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Cider Digest #0113
Subject: Cider Digest #113 Fri Feb 14 11:00:09 EST 1992
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 92 11:00:12 EST
From: cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu (Are you SURE you want to send it HERE?)
Cider Digest #113 Fri Feb 14 11:00:09 EST 1992
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Jay Hersh, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Sweet mead/cider (Bradford Glade)
Clearing a mead... (Dave Beedle)
sweetening (Aaron Birenboim)
Send submissions to cider@expo.lcs.mit.edu
Send requests to cider-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu
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Date: Thu, 13 Feb 92 21:06:27 -0500
From: glade@cs.cornell.edu (Bradford Glade)
Subject: Re: Sweet mead/cider
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Date: Thu, 13 Feb 92 13:41 MTS
>From: Chuck Coronella <CORONELLRJDS@che.utah.edu>
>Subject: Sweet mead/cider
>
>A question about making sweet ciders/meads. Since yeasts will tend to
>ferment out the compounds which bring about sweetness, I see only three
>possibilities for making a sweet final product:
>
>
>1) Add honey (or other fermentables) in high concentrations, to achieve a
>very high OG, >1.150, depending on the particular strain of yeast.
>
>2) After fermentation is complete, add a "stabilizer", or preservative,
>such as sodium benzoate (?), (recently mentioned by Aaron Birenboim.) Then
>add additional fermentables, such as raw apple juice, or honey, or even
>malt extract.
>
>3) (Similar to the previous) Add apple juice (or another), containing a
>preservative, directly to the finished product before bottling.
Actually, I am using a fourth method. The basic problem is that
over sweeting with honey, or sugar will eventually cause the yeast to
die from the alcohol they create, thus you end up with a flat product
because their is no yeast left to chew on your bottling sugar.
Method 2 with the stabilizing preservative will also tend to kill the
yeast, thus no carbonization. At best this requires vwery accurate
proportions to get it just right.
Method 3 would probably yield pretty good results, but requires
special drinking time processing, which is something to be avoided.
The method I'm trying, and we'll see in 3 months if it works, is to
use a complex sugar for sweetness (in this case Maltos Dextrin) which
the yeast has a difficult time consuming. I added this at bottling
time along with some corn sugar, so the theory is the corn sugar will
be just enough to carbonate the cider (1/4 cup / gallon), and the
Maltos Dextrin will simply add sweetness and extra body. So, if this
works, (a big IF granted) we should be able to get the best of both
worlds; a sweet bubbly cider with no extra work!
>On another note, let me report the progress of the cyser (apple juice mead)
>I started in December:
>
>It seems to have finished fermenting. The OG went down from 1.123 to 1.020
>(or thereabouts, can't remember exactly.) I racked it into another carboy,
>where it's sitting. I am in no hurry to bottle it; I have two other
>carboys available for brewing, and I intend to let it age for many months.
>It doesn't seem to matter whether it ages in the carboy or in bottles. I
>tasted it upon racking; wow, I'm not used to alcohol levels like that.
>Pretty strong. It had no off flavors nor smells. Just alcohol. I'm
>hoping it will mellow with age.
>
>Cheers,
>Chuck
>
I just bottled my batch from October, it tasted like a nice dry apple
wine at this point. It was about 5.6% alcohol.
I'll send results in 3 months or so when it's had time to properly
age. Is 3 months enough BTW?
-Brad.
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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 92 8:47:29 CST
From: dbeedle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Dave Beedle)
Subject: Clearing a mead...
Hi all! Pardon if this isn't the place to ask this...is there a mead
list? On of the folks in my local brew club has a mead that won't clear. It
has 20 pounds of honey to 5 1/2 gallons. It has been around now for 6 months,
has no activity and very little sediment on the bottom of the carboy. It has
been racked twice. OG 1.127 now 1.040. The question...can he use finings of
some type and if so what? Thanks!
TTFN
- --
Dave Beedle Office of Academic Computing
Illinois State University
Internet: dbeedle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu 136A Julian Hall
Bitnet: dbeedle@ilstu.bitnet Normal, IL 61761
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Date: Fri, 14 Feb 92 07:56:33 MST
From: abirenbo@rigel.hac.com (Aaron Birenboim)
Subject: sweetening
in response to chuck's questions on sweetening:
the wine stabilizer adds no flavors that i can detect. I wanted
a cider of lower alchahol, and that is the only way i know of to
get a stable, low alchahol, sweet cider.]
some suggested the use of common cane sugar, which has a fair
amount of unfermentable sweetness. Who tried this? Could you
actually get a sweet sparkling cider with this method?
If you are not sure about the alchahol tolerance of your yeast,
you could continue to add small amounts of boiled, disolved
honey, until the S.G. stops changing... then add honey to taste.
I find that simple boiled honey is very cloudy (at least mine
which i got raw from the beekeeper), but will clear in about 2
months, even in a stabilized cider.
\
I plan to run a gallon batch sweetened with about 2c cane sugar
for an attempt at a sweet, sparkling, low alchahol cider.
I have been using red-star empernay II, but for me it did not
stop a 1.011or 1.012 as expected. I also have had a beer or
two that got over-carbonated after a long period of storage...
so it might be rampant wild yeast infections. no off flavors,
just a VERY slow ferment.... like a beer that seemed more
carbonated after sitting for 6 months.
I have some WYEAST irish ale 1084? and London ale 1028,
isn't one of these a low attenuator? anybody rememner which?
I seem to recall an attenuation figure of about 65% on some
yeast or another i bought. I might try this for a sweet
cider... anybody have some exxperience?
aaron
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End of Cider Digest
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