop.

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

Here is a recipe for a sweet cider I make in the winter. It's a 3 gallon recipe but scales up or down pretty easy. Since it sounds like you're pressing you're apples I would suggest using kmeta to kill the baddies. This usually takes about 3 weeks from start to drink. It's a Still Cider so no carbination.


Primary
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
-add to carboy
2 pounds dextrose
2 cups water
-combine water and dextrose and bring to boil until the liquid turns clear
320ml (2.5g) apple juice (no preservatives)
-Add 1 gallon apple juice to carboy and the rest after adding the sugar water

Yeast
Nottingham ale yeast

Stabilize with potassium sorbate and 1 campden tablet, wait about a week or two before adding secondary ingredients.

Secondary
3 cans apple concentrate
3 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
-combine ingredients and bring to boil

 

[gregbathurst]

I love beer, but can't stand graff. I don't think someone who wants a sweet cider would like graff either, especially if it's hopped.

Sweet cider is easy. Make the cider. I like just 100% good tasting fresh cider, and wine or ale yeast. I am not a fan of fermented brown sugar at all, plus sugar will make a more "wine" taste instead of "cider", if that makes sense.

The cider will ferment, to dry. Stabilize it with sorbate and campden, then sweeten to taste and keg. Carb up (many people like a higher carb level with cider, so even 3 volumes might be good) and drink. That's about it!

Yooper, I agree with your comments regarding sweetening, stabilising and kegging. Personally I wouldn't do that for bottling, too much chance of bottle bombs. The OP has 50 trees so eventually will have too much cider for either kegging or graff. It is possible to sweeten and bottle cider, but it takes a bit of skill. The ultimate method is keeving, then you will have bragging rights over everyone else, but you need good ripe low-nitrogen fruit. There is now a keeving chemicals supplier in the US so it is easier to try keeving. Otherwise the options are repeated racking (cold crashing), sterile filtering or pasteurising

 

[gratus fermentatio]

GF,

Do you have a graff recipe that you could post? Saw that you built off of Brandon O's but didn't know how far you've come with your development. Barring an outright recipe, maybe just a post outlining lessons learned?

I have several, but they're really just variations on Brandon O's recipe.

1.5lbs light LME
1.5lbs amber LME
3/4lb caramunich
1oz torrified wheat
4 cans (12 oz ea.) FAJC (thawed, but not reconstituted)
1oz US Goldings hops (leaf style) @4.2%AA
2 teaspoons pectic enzyme
1.5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
1.5 teaspoons yeast energizer
3 teaspoons DAP
Apple juice to 6 gal.

Steep grain in .75 gal water @ 155*F for 45 min. Sparge/rinse grain with .25 gal water.
50 min boil, 0.5oz hops added @ beginning of boil, 0.5 oz hops added @ 30 min.

I don't chill the wort, simply adding it to the juice will chill it down just fine.
Add wort to juice & then stir in the FAJC, nutrients & enzyme. Cover & Wait 12 hrs to pitch yeast, I use Nottingham. Aerate the heck out of it before yeast pitch.

After 20 days, rack onto 1.5 tablespoons of caraway seed. This is optional, but it's very tasty. I use a hop sack to contain the caraway. You'll have to sample to see how long to leave the caraway in. Start sampling @ 2 or 3 weeks & then every week or 2 after that to see if it's enough caraway flavour for your taste. when desired caraway flavour is reached, remove caraway.

Wait till it's crystal clear in the carbouy, then prime & bottle just like beer.
That was my 1st alteration of the original graff recipe. I've been playing around with different grains & adjuncts for about 3 years now; if you want I can PM you some of those recipes, there's simply too much to post in a thread.
Regards, GF.

 

[DisplacedSailor]

That was my 1st alteration of the original graff recipe. I've been playing around with different grains & adjuncts for about 3 years now; if you want I can PM you some of those recipes, there's simply too much to post in a thread.
Regards, GF.

Please. My grain order should be here on Tuesday. I ordered enough to do the stout graff and gunslinger graff recipes twice with a bit of langiappe for experiments (some honey malt and Special B).

My concern is that I have zero beer brewing experience/equipment so I'm thinking of just using my muslin bags to either steep the grains or as a filter after.

 

[insanim8er]

I love beer, but can't stand graff. I don't think someone who wants a sweet cider would like graff either, especially if it's hopped.

I respectfully disagree. I haven't made Brandon O's recipe, so I'm not sure how it is.

My all grain recipe is fantastic. I know for fact it would appeal to the non-beer drinker. As a matter of fact ill be able to test this theory on Thanksgiving.

Mine was a pumpkin graff, so I know there's a difference. If I were to do it as a normal graff, I wouldn't mash the pumpkin purée or add my tinctures.

But it was sweet with out being too sweet. It wasn't bitter at all. I kept it under 10 IBU. With out the spice, it was great. With the spices, it was fantastic. The spice added more bitterness than the 1oz of crystal hops I used. The vanilla was up front and really smoothed it out. The beauty was the apple didnt take over. You wouldn't think "oh this is a spiced apple drink."

Comments I got were very positive (and not polite positives). Comments were, "I would drink that way too fast." And "the vanilla and spices remind me of pumpkin pie with whipped cream."

My girlfriend was very happy with the results. She loves it unspiced, but when I spiced up a glass she said, "this is exactly what I was expecting when you said you were going to make this."

But ya, if the OP has a TON of apple trees, graff may not be the thing to do in large quantities; however, it shouldn't be totally overlooked.

