Apfelwein and Honey

The equivalent of apfelwein made with honey is known as a cyser. A quick search will bring you numerous recipes.

The Campden tablets are usually to suppress any wild yeast.

When I make apfelwein I use dextrose. 2 1/2 lbs. added to pure apple juice and you have yourself a quick, easy apfelwein. It takes about a month to clear completely. After a month I bottle with with additional dextrose for carbonation. Let it sit for a few weeks in the bottle and you're good to go.

Medsen Fey is correct about the honey though. Look up recipes for cyser and you'll have what you're looking for.

That would just be a naming discrepancy, not unsurprising considering that we're crossing languages. It probably just never crossed their minds to come up for a name for an apple wine crossed with a mead.

Apple Juice + Honey and Apple Juice + Sugar are definitely going to taste different, so it makes sense to call them seperate things. Especially considering that you could not enter an Apple Wine into a mead competition, but you can enter a cyser. ;D

AToE said:

That would just be a naming discrepancy, not unsurprising considering that we're crossing languages.

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There is generally an application for this - while normal Apfelwein, or the many regional names, does not contain honey, usually honey in an Apfelwein would be for a Christmas/Wintertime beverage called Heißes Äppler; it's basically a warm mulled cider.

But yes, AFAIK Germany wasn't quite as big on the Mead-stuff, except early on?


Many people can come correct me: i'm pretty ignorant to these things.

How about just making both?

Over on HBT (homebrewtalk.com) Apfelwein is the subject of the largest thread I've ever seen on a forum.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/index657.html

There is a thread counting how many gallons have been made, last time I looked it was 27,000 gallons in this year!!!!!!!

I also have a batch in the fermentor, along with some basic cyser.

So brew both.

This is copied from the thread on homebrewtalk's forums. This is Ed Worts recipe.

Award Winning Apfelwein Recipe (German Hard Cider) Apple Wine Recipe
Placed 1st in the Cider & Apple Wine category at the BJCP sanctioned Alamo Cerveza fest (out of 11 entries) and took 2nd place for Best of Show for the main category of Meads & Ciders (out of 50 entries).

Ingredients

5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives) I use Tree Top Apple Juice
2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

Equipment

5 Gallon Carboy (I use a Better Bottle)
Carboy Cap or Stopper with Airlock
Funnel

1. First sanitize the carboy, airlock, funnel, stopper or carboy cap.
2. Open one gallon bottle of apple juice and pour half of it into the carboy using the funnel.
3. Open one bag of Dextrose and carefully add it to the now half full bottle of apple juice. Shake well.
4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3, then go to step 5.
5. Pour in the mixture of Apple Juice and Dextrose from both bottles into the carboy.
6. Add all but 1 quart of remaining 3 gallons of apple juice to the carboy.
7. Open the packet of Montrachet Yeast and pour it into the neck of the funnel.
8. Use the remaining quart of juice to wash down any yeast that sticks. I am able to fit all but 3 ounces of apple juice into a 5 gallon Better Bottle. You may need to be patient to let the foam die down from all shaking and pouring.
9. Put your stopper or carboy cap on with an airlock and fill the airlock with cheap vodka. No bacteria will live in vodka and if you get suckback, you just boosted the abv.

There’s no need to worry about filling up a carboy so full when you use Montrachet wine yeast. There is no Kreuzen, just a thin layer of bubbles (see here). I'm able to fit all but 4 oz. of my five gallons in the bottle. Ferment at room temperature.

It will become cloudy in a couple of days and remain so for a few weeks. In the 4th week, the yeast will begin to drop out and it will become clear. After at least 4 weeks, you can keg or bottle, but it is ok to leave it in the carboy for another month or so. Racking to a secondary is not necessary. It ferments out very dry (less than 0.999, see here)

Apfelwein really improves with age, so if you can please let it sit in a carboy for up to 3 months before bottling or kegging, then let it sit even longer.

The cyser is just a basic recipe from Papazians Joy of Homebrewing book.

1 gallon of apple juice
2 lbs of brewers honey
2 cloves
2 sticks of cinnimon
red star montrachet yeast

BadKarma said:

There’s no need to worry about filling up a carboy so full when you use Montrachet wine yeast. There is no Kreuzen, just a thin layer of bubbles (see here).

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Again, not professional, so no warranties or guarantees expressed or implied. (I should just put that in my sig, I think).

This is a dangerous assumption, in my experience. The only mead-gyser I have experienced was a tupelo traditional with montrachet.