I got a nice crop of McIntosh this year, plus some granny smith and some pears. About five bushels in total. I crushed and pressed the other day and got about 8gal of cider. That was quite a job! I’m fermenting 4.5gal and I froze the rest. I’m using a dry apple cider yeast, a seemingly new product I picked up at the LHBS. It has nturient in it already so that was nice. My plan is to add sorbate and backsweeten the hard cider with 1/2gal of fresh frozen sweet cider, then keg and carbonate. After reading about how McIntosh doesn’t make a very flavorful cider, I added two cans of apple juice concentrate to the ferment. Also added an ounce of high vanilla french oak chips for some extra tannin. Hoping this will all produce a nice result.
Sounds like a pretty good plan. Please post again to let us know how it turned out.
Have you used the oak chips before ?
Cheers !
Yes, last year I made a cider uin kind of a New England style, with a little brown sugar and molasses. I added the oak to that too, figuring oak barrels were the traditional method of making/storing sider. It turned out pretty good. Until I find a source of crabapples, its about the only way I can get much tannin.
I don’t have anyway to crush my own cider but I am ready for Edgewood Orchards to start selling by the gallon. I made my first cider last fall a simple recipe just cider and table sugar, one gal I fermented with champagne yeast and the other with a dry white wine yeast. I tasted both around march the champagne was ok and the wine wasn’t fit to drink. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago and the champagne was pretty good, very clear, dry,and crisp, the wine got better but still eh…could do without it. Neither one carbonated at all, I think they were in the secondary way to long. I think this year I will try just plain ol cider nothing else and try another batch with brown sugar, I also thought about molasses anyone know anything about that?
