Apple cyser

[Shine0n]

I made this around 6 months ago but on a small scale, it was sooo good I just have to do a larger batch this go round.

5 gallons unfiltered apple cider
Clover honey to adjust the OG to 1.120
Yeast-71B
Yeast nutrient either fermaid o or left over yeast trub boiled.

Rehydrate yeast in half water and half cider/honey mixture at 100°f

Heat cider to 100°f
Add honey to get an OG of 1.120
Aerate well
Add first addition of nutrients
Pitch yeast at 75°f

Degas after 24 hours from yeast pitch and every 24 hours for 10 days

Add nutrients every 2 days for 6 days degassing before or you'll have an eruption (don't ask) lol

Optional☆ Add 1 cinnamon stick during primary fermentation and remove for secondary/clearing.

After ferment has dropped to 1.030-1.020 Rack to secondary for settling and let sit for 2 months longer racking as needed.

Makes a great sipping mead/cyser after 4-6 months and will get better with time.

Enjoy, Shine0n

[freefall]

Thanks for that..I have been looking at cyser recipes. Trying to come up with a good one to try.
Do you have exact notes on your recipe?

[Shine0n]

Pretty much the same as I described in the op.

Staggered nutrients and degassing is the key, temp depends on yeast strain so just go with what the recommended temp is or around there.

I like to go on the upper end of the temp range, so if D47 is 58-69°f I'll go 65-67ish.

[jonnys_spirit]

I’ve got some cyser still in bottles about 2yo. Very good now. I did similar except also added about 30lbs of fresh apples. Cinnamon in the secondary (not much at all) and a pound of dried mango’s in secondary. Oaked it too. Step fed more and more honey until it couldn’t ferment any more so it’s about 18% abv(used d47 in lrimary ferment then once the abv killed off the d47 i made an ec1118 bomb and it took off again). . Took a while to smooth out but I can put away a 750 by myself in an evening and it’s apple mead goodness with nary a hint of cinnamon and mango. It was a couple sticks of cinnamon crumbled up along with oak sticks for 9months. Also had it in a new vadai barrel for a couple weeks.

Where are you located shineon? Would be fun to trade some meads or something some time.

Cheers!
-j

[Shine0n]

In eastern Va.
A little over an hour from Richmond or Norfolk.

Right on the the Chesapeake Bay

[Shine0n]

All I have now is 1 gal of oaked traditional with tupalo honey
2 gal of traditional with clover
1.5 gal semi dry blueberry melomel
.5 gal session mead infected (lacto)

I'm a shiner so I still put it all in mason jars. lol

I'll break down one day and get a case of bottles and corks (maybe)

I'm looking forward to this one in 5-6 months

The old "aging for years" shit is out the window, things have evolved so we don't have to anymore.

Pm me about your location as well

[jonnys_spirit]

I live in Nashville. All I have right now is Cyser in bottles. Last few mead batches I didn’t even bottle - I just distilled. Makes a really good drop. I do want to make some more mead though before these bottles are all empty. What are your thoughts on a very subtle / honey? Clover?

Cheers!
-j

[Shine0n]

I love clover honey, it's a little bolder than wild flower but nothing like buckwheat which I also like alot, works well with braggots.

In melomels as long as you are using heavy flavored fruits it shines and isn't so masked by the fruit, wildflower honey is good in traditionals because of the floral notes and along with a yeast to compliment it, it's top class.

I really like orange blossom and blueberry blossom in a traditional, that shit is just plum good and the D47 add a special note to it too.

Man I love making meads and all that goes with it. I may buy a load of bulk honey to make shine.

[Shine0n]

My cider finally came in today, took almost a week but it's here now.
Could only get 4 gallons but it'll do I suppose. lol

I've been on homebrew mead section and seen an apple caramel that seems pretty good and may try someday soon but for now I'm sticking with the plan.

I have enough honey to get pretty much any gravity I wish so I'm thinking of a semi sweet cyser with an OG of 1.120 and finish hopefully at 1.015-1.020 which should get me to 13.75%

Starting tomorrow afternoon after church and hold my breath for a good strong fermentation.

Will give weekly updates

[Shine0n]

I couldn't help myself, I went ahead and used 3 lb of caramel malt. I steeped it in 1 gal of cider at 153°f for 1.5 hours and used the other cider to bring down to pitching temp.

I'm also planning to step feed this one to reach a higher sg to kill off the yeast then stabilize it before bottling.

