Batch 042: Heart of Gold Cherry Cyser
I've been wanting to make a strong cider for a while now: this is a shot at an applewine-style cider, part cherry, mostly apple. It's fortified with dark honey and maple syrup. And, because it's our forty-second batch, it needs to have a Douglas Adams-based name, so I'm going to call it Heart of Gold.
Ingredients in this batch
- 11½ oz. Black Gold honey from Jack Creek Farms.
- 1 lb. 4 oz. Kirkland grade-A maple syrup.
- 2 qt. Tree Top honeycrisp varietal apple juice.
- 1 qt. L&A all-black cherry juice.
- ¼ tsp. of Fermax yeast nutrient.
- ½ tsp. of Valley Brewers yeast energizer.
- ⅓ packet Lalvin K1V-1116 wine yeast (the entire packet of which was rehydrated in 1 cup of water at 96℉).
- ½ oz. of medium-toast American oak cubes, rinsed very briefly in quite hot water, then added to the carboy on 12 February.
Brew date: 11 December 2016.
Original gravity: 1.109.
Bottling day: 4 March 2017
Final gravity: 1.001
Estimated ABV: 14.5%
Yield:
- 6 x 12 oz. beer bottles
- 2 x 500 mL beer bottles
- hydrometer tube
Total: Approx. 111 fl. oz., or about 87% of a gallon.
Sanitized everything. Added the honey and maple syrup to a one-gallon carboy, then poured in the apple juice. Agitated for three minutes to oxygenate. Added the yeast nutrient and yeast energizer, then the cherry juice, then added (less than a cup of) water to one gallon, then agitated for another three minutes. Popped in an airlock and filled it, then labeled the carboy.
Observations
- 2016-12-12T10:11: There's clearly carbon dioxide being produced in the carboy. Plenty of airlock bubbling.
- 2017-01-26: The mead has gone very dark, nearly black. Fermentation in