BeerSmith™ Recipes and Web Editor

Notes

Used gallons not pounds! A pound of apple cider is based on 8.33 pounds per gallon. The 42 pounds equals 5 gallons Make yeast starter the day before brewing. 1: Brewing Put 4 gallons of natural apple cider in brewing pot bring to 185F. Don’t let it boil! Boiling causes pectins to set, which creates a permanently hazy beverage. While simmering the cider, add brown sugar. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved into the apple wort. 2: Cooling You now need to get the apple wort to a temperature below 80 degrees F (27 degrees C) and into the sanitized fermenter. Add one gallon cold natural apple cider to brew pot and add cold spring water to make 5 gallons Based on the temperature after adding fluids you can either cool in an ice bath or use a chiller. When the temperature of the wort is below 80 degrees F (27 degrees C), transfer to primary carboy and pitch your yeast (the yeasts offered are options: only use one). Shake carboy to aerate and mix in yeast 3: Fermenting Allow to ferment at 65 to 70 degrees F (the closer to 65F the better) for 2 weeks or until bubbling comes to a minimum. Transfer to secondary fermenter, preferably a glass carboy, to clarify. Now is the time to decide if the hard cider should be any sweeter. Put a little in a cup and taste test to see if it needs to be sweetened. If the cider needs to be sweeter, it can be sweetened with a non-alcohol producing sugar such as Xylitol, Stevia, or Splenda. Xylitol is a naturally occurring plant sugar that they derive mainly from corn. Any sweetener that the yeast will not eat is fine. Example: if using Xylitol add small amount and taste the following day. Let the cider sit for approximately 3 weeks in the 2nd carboy. Three weeks is not a magic number either, it can sit in the secondary for up to 3 months! Add the flavoring spices to hopping tube and then to secondary fermenter and allow to ferment for 4 days. 4: Bottling When bottling sanitize your bottles, bottle caps, bottling bucket, racking cane and bottle filler. Dissolve 5 oz priming sugar ( or same brown sugar as before) in one cup of boiling water and dissolve sugar completely. Carefully rack the cider from the fermenter into the bottling bucket. Add the priming sugar to the bottling bucket as it fills from the fermenter, this will mix the priming sugar evenly with the cider, and you can give it a gentle stir to make sure it mixes evenly. 5: Conditioning Bottle the cider and store it in a cool dark place to develop carbonation. It should be carbonated in one week. Check bottles after one week and every two days after for proper carbination. Once the proper level of carbination is reached. Pasturize bottle to kill active yeast. 6: Pasturizing Bottles Heat a large stock pot of water to 190 degrees, turn off the heat and add the bottles carefully to the pot. Do not over crowd the bottles. Cover pot and let bottles sit for 10 minutes. After a ten minute soak in the hot water bath, remove the bottles. Use kitchen tongs to pick up the bottle or kitchen mitt.Put them on the kitchen counter to cool. Leave them out while you do the next batch, then return them to the case box. Turn the heat back on and raise the temp back up to 190. Repeat until all the bottles are done. Let them cool completely to room temperature before putting them in the fridge. Chill and enjoy! If you are doing this for the first time, test your bottles early and often, to avoid over-carbonation.