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Author Topic: For my apple cider, adding flavor during back sweetening suggestions?  (Read 5529 times)

Offline benbeck1990

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I have my cider just about to go into the second carboy to clear up a little. once finished, if I wanted to add flavor, how and what?

How?- do I add a flavoring of drops to each bottle (if I want ten or so of honey cider, five of berry cider, etc)
Or do I add a frozen concentrate right before bottling to the whole batch with some brown sugar to achieve a certain taste?

What?- what good flavors go well to add to ciders? I was thinking about ginger, cherry, strawberry, honey, peach, and pear. Should I add drops of flavoring (artificial type, the stuff I usually see in the candy or baking section of grocery stores) to each bottle?

Or one big boat load of honey (for example) in the second carboy right before bottling.

As I'm sure you can tell, this is my first ever batch. Please be gentle. Thank you in advance for all your help!

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Offline udubdawg

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There are some basics here you need to understand. I assume you haven't tasted it yet?

It's going to be dry. The amount of character will vary with the source apples, yeast, and fermentation conditions.

I generally find people's first batch of cider is sulfury, needs acid, and is sometimes mousy.  But a few hit home runs right off the bat.

Yes, you can add flavorings; its your cider so do what you want. Some flavorings will fool the best palates, others taste highly artificial.  Understand unless you stabilize your cider the yeast will restart and consume the honey until it is dry again - unless you truly add a boatload of honey to overwhelm the yeast's alc tolerance, and at that point it's cyser, not cider.  When you say you want honey/berry cider...do you want to taste apple? Want it sweet? Carbonated?
...I guess what I'm saying is I can't really tell you specifics until I know you understand the basics of fermentation of an almost completely fermentable product.


Offline homebrewdad7

  • Assistant Brewer
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    • Homebrew Dad
If you add a bunch of honey before bottling, you will likely end up with bottle bombs unless you kill the yeast.  I have had success with back sweetening with apple juice, then pasteurizing on the stovetop (with this process)- but I did manage to break three bottles in the process.  So, beware.

As for flavoring in the cider?  Oi.  I'm not  fan of artificial flavorings, period.

Offline 3bbrewing

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  • San Diego, CA
Hey Homebrewdad,  nice write-up on pasteurizing your cider!  :-)
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Offline homebrewdad7

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Hah, glad you liked it - but I didn't write that one.  /u/Fizz11 from reddit did, I simply published it.  :)

Offline erockrph

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    • The Hop WHisperer
If you're bottle-carbonating this won't work, but I sorbate/sulfite my cider, then backsweeten with fresh juice. I add sugar or apple juice concentrate to get the initial ferment to dry out in the 8-9% abv range, then add back about 50% of the volume in juice (preferably the same cider I used for my initial ferment). I keg and carbonate at that point, but you could bottle it as a still cider if you wanted. The end result is a cider in the 5.5-6% range in the vein of something like Angry Orchard or Woodchuck.
Eric B.

Finally got around to starting a homebrewing blog: The Hop Whisperer