Quick Cider

So I had 3 gallons of Musselman's Cider lefter over from an order in February. I've been meaning to do another batch of cider but I needed 3 more gallons. The only cider I was able to source locally had potassium sorbate this time of year so I've been putting it off. Finally I decided to use apple juice from concentrate. I figured I could ferment the juice and two gallons of cider then back sweeten with one of the ciders and everything would be okay and I wasn't wrong.

Since the cider had already been around for months most the fruit pectin had settled out. With the large portion of cider coming from crystal clear juice at the rest coming from cider already aged in container I was able to skip a couple steps and fast-forward this cider. Basically I took a hydrometer reading after mixing the 3 gallons of juice and two gallons of cider and ended up with the expected 1.050. Then I added some yeast nutrient and US-05 Cal-Ale yeast then left it to ferment.

4 days later I checked and we had reached terminal gravity 0.999, not too shabby for a yeast meant to ferment wort and not must.

I tasted the cider at this time and it was quite drinkable the way it sat. I've always back-sweetened my hard cider to get some apple taste and some body into the final product but this version wasn't as bone dry as I get when using the English Cider Yeast and I think I would have happy drinking it as it was.

 I left it for another 3 days then started extracting my cider concentrate.

The first time I made this cider I over sweetened it by added 1 gallon's worth of cider concentrate and an entire bottle of wine conditioner. It was drinkable but too sweet. This time around I ended up with the same cider concentrate but only 1/3 bottle of wine conditioner with a much better result in my opinion.

Tasting Notes

Appearance - Hazy but not cloudy. I think this will clear up with some cold crashing in the keg. Nice orange cider color.

Aroma - Smells like apple cider, duh!!

Mouthfeel - Light-Medium Light body and mouth feel. Crisp finish.

Taste - Pretty damn good for being 50% apple juice from concentrate. I think mixing with the cider avoided any noticable strange flavors. I did think it was a bit astringent at first but I haven't been able to pick that up again. This is a very nice cider. If it saved me any money I would always make them this way but the juice actually cost me more than buying the cider in bulk.

Future Changes - None, I think I've worked out the back-sweetening and my wife likes it which is all that really matters.

Cheers!

Hard Cider Making Process

Cider 2.0 - My assumptions were wrong

So I have to take back at least part of my assumption that this cider wasn't going to clear. It did settle out quite a bit from what it was and even though I forgot to add the pectic enzyme before fermentation it's pretty damn clear from where it was. The last cider aged for two months, this one aged for 1 and it may have continued to clear out if I let it go another month.

I've given my back sweetening regimen in a couple other posts but I'll reiterate here. 2.5tsp potassium sorbate,1 500ml bottle of wine conditioner and 1 gallon cider frozen and the concentrate dripped out. 

Here are some pictures of the sophisticated concentrate extract process.

This is how the cider looked after fermentation but before the pectic enzyme and a month of clarifying.

Here are a couple of photos after the clarification aging.

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So after assuming this cider wouldn't turn out because it didn't clear immediately and because the initial taste test after fermentation was lacking, I have to admit that with back sweetening it's just as good as my last cider. I used the same recipe and it tastes pretty much the same. It's a little darker in color and nowhere near as transparent but those are visual competition issues not worth evaluating for a house cider. The "dryness" still isn't as clean as I expected but after sweetening its no longer distracting.

All in all I'm pretty happy with this cider. Now that I've made a cider from commercial concentrate and a fresh local cider mill I don't see what all the hype is about over fresh cider. I actually like the results better from the commercial cider for both dry and back-sweetened versions. The commercial version was also $1 cheaper per gallon than the local fresh cider. While I 'm willing to pay the extra to support a local business I won't do it if the results are sub-par as they were in this case. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be a cider snob just because you've read some posts about how superior fresh milled cider is, my experience hasn't proven that to be true

Enjoy some more photos from the process.

Here are the individual parts.

Clarity Pics

The sediment

Hard Cider 2.0 - Upgrades aren't always better

It's that time of year again where cider has inundated the market place. The last time I made hard cider was my first attempt. I used an organic commercial cider and it turned out pretty fantastic. It's shown below on the left. This time i decided to use a local cider mill for my source cider because it's supposed to make the best hard cider.

I got into a bit of a hurry with this cider because I was in the middle of building a new brew room and it was taking up all my time. This caused me to forget the pectic enzyme before fermenting the cider. You can add the enzyme after fermentation but alcohol will inhibit it from clearing as well as it does before fermentation. This was a mistake because the fresh local cider it pasteurized using ultraviolet light only and doesn't go through any other process than press, pasteurize and package. As you can see from the image on the right it's a very cloudy cider and much darker than the Musselmans was.

I tasted this years cider after fermentation and if my memory is serving me it's not as good directly after fermentation as the Musselmans was. I remember the Musselmans having a very clean champagne dryness to it and thinking I could drink it just like this. The local cider wasn't nearly as good. It has a more muddled flat taste. Not as clean tasting and I wouldn't drink it the way it is.