I kept reading this recipe on homebrew talk and it just cried out to me plus I had the extra malt. I know that using grains in mead makes it a braggot but the cider makes it a cyser

Still should taste good, the ferment is going crazy and even being in a 6.5 gal bucket it almost foams over when degassing with 5 gallons total.

Looking forward to this one and now onto another style

[Shine0n]

This smells sooo good I went and made another 4.5 gal.

This time I steeped the grains for .75 hour at 140, mainly to extract the flavors not for starch conversion although I'm sure a little got through but being a caramel/crystal malt 120 so there's little to be had anyway if any..
OG on this one is 1.10 and used 71B yeast rehydraded in 104°f water/must mixture for 20 minutes and pitched at 75°f, aerated the hell out of it and covered with a loose lid.
I'll do a nutes addition in 2 days with fermaid o and degas it everyday for 10 days, once down 1/3 sg I'll step feed with 1 lb clover honey and when down 2/3 I'll feed one more time, that should get me to the abv tolerance of the yeast and leave me with a semi sweet cyser at 1.015ish or I may force crash it at 1.020 when I get to that point. I'll see when I get there.

The main difference between these two is I'll age this one in a twice used Gibbs barrel that last had rum in it, I'll check it at 4 months then 6 and if needed 9 to get the proper amount of flavors from the barrel.

Once finished I'd like to get together with some folks who are mead snobs to get some feedback.

I did some experimenting with some sweet traditional and rum infused with a habanero, I used 6 oz 130 p rum and infused 1 habanero for a week and mixed it in with the mead that was 12%. Man its got a nice balance of sweet heat and plenty of honey flavor. Good stuff people!!!

That's all for now but more to come soon.

[Shine0n]

The first one is already down to 1.040 from 1.120, damn thats Been the fastest one yet, I like the taste already but still a bit sweet so I'll let it hit 1.015 before cold crashing it and racking.
I'll be putting it in 1 gal jugs and letting it age for 4-6 months before tasting again, this stuff will have a serious kick to it at the end but I believe the flavors will balance out nicely and even better with a little time on her.

[Shine0n]

Did a feeding today on the 2nd batch with 5 lbs clover honey which should've brought it up .035 from where it was. I didn't have my hydrometer here so I couldn't tell what the sg was but it was semi dry so I could assume around 1.010 just from memory or there abouts.

The first one is being cold crashed now, it finished at 1.015, I'll stabilize it with potassium sorbate and rack again for long term aging.

These are so good I'm seriously rethinking of oaking this.

[Shine0n]

She chewed right through the 5 lbs like a fat kid with candy, dry as hell again.
Going to feed another 2 lbs and then again as needed till it tinkers out.

This stuff is going to be strong, I was under the impression that 71B gives out around 14% and if I'm not there yet I'll be very surprised. With such a high gravity I believe this will have to age for a year to calm down some.

I think I may stop it with P.S. and let clear tho as the flavors are nice but hot right now.

I hate decisions like this.

[Shine0n]

I believe it's finished, sg reading is 1.020 and my drop another notch or two before I can rack tomorrow. This is a very fast ferment and just the way I like it

Depending on how these turn out I may dial back the caramel malt next go round or all together.

I'll rack tomorrow and crash in the fridge for a week and rack again for aging.

[Shine0n]

I racked off 3 gal and before I got to the 3rd, the first had 1/4" of sediment on the bottom. I gave them 2 hours in the fridge and had to re-rack them again.

Since I used apple cider not juice there is going to be alot more fall out with this, I still have a little more than a gallon in the fermenter I need another jug for so with 4.5 gal of this cyser I may only get 3-3.5 gal after all the settlement.

Sure is tastey tho

[Shine0n]

The cider is racked and resting for the next 3-4 months and will be bottled at that point.
I'm very happy with the product, in fact from a 4 oz pour (sample) I have a little head change. Not too bad!!!

The cider is still noticeable with the caramel malt as a deep base. I may take 1 vanilla bean and drop in 1 of the gallons just for the fun of it. I may also take one of the gal and drop a 1/4 tsp of citric acid in to see if it brings out the cider a little more.

All in all this is a cyser I'll make over and over again, The abv from what I can tell is right around 14.5%.

Note☆only got 3.25 gal from 4.75 gal using cider, so a little over 16.5-5ths, Still may only be 15 after bottling but that's plenty for me and mine.

Also, MCH has a bottle or two coming his way for the nice gifts before.

