| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Apple Cider (Unpasteurized, no preservatives) | 5 Gallons |
| Invert Syrup #1 (Golden Syrup) | 1 cup |
I make my own invert syrup from raw cane sugar as part of my brewing to boost alcohol content in my brews. The Homebrewer's Association has a great blog post on what it is and how to make them.
Other great fermentables to add here are honey, maple syrup, cane sugar, brown sugar or molasses. For this recipe, I stuck to just invert syrups.
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Cinnamon (Powdered) | 1 tbsp |
| Ginger (Powdered) | 0.5 tbsp |
| Cardamom (Powdered) | 1 tsp |
| Nutmeg (Powdered) | 1 tsp |
| Allspice (Powdered) | 0.5 tsp |
| Cloves (Powdered) | 0.5 tsp |
| Table Salt | 1 tsp |
| Ingredient | Quantity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Oak Wood Chips (American White) | 0.5 lbs | Flavoring |
| Apple Wood Chips | 0.5 lbs | Flavoring |
| Potassium Sorbate | 1.25 tsp | Stop Fermentation |
I used a combination of woods here, you should be able to use any food-safe wood that you get from a home improvement store's grill section. I used Weber Apple chips for the apple wood and American oak chips from Adventures in Homebrewing
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Wyeast 4766 Cider * | 1 smack pack |
| Mangrove Jack's M02 Cider Yeast | 1 sachet |
Use whatever you'd like! Specific cider/mead yeasts are common but wine yeasts like champagne and beer yeasts, particularly English strains are also popular.
In order to inhibit re-fermentation (and explosions), I add Potassium Sorbate to finished ciders I wish to bottle. This is a non-sulfite option for those who want to avoid using sulfites. I personally do not have sensitivity to sulfites, but this is an easy way to guarantee both stable cider and the enjoyment of those with a sulfite sensitivity.
For those who are not concerned about sulfites, Potassium Metabisulfite, otherwise known as Campden tablets will work fine. Add 1 per gallon of cider.
For more info on stopping fermentation with additives look to this article by ECKraus.
- 6.5 Gallon brewing bucket with grommeted airlock hole
- 1 airlock (I use double bubble style, 3 piece is fine too!)
- Long Metal Spoon
- Small Nylon or Muslin cloth Bag (for wood chips)
- 1 beer & wine hydrometer
- 1oz Star San Sanitizer (Or equivalent)
- Keg/Fermenter Cleaners
- Five Star Powdered Brewery Wash (PBW)
- Oxiclean is a cheaper substitute if you don't want to buy PBW
If you a will be bottling with traditional beer bottles you will need:
-
53 Bottle Caps
-
53 12oz bottles or equivalent
If you have several different sized bottles or have lower yield than 5 gallons, use this calculator from Brewer's Friend to determine how many you need. You can also use flip-top/grölsch style bottles instead of capped, as long as they are tinted since clear bottles are susceptible to spoilage from light.
- Make sure all your brewing equipment is free of dirt and debris before you sanitize.
- Fill your 6.5 gallon homebrew bucket with 5 gallons of water.
- Pour 1oz of Star San sanitizer into the bucket, and mix it with your spoon.
- Let it sit for a few minutes, then put the lid on the bucket and shake it up, allowing the sanitizer to get every surface of the inside of the bucket and lid.
- Once you have completely sanitized the bucket, re-open it and pour out the sanitizer. (To save water you can pour this into another bucket for another brew day if you have one!)
If you are using store-bought cider from plastic containers, I'd recommend a quick dunk in the sanitizer before opening them. This prevents anything nasty on the surface from getting into the brew.
- Pour your cider into the sanitized bucket.
- (Optional): add any syrups sugars or other adjunct fermentables. Stir them in with the sanitized spoon.
- Take your sanitized hydrometer and put it in the bucket.
- Take note the original gravity or OG. This may be between 1.040 and 1.060, depending on sugar content. You'll need this value to calculate the alcohol content later in a few weeks.
- Add the spice blend and stir with a sanitized spoon.
- Add your yeast
- Put the sanitized lid back on the bucket.
- While covering the lid's grommetted' opening, swirl the bucket around to agitate the yeast and aerate the cider. (Oxygen is good at this stage of brewing!)
- Place the airlock in the grommetted hole, with some water in the chamber. The water need not be sanitizer water, but it certainly doesn't hurt. We just need a liquid barrier for one-way travel of gas out of the fermenter.
Leave the fermenter bucket in a dry place out of direct sunlight. Make sure the location does not have drastic temperature fluctuations, as that can affect flavor. Keep in mind the optimum temperature ranges for your brewing yeast, which should be stated on the packaging. Keep an eye on the airlock over the next few days, when activity has slowed to one or two bubbles every 5 minutes, you'll know primary fermentation is done. This can take 3 days to 2 weeks depending on sugar content and yeast behavior and count.
