Cider, Honey?

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notsomighty

NewBee
Registered Member
Whilst I'm waiting for my first JOAM to finish, I've embarked on making some quicker to the gullet, ciders. I didn't see a Cider Thread in here...

Just bottled my first. A very ordinary and inexpensive (cheap) mix from Brigalows. The only variant is a stick of cinnamon in the primary. Upon tasting at reading FG , no cinnamon evident.

Just put on the second batch of Mangrove Jack Apple Cider, with variant of a steeped cup of 2 cinnamon sticks, powdered cinnamon, 2 cloves and a pinch (ever so small) of nutmeg. Tasted on taking SG.... bloody lovely. I hope this works out!!

Now, for my next one, I wanted to use a kilo of honey instead of the dextrose...

My question is, has anyone tried a honey cider? If so, would you add a bit more than a kilo, if the brew kit asks for a kilo of dextrose? From reading I see honey is only about 75% sugars.

I'm planning on using Silver Gimlet honey, a West Australian native eucalyptus. Subtle on taste.
 
Whilst I'm waiting for my first JOAM to finish, I've embarked on making some quicker to the gullet, ciders. I didn't see a Cider Thread in here...

Just bottled my first. A very ordinary and inexpensive (cheap) mix from Brigalows. The only variant is a stick of cinnamon in the primary. Upon tasting at reading FG , no cinnamon evident.

Just put on the second batch of Mangrove Jack Apple Cider, with variant of a steeped cup of 2 cinnamon sticks, powdered cinnamon, 2 cloves and a pinch (ever so small) of nutmeg. Tasted on taking SG.... bloody lovely. I hope this works out!!

Now, for my next one, I wanted to use a kilo of honey instead of the dextrose...

My question is, has anyone tried a honey cider? If so, would you add a bit more than a kilo, if the brew kit asks for a kilo of dextrose? From reading I see honey is only about 75% sugars.

I'm planning on using Silver Gimlet honey, a West Australian native eucalyptus. Subtle on taste.

Oh my google-fu is up to the challenge :)
http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/cider.pdf
 
Apple juice and honey recipes are best searched for here, by looking for cyser a.k.a. meads made with apple juice/cider made with honey.......

It's not a bad schlurp, whatever you want to call it...;D

See, now I would have come close in calling it a cyser, but its less of a wine and more of a quaffing cider... with honey. :)

....mmmm quaffing.
 
i just kegged a 5 gallon cider with 1.5lb of honey. I used store-bought juice (no preservatives) and Safale US-05.

I crashed it around 1.009. I think it's pretty good.

I also have a gallon of the "4 week cyser", and 5 gallons of a straight, dry english style cider fermenting right now.

also, I've never used spices, but i hear it's generally preferred to add them in secondary. if you add them pre-fermentation the yeast kinda screws with it.
 
Cool

I'm going to have to try this. I've been brewing hard apple ciders/wines for about 18 months, with reasonable success. Nothing special yet, mind you (though my friends seem to clean out my supply fast) I'll post on this when I do this. Peace...
 
My very first batch was a cyser. I had added 3 pounds of honey to one gallon of Whole Foods apple juice, then realized this took the SG really high, higher than I wanted. I added another gallon of juice (getting another gallon jug for fermenting later in the bargain) and that brought it down to a more reasonable level (1.111).

Not sure how it's coming out yet, it's sitting in the closet, aging and clearing. The small sips I've had so far were very nice, but I'm with holding judgement for quite a while.
 
I have 5 gallons of cyser, using Ken Schramm's "Falls Bounty Cyser" as the base recipe, with some nifty tweaking along the way.They have since been divided into a few different versions. At least one of them is going to next year's Mazer.