[Shine0n]

I done made another 4.75 gal of this cyser with no malts this go round, the first one is clearing nicely now and is tasting much more mellow.

The caramel malted one is getting better, still not clearing very well but time should take care of that. It has a very heavy malt flavor and I think I'll dial it back a bit further next time, maybe .5 lb to see if it'll still carryover the malts caramel notes with significantly less malt.

[jonnys_spirit]

When I made my cyser braggot for distilling I let it sit for a long time and it never cleared like a straight cyser does - I ended up just running it. May need to use some fining agents. One thing I have done with one bottle of distilled cyser braggot shine was to proof it down to 40%abv for bottling with actual aged cyser instead of spring water - wow! I call it honey toast apple jack and just yum! I've found some five gallon honey barrels on amazon that I'm going to purchase because I just need to keep more of this in stock.

Cheers!
-j

[Shine0n]

I have some bentonite to use and clear the wine after another 3-4 months down the road if all else fails. lol

Either way this stuff is something good, heavily malted but good.

I feel ya on the 5 gal pails, it's sooo much cheaper to buy bulk than a gal at the time.

I still have 120 lbs 60 each blueberry and orange blossom for some crazy experiments I have going thru my head.
I'm headed to the homebrew site to look up some recipes I may want to try out in the near future.

May end up making something of my own or taking a few and mix and match to make something unique.

Who knows, it's all fun in the trying... Right!!!

[The Baker]

When we were young there was not much money but plenty of good food.
We rode the bike to buy fruit in say 12 litre containers, sat them on the handlebars. Maybe 40 cents.
Grew our own tomatoes and spinach and other veg.
Had a house cow on our few acres for milk and cream, and chooks for eggs.
And Dad sent to apiarists for 30 pound or 60 pound tins of honey to be delivered to the railway station, much cheaper than jars at the grocers.

Geoff

[jonnys_spirit]

I think mine sat around for at least 3-4mo and was cloudy. It wasn’t going to clear. I didn’t boil it for a protein break like beer. Maybe some pectic enzyme early on would help too? Bentonite cleared my cloudy as hell sake. I think it will work. I understand the desire to not use anything too. Well, running it through the still cleared it honey shine is a favorite here. I think you convinced me to open another bottle of cyser and hail the gods of valhalla tonight.

-j

[Shine0n]

I'll see what happens in a few months, the 1 gal jugs are right at middle of the neck of the top so there isn't much for air space in them.
I hope I won't have to use the bentonite but it's not looking so good.
They're sitting in a closet at 68°f with no light and I'll let time do what it's supposed to.
I still have 1.75 gal of the blueberry melomel so that should hold me down for a while.
I'm itching to make another raspberry melomel because I just got so freaking thirsty and it was sooo good, by far my favorite to date.

I need to put my 7.75 gal kegs to use for long term aging, I have 4 of them now and 6 15.5, I just cant seem not to buy them. lol

[DetroitDIY]

Thanks for all the posts on mead ShineOn, they're fun to read.

I'm still working my way through a 5 gal. batch of apple cyser with cherry that's just over 2.5 years old now. And 9 gal. of an ice wine / bochet cyser that's waiting to be bottled in the basement. None of them were done with step feeding nor punching down (improvements for my future batches), and the temp control was just the basement temp.

The 2.5 yr cherry cyser is pretty decent. Time seems to have helped. I started that one with 1.5 gal. water and 7 lbs wildflower honey. Heated it to 160 F for 10 minutes (won't do that again... I've read a lot since that the honey only needs to be warmed enough to dissolve it, but not to kill off things, and the higher temps boil away some of the good volatiles). Added 1.5 gal tart cherry juice blend (store bought), and 3 gallons of home pressed apple must: 1.5 gal. of Maiden's Blush heirloom and 1.5 gal. of a yellow skin sweet apple I don't know what. Pitched it on EC-1118 (won't use that again... strips too much flavor in the primary) at 109 F (won't do that either... planning on activating my yeast much closer to fermentation temperature, and preparing a good size starter). It went fully dry (due to the EC-1118) and I prefer a bit of sweetness. Ended up at 12.75% after a month (first racking). I bottled it after 3 more months with a bit of priming sugar into wine and beer bottles. Nice effervescence, no bottle bombs. Time has definitely improved this one, but so much time should not have been needed had I done the step feeding and not cooked the honey. Lessons learned.