If you, like me use unpasteurized cider, there will be some (good) bacteria from the apples that will start what is known as malo-lactic fermentation. This process is slower and helps develop the flavor of the cider. After the primary fermentation has completed, let the cider age for a few weeks to make sure that there is no activity. I often use a separate 5 gallon carboy for this, but this isn't necessary.
Secondary fermentation is the perfect time to add wood and other additives for flavor. For this recipe I added a half pound each of applewood and oak chips. These can be added in a reusable food safe bag to make cleanup easier. Let these sit and soak in the cider over the course of a few weeks to let the flavors seep in. You will lose some cider to this, so don't expect exactly 5 gallons at the end!
When activity has stopped and you are satisfied that the cider is done, its time to take the Final Gravity measurement. Use your sanitized hydrometer to take note of the specific gravity of the cider now. If everything is done, you'll likely see a value close to 1.01 or lower, maybe even 1.00. The lower the value, the more fermentation, the more alcohol. If you used a cider or mead yeast you may see the value be closer to 1.00. If so, this means its bone dry and will not have a lot of sugar left in it. You'll need the OG and the FG values from before and after to calculate alcohol.
There are two options for you to package this cider: bottles or kegs. Carbonating or backsweetening the cider will require kegging.
Bottling has the advantage of being cheaper and requiring less equipment, but you lose the ability to carbonate the bottles. Cider bottles will explode if you feed it additional sugar or the primary fermentation hasn't completed. For this reason, it is recommended that you halt fermentation with additives should you decide to bottle. See my note above on halting fermentation in the Yeasts section for more on what to use.
Add your fermentation stopping additives 24 hours before bottling day to the fermenter bucket.
On the day of bottling, sanitize your bottles before you begin by dunking them in the sanitizer for at least 15 seconds.Then fill your bottling bucket with sanitized water as you did with the fermenter, and sanitize your auto-siphon and bottling wand. Remove the sanitizer water from the bucket when you're done.
Take your fermenter bucket it and put it on a table or countertop, and lay the bottling bucket with the spigot below it. Open the fermenter and place your auto-siphon inside, with the tubing dropping into the bottling bucket. Give the siphon a good pump and gravity should do the work of pulling the cider into the bottling bucket.
Once the fermenter is empty of cider, there should be a gooey looking mass at the bottom. This is the yeast cake, which is also called a trub. This is the yeast and its protein waste from the alcohol making process. This can be captured for re-use if you'd like but I won't cover this here.
Now that the bottling bucket is full, attach your bottling wand and tubing to the spigot. Turn the spigot vale open, and you'll see the cider flow down to the end of the wand.
Now you can fill the bottles, allowing about at least an inch of head space for each bottle. Press down with the wand to the bottom of each bottle until you see it almost full, and then move on to the next bottle until you have no more cider.
Cap each bottle with the bottle capper. You'll need to press hard and straight down so make sure you do this on a sturdy flat surface like a table or a floor.
This cider will be bone dry and still, so you don't have to wait to enjoy these! Keep them in a refrigerator and they should keep for at least a year.
Kegging has the advantage of giving you carbonated cider, which is what most people think of when they think of cider in America. Kegging also means you don't need to package tons of individual bottles too! It gives you the most creative freedom, as it allows you to backsweeten, which is when you add additional sugar to the cider that doesn't get fermented. This gives you a flavor similar to the Angry Orchards and Woodchucks you might be familiar with.
Sanitize your 5 Gallon keg with 1oz of Star San, slosh it around like you did with the fermenter. (This is a good opportunity to re-use that fermenter's sanitizer water from a few weeks ago)
Open the keg up and pour the sanitizer into another vessel (or discard).
Using an auto-siphon, siphon your cider into your cleaned & sanitized keg. If you are backsweetening, nows your opportunity to add it, using the autosiphon or a sanitized spoon to mix it in. Close it up and hook it up to your kegerator, carbonate and enjoy!
My results from my 2019 batch of wood aged spiced cider:
| Gravity | Amount (SG) |
|---|---|
| Apple Cider (Unpasteurized) | 1.052 |
| Apple Cider With 24oz Invert Syrup | 1.060 |
| Original Gravity (Measured) | 1.060 |
| Final Gravity (Estimated) | 1.01 |
| Final Gravity (Measured) | 1.001 |
Target ABV: 6.56% Actual ABV: 7.74% Calculated using the Brewer's Friend ABV calculator
This is the least fun part but very necessary! Fill your fermenter bucket with 6 gallons of lukewarm water with about 5 tablespoons of PBW or Oxiclean. Let that sit for at least a half hour to do its oxidizing magic.
Important note about plastic buckets: DO NOT SCRUB THEM. Scrubbing them will lead to tiny scratches that sanitized water cannot clean out and can likely lead to infection of your brew. Use a light sponge, cloth or paper towel to remove any stuck on gunk, but ideally the oxidizing cleaner should do the trick.
Attachments area Preview YouTube video HOW TO BUILD A KEEZER by Northern Brewer