06.13.11 Cider tasting

I brought the remaining cider I had to a friend's place for a party at the beginning of the month and got a some feedback on them.

Concentrate Cider

Out of the two ciders there was less of this cider left at the end of the night. I'm not sure if it was just because people were turned off by a dry cider or because they wanted to try something different. (It has been explained to me that most commercial ciders in the area are pretty dry.)

It was described as having more taste then the Turbinado cider, which would make sense considering the can of concentrate that was used to back sweeten and carb it. When I had some it still seemed to be a little bit sour to me. And I believe that if I could reduce the sourness a little it would make for a more refreshing drink and something you could have more then one or two of at a time.

Turbinado Cider

This one had a muted apple taste to is and since it was lacking the concentrate turned out to be smoother. Although the dryness gave it an edge of its own. And from what I remember it seemed to be a little more winey then the other, I've heard that this has something to do with boosting the ABV with the turbinado sugar.

That's all I can remember about this one, not many people tried it so I wasn't able to get many opinions other then it was better then the concentrate cider. I'm thinking that it might be worth trying to either back sweeten it a lot with turbinado sugar or try priming with a little bit of concentrate.

Over all I think that both of these need more work. I want to either let them sit longer before bottling, or try a different yeast strain. From what I understand people have had some good results using ale yeasts. If I can find an easy source of them in town I'll give them a go next time instead of the wine yeast.

04.02.2011 Turbinado Cider

When I made the second attempt at the Concentrate cider I also tried making a dryer apfelwien like cider. The recipe was the same as the apfelwien, only instead of racking it and letting it age I gave it three weeks and then primed and bottled it. I tried to guesstimate the right about of sugar to prime it with from looking at beer recipes and came up with 35g. Looking at the finished results it carbed up nicely in about three weeks and maybe could have used just a little bit more. The carb was fine, but when compared to the Concentrate cider it seemed a little lackluster, though the concentrate cider was probably over carbed. When I make this again I'm thinking that I might try it with 40-45g of sugar to see if I can't find the upper limit.

Recipe:

4 cans Allen's apple juice

200g turbinado sugar

Lalvin 71b yeast

(On a side note, it might be worth while to dissolve the sugar in some warm water. Otherwise the foam from shaking takes too long to settle and causes problems when pitching the yeast. Though with saying that it is always possible to pitch the yeast on top of the foam and just shake it again to mix... )

Primary for 3 weeks and then prime with 35g turbinado sugar and bottle condition for 3 weeks.

SG: 1.056

FG: 1.000

ABV: 7.3%

When asking which one people preferred between the concentrate and the turbinado ciders it was always the concentrate one. They said that it had more apple taste where as the turbinado cider was a little bland. Which makes sense because of the concentrate that is used to prime the concentrate cider with. I'm not sure how I can increase the apple flavor of the turbinado cider. I have two idea right now; One is to back sweeten until it reaches the level of the concentrate cider, and the other is to try adding some spices to the primary (like cinnamon or cloves). Of course, I could just try both and see how they turn out.

5/13/2011 Apfelwein Update

The Apfelwein that I made last August (Read it here) sat in the closet until February before I bottled it. I had noticed in October when I was bottling the JOAM and Jalapeno meads that there was a patches of film floating on the top of the Apfelwein. I figured that since I had racked it and left so much head space that it must have been contaminated or something and just left it to be tossed out at a later date. But in February when I was making the concentrate cider I decided to take a picture and ask about it on the brew forums.

People thought that it was just left over yeast or pectin that had risen to the top of the jug and that it should be OK. I gave it a taste and it tasted... strange. Not bad, but not really good either. It sorta tasted like apples, and the mouth feel almost as if it were waxy or something. It's hard to explain but that's the best that I've come up with. After I bottled it I left it in the fridge for a bit to see if that would help things. I tried it again and it didn't taste too bad and then I shared some with friends and they thought the same. But, that was it. The rest of the bottles were pretty terrible and I ended up tossing them out. I think that it had something to do with the order that I filled them in, the ones that took from closer to the top being the worse tasting ones.

I've made a batch of cider using the same type of sugar (turbinado) and it too had the film when I went to bottle it. I'm thinking now that it might have something to do with the sugar, maybe it doesn't ferment well or there's something else in it that's causing problems. The new batch is currently carbing, I primed it with the same sugar... >.>, and I guess that I'll see how it turns out. Worst case I've learned to never use turbinado again.