There could be a couple reasons for this. It might have something to do with the missed pectic enzyme and clearing of the cider, but I doubt it. It's more likely the source cider (type of apples, lack of filtering) or the fact that I added 2lbs of brown sugar to increase the alcohol in this batch. I would expect the sugar addition to dry the cider out more but not muddle it up. At this point it's a mystery.

I'm not going to give up on this cider because I planned on back-sweetening it anyway. This will go a long way to improving it and I don't care much about clarity anyway. I'm not planning to enter it in any competitions and looks are the last thing I worry about.

At this point the ciders been clearing for about 3 weeks and pretty much looks the same as it did in these pictures. The pectic enzyme didn't do it's job which is probably because this ended up being a 7.5% ABV cider instead of a 5% cider. The brown sugar brought the gravity up 1.058-1.059 and it finished at 1.0001 ( a little high for cider).

I'll post an update after I back-sweeten, package and taste.

Hard Cider Update 2 - Tasting

Since I failed to report this before I'm just writing a quick update about my first cider attempt. As luck would have it the cider turned out great. It was a little sweet and sparkling (carbonated) and a very refreshing drink.

I ended up using an entire bottle of wine conditioner in a 5 gallon batch and concentrate from 1 gallon of frozen cider. This turned out to be the perfect amount for my taste. My friends and neighbors all enjoyed it as well.

Hard cider has to be the easiest adult beverage I've made to date. If your using pasteurized cider I wouldn't even bother to let it sit as long as I did (2 months) before back sweetening and bottling. Mine was pretty clear after just a couple weeks so I think when using the store bought stuff I'll just back-sweeten and keg after fermentation. Unpasteurized may be a different story, I'll have to let you know.

Cider Making Update

This past weekend I had a few brewing related projects to make progress on. I had to do a taste testing on my split batch US-04 and US-05 yeast experiment. I also needed to keg a batch of Rye IPA and lastly move my fermented cider to a secondary to clarify.

I followed the steps I outline in the post "The Hard Cider Making Process, As I Understand it" to ferment the cider. My O.G. was 1.050 and had been fermenting for 10 days. It was done in about 6 days but I usually wait for a weekend when I have lots of time to deal with anything that might come up. Checking the F.G. as I moved the cider to the secondary I had a reading of .999 which is what I was looking for.

The English cider yeast I used was WLP775 and it flocculated out in large clumps very unlike any ale yeast I've ever used. I was left with a pretty clear cider after only a week, something I've read can take up to two months. I'm still going to allow it to sit and see if it will clarify anymore. My wife and I tasted the cider and it was pretty good the way it was, very drinkable. To me it came across as dry like a champagne but with a slightly sweet lightly apple taste. I can't wait to sweeten this cider up and put it on tap.

The Hard Cider Making Process, As I Understand it

My wife took me to a brewpub last week for my 38^th birthday. We had never been there before so I sampled a flight of beers and found a brown ale that was quite good.  My wife is a wine drinker but being a brewery they didn't serve wine. They did have a cider however which was her first and she enjoyed that just as much. So guess what I’m brewing next? You guessed it, a cider.

This will be my first cider so I did a little reading and watched a couple videos and here is what I came up with as the process.

Prepare for Fermentation

1. Since It’s not the right time of the year for fresh cider and I don’t know if I can get any locally I went ahead and purchased several gallons of Musslem’s 100% Apple Cider for the musk which is apparently what you call cider you’re going to ferment.
2. Check the Original Gravity of the cider with my hydrometer.
3. Add ¼ teaspoon of Potassium Metabisulfite or 1 Campden tablet for 5 gallons of unpasteurized cider. This kills wild yeast introduced from the skins of the apples and some bacteria. Let sit 24 hours. (Using pasteurized)  
4. Add Pectic Enzyme to help clarify the cider 12 hours after adding the Campden tablet.
5. Add 5tsp LD Carlson yeast nutrient because cider does not provide the amount of nutrients that wort does for yeast.
6. Add yeast and ferment for 5-10 days.

Rack to Secondary

1. Check Final Gravity, it should be 0.999
2. Rack into secondary and let condition and clarify for 1-4 weeks tasting along the way until you’re happy with the taste and clarity.

Prepare for Kegging or Bottling

1. Add 2.5tsp/5gal of Potassium Sorbate to prevent further fermentation if you’re not naturally carbonating and you want to add sugars for sweeteners. Otherwise use un-fermentable sugars like xylitol for sweetening.  Let sit 24 hours. 

Sweeten Sample to Taste 

1. Draw a measured sample of cider
2. Add apple taste with concentrated apple cider (frozen and dripped into mason jar) or Organic Apple Concentrate
3. Sweeten with Wine conditioner or other sugars / artificial sweeteners
4. Take a hydrometer reading  (maybe 1.01 or there bouts)

(I ended up adding all the concentrate from 1 gallon of frozen cider and 1 500ml bottle of wine conditioner for my 5 gallon batch)

Sweeten 5 Gallons to Taste

1. Scale up concentrate and wine conditioner for full 5 gallons from sample , add to keg or bottling bucket
2. Take a hydrometer reading to check against sample hydrometer reading

The ingredients are being shipped to me as I write this so I haven’t tested this out but I’ll write a follow up after I've started fermentation. Wish me luck and if you have any advice please leave it in the comments.