 

[erichsmith]

I do have a lot of trees but my wife makes apple butter, jelly, and other stuff with her mom & cousin. I'm doing one 5 gal. Batch of something she will drink and hope for the best. The graff sounds good.

 

[erichsmith]

Finally after weeks of trial & error on a 100+ yr old apple press I got 5gal. Here is what we did.

Heat pasteurized the cider.
2lbs Light DME
1tbs Cinnamon
1tsp Nutmeg
1tsp All Spice
1oz Yeast nutrient
White Labs English Cider Yeast WLP-775

O.G. 1.077

There is a strange looking foam floating on top but fermentation is strong. I'll post final results back here in a few weeks after it's kegged.

 

[insanim8er]

Finally after weeks of trial & error on a 100+ yr old apple press I got 5gal. Here is what we did.

Heat pasteurized the cider.
2lbs Light DME
1tbs Cinnamon
1tsp Nutmeg
1tsp All Spice
1oz Yeast nutrient
White Labs English Cider Yeast WLP-775

O.G. 1.077

There is a strange looking foam floating on top but fermentation is strong. I'll post final results back here in a few weeks after it's kegged.

The foam is called krausen, that's good. You got a good fermentation going on.

How did you end up pasteurizing it? What temp and how long? Cooking cider isn't a good idea for a few reasons. One, cooked cider can sometimes not taste good. Also it can make it difficult to clear.

So for next time, I'd suggest not heating your cider up. Just press the juice straight into a carboy. Add crushed campden tablets into the juice and stir it. Also adds your yeast nutrients and pectin enzymes too. Then let it sit with an air lock for 24 hours. After 24 hours, pitch your yeast.

The campden tablets will pasteurize the juice killing any wild yeasts with out cooking the cider or causing the pectin to set.

 

[erichsmith]

I took it to 180f set my kettle in an ice bath, put in my Carboy & pitched the yeast at about 75f. I knew I didn't want to cook it. All I really wanted was to kill any bad stuff.

 

[erichsmith]

8 days in and it's still working but as I said earlier I don't want a high grav and I want to keep it sweet. Well I missed the mark. It's very tart and my FG is 1.015 with an OG of 1.077. I racked into a secondary to clear it up. I lost 3qts. in trub. My thought is I'll add some campden and 1lb of sugar with 3qts of water. I'm hoping this will lower the ABV and add some sweetness. Comments. Thoughts?

 

[insanim8er]

8 days in and it's still working but as I said earlier I don't want a high grav and I want to keep it sweet. Well I missed the mark. It's very tart and my FG is 1.015 with an OG of 1.077. I racked into a secondary to clear it up. I lost 3qts. in trub. My thought is I'll add some campden and 1lb of sugar with 3qts of water. I'm hoping this will lower the ABV and add some sweetness. Comments. Thoughts?

I'd use potassium sorbate to inhibit the yeast. And I'd back sweeten with apple juice. To maintain ABV, use concentrate. To lower ABV, use regular apple juice. You can even use apple juice with potassium sorbate in it.

Plus, you need to let it age a bit longer.

I would leave it in primary for three weeks. Then rack it to a keg or into a secondary for another few weeks. If after that you still feel it needs back sweetening, do the potassium sorbate and apple juice.

 

[WVMJ]

Man you beer buys put a lot of work into something that could be very simple After you press your cider, add some KM, 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp depending on how bugged up your apples are. If the old lady doesnt like beer or honey (I would suggest trading her in but then you would probably not get anymore apples) a simple cider is easy to make. Dont add anything at the start but yeast and some nutrients, let it ferment dry and clear, stabalize with KM and sorbate, backsweeten with a little sugar or even splenda, keg it or bottle it. Cant get much simpler. You guys are probably using a mix of dessert and cooking style apples or did you plant some cider style apples in there to? If the acid from the fresh picked apples is to high you can sweat your apples, let them set in some cool place for a week or more, the sugar will increase and the acid will drop and it will taste even better. And a lot less work. A welder let loose in a ciderworks, you can make all kinds of cool stuff. How are you guys crushing your apples before you press them? WVMJ

 

[Yooper]

8 days in and it's still working but as I said earlier I don't want a high grav and I want to keep it sweet. Well I missed the mark. It's very tart and my FG is 1.015 with an OG of 1.077. I racked into a secondary to clear it up. I lost 3qts. in trub. My thought is I'll add some campden and 1lb of sugar with 3qts of water. I'm hoping this will lower the ABV and add some sweetness. Comments. Thoughts?

Adding campden won't do anything, and adding more sugar will increase the alcohol (but not the sweetness) as it will ferment out.

A FG of 1.015 is pretty sweet, at least to me, but if you want more sweetness you could try chilling the cider to drop out much of the yeast, and then racking it onto sorbate and then sweetening it. You can add apple juice concentrate to sweeten if you want the apple flavor in the sweetener. If you're keeping it at fridge temps from kegging on, you could skip the sorbate but if the keg gets warm again, fermentation will restart.

 

[erichsmith]

If the old lady doesnt like beer or honey (I would suggest trading her in but then you would probably not get anymore apples).... A welder let loose in a ciderworks, you can make all kinds of cool stuff. How are you guys crushing your apples before you press them? WVMJ

She knows how to brew beer and puts up with my sh#t. Plus her dad owns the farm and has the apples. Not only am I a welder but I also have a mill and lathe. You should see my 1.5bbl stainless system I'm putting together.

I think using the apple juice concentrate with Potassium Sorbate is the route I'm going. It'll be Friday before I can touch it so it will have a higher ABV & be even less sweet but I've also got a Winter Warmer in my lager fridge that's ready for secondary and a temp change. I'll post with the final outcome.