Hard Apple Cider

It seems like we have quite a few Apple Orchards around in PA.  Now that we are getting into Autumn we are starting to see Apple Cider make an appearance in the super markets.  This has inspired me to try making a Hard Apple Cider.

I have had a few commercial ciders that I have generally enjoyed.  They usually seem to be very dry, crisp, and refreshing.  A lot of homebrew recipes involve adding sugar to up the OG and alcohol content.  I've decided to keep this batch simple and ferment from the cider's OG.  I chose a Cider from a local orchard (Weaver's Orchard in Morgantown PA).  It has been pasteurized but doesn't contain any preservatives.  It comes in at a pretty low 1.044 which is fine by me.  It's a very nice tasting cider - really bright apple flavor

I am still lagering my Munich Helles so I'll be letting this beer ferment at ambient basement temps which have been about 70 F of late.  May get a bit of a cool down over the next week or so though.  Either way, the yeast is recommended to ferment in around this range so I think ambient temps will be fine.

Compared with making a batch of beer cider making seems very simple.  It will be interesting to see how quickly I can get a drinkable product.  There are a large variety of things you can add to a cider (fruit, spices, and even hops) as well as different techniques that can create different flavors (like back sweetening/pasteurization and souring).  If this one goes well I may have to try some other varieties.

Recipe Details:

• Apples/Juice:
• 5 gal Weaver's Orchard Cider
• Yeast:
• WLP 775 English Cider Yeast
• Extras:
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 1 gal Weaver's Orchard Cider for Back-sweetening

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5 gal
• Fermentation Temp:
• Ambient Basement Temps (65 F to 72 F)
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.044
• FG:
• 0.994 (Target 1.000)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 100% (Target 100%)
• ABV:
• 6.56% (Target 5.78%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/19/15 - Setup a yeast starter.  Boiled 500 mL of water and 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient in the flask with the stir bar.  Chilled this down to room temp.  Added 1 L of apple cider to the mix.  Set it up on the stir plate over night.
• 9/20/15 - Brew day - 12:00 PM to 12:15 PM
• Took the cider out of the fridge to get up to basement temps a few hours prior to starting.  The cider is cloudy.  It has a really nice apple aroma to it.  It is sweet up front and then has a fairly firm tartness that lingers in the finish.  The apple flavor is very bright - I'm no expert but to me this seem like a very good and very fresh cider. 
• Boiled 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient in 500 mL of water to dissolve it.
• Poured 5 gal of cider into sanitized fermentation bucket
• Add the yeast nutrient water
• Added the yeast starter.  The starter had developed a nice layer of foam.  It had a bit of a sulfur smell which was noted by white labs as a bi-product of fermentation.

• Let sit at basement temps to ferment
• 9/21/15 - The fermentor was bubbling vigorously this morning
• 9/24/15 - Bubbling has stopped
• 10/30/15 - Bottling day - The cider has fermented all the way down to 0.994.  It has cleared nicely and tastes a lot like a dry white wine.  It looks like there may be a slight pellicle forming on the beer.  I have decided to spit the batch.  I'll leave one half plain and back-sweeten the other half with more apple cider.  Bottled the plain half (2.5 gal) with 1 oz of priming sugar - got 23 bottles.  Bottled the other half with a bit less than 1 gal of cider which seems to give a nice slight sweetness - got 38 bottles.  I measured the gravity of the back-sweetened portion as 1.004.  If I leave these be I'll get bottle bombs so I'm going to try a bottle pasteurization technique.  I'll let the cider condition for a couple days and then, once they are carb'd up to a good level, I'll put them in a hot water bath to kill all the yeast.  I'm thinking a 150 F bath for 10 min should be good.  I am going to use my Mash Tun and RIMS to ramp up the temperature.  I'll check on a bottle each day to try to avoid over carbonation.

• 10/31/15 - Checked on a first bottle today.  Very light hiss when I opened it but no real carbonation has formed yet.  It is pleasantly tart, slightly sweet, and very tasty.
• 11/1/15 - Drank another one this afternoon.  Still got the light hiss on opening and no real carbonation.  I'll give it another day.
• 11/2/15 - Still little to no carbonation
• 11/4/15 - A bit more carbonation today in my test bottle.  There was a half a finger head on the pour and then some bubble coming up afterwards.  I am going to try pasteurizing tomorrow.
• 11/5/15 - Pasteurized the cider this evening.  Heated up about 10 gal of water in my mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until it got up to 145.  Added the bottles and the water dropped down to 130 F.  Heated up to 150 F which took about 30 min and then let sit at that temp for 10 min.  Then chilled down to 100 F with some cold water and removed the bottles from their water bath to air cool.  No broken bottles fortunately.  I kept a couple unpasteurized bottles aside and put them into the fridge to compare the pasteurized from unpasteurized portions.

• 11/7/15 - Tried the pasteurized an unpasteurized ciders side by side.  There were no differences that I could detect either cold or when I let them warm up.
• 11/11/15 - Tried both the sweetened and unsweetened cider today.  The sweetened cider doesn't seem to have gotten any more carbonated in the last week.  It's looking like the pasteurization worked.  The unsweetened cider I tried hadn't developed any carbonation and had a pretty strong sulfur smell and a slight sulfur flavor.  This should age out over time.
• 2/20/16 - Tasting Notes - The back sweetened half turned out to have a nice balance between sweet and sour.  Pretty happy with this one.  The plain half picked up a sulphur aroma and flavor during bottle conditioning which reduces my enjoyment of it.