I haven't dipped into the Fire & Ice cyser yet, but when I tried it during racking a few months back it was quite intense. Started with some 36 gallons of local cider that was close to turning. Froze it 6-7 gallons at a time in my freezer, then partially thawed the frozen bucket and pulled off the syrup down to an average of 23.8 Br. The process took some time as my freezer is small-ish, so as some cider was waiting outside for it's turn to freeze, it started to ferment. And then as I dumped the high brix syrup into another larger container outside while freezing more cider, it started to ferment some. It was all a wild ferment... the cider had not been pasteurized, so that may be good for some flavors. Finally got it down to 10.5 gal at 23.8 Br. Cooked 5 lbs of honey to a medium amber candy stage and cut it with 0.25 gal boiling water to keep it from solidifying. Cooled it and added it to the apple syrup. Brix now up to 26.8. Racket it after a month and didn't transfer a good amount of cloudiness at the bottom (but did enjoy it myself). Now had the remaining 8 gallons sitting in the basement for the past 6 months. I had divided it into two glass carboys. One had a few bubbles and then nothing, the other (filled to the top) has been bubbling slowly since Christmas. Hmmm..... This one has only ever been on the wild ferment. I may need to add some 71B-1122 to dry it up some.

The main difference between these two is I'll age this one in a twice used Gibbs barrel that last had rum in it, I'll check it at 4 months then 6 and if needed 9 to get the proper amount of flavors from the barrel.

Once finished I'd like to get together with some folks who are mead snobs to get some feedback.

I put 15 gallons of sweet mead (little over 3 lbs/gal) into a whiskey barrel as a tertiary for 4.5 months. It came out quite boozy. I put some on fruit, and saved some as is. Just a word of caution... you may want to check your mead sooner than 4 months.

I would love to get together to share meads some day. But you're a decent drive from Michigan. Give me a shout if you're ever up this way. Cheers!

[Shine0n]

Last time I was in Detroit I got stuck at the airport for 2 days in early March with only a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt. Snow drifts were up to my ass cheeks. lol

I was a little concerned about the one in the barrel so I pulled a half gal and its about right with the oakyness, Still a bit young bug good and I think I'll bulk age the rest in a 3 gal carboy and let it mature some.

I'll probably do a cider and ferment and age for a year in the barrel, I seen a video of an orchard that presses the apples and sticks it directly into the barrel. Just natural fermentation and they get what they get. Now... they do about 50-60 barrels worth and bottle each one separately from the others but they have a very good finished product from all the reviews I've read.

I think I'm as hooked on meads, ciders as I am on distilling.

The step nutes and degassing has definitely helped out on the length of time a mead needs to be ready. 4-5 months and alls well and ready to drink for the most of mine.

If you happen into Va. pm me and we'll hook up.
I'll do the same.

[Shine0n]

I snuck off with a fifth of the original recipe and have to say holy shit this is good. The blend of apples this company used is perfect for fermenting, a very nice ballance of sweet and sour. If anyone has had BoldRock from Va... it's like that with bit with the addition of honey. It's not too sweet and not no where near dry but very pleasant. It's just not clear but I'm hoping in the coming months it will get better and if not I'll do a round of bentonite to see what happens.

I'm not overly concerned about the clarity for myself but if in a year it's that good I'll want to enter it into a competition on a local level and get some reviews from the "snobs" lol

Awe man I can't seem to stop... Somebody help me!!! bwahahaha

[Shine0n]

Just checked the sg and it's 1.026ish so I put another 2lb of wild flower in there and I'll check it in 3 days. I didn't stir it, just dumped in and closed the lid.
The (if) dormant yeast should devour that in short order, I don't want to add so much at once it over sweetens this one once the yeasties crap out and I'll add 1 lb each time until I have the abv and sweetness I want for this one.

[Shine0n]

This 71B yeast has a tolerance of 14% so I should be getting close to that with the addition, I'll monitor this carefully as I only want a bit of sweetness. Something around 1.015

[Shine0n]

Wife and I shared a glass at lunch, she's impressed as am I with the flavors.

[Shine0n]

Today is another racking to get this sucker to clear some more, this will be the last racking until bottling time.
The yeast is packed down tight as a tick but the sediment from the cider does not. It sits very loosely kinda like bread yeast and really puts a damper on my return.

From the last batch I got 3.25 gal from 4.75 gal of must but the last one had alot of caramel malt there too so I'm sure there was a bit more sediment than just cider.

Very good so far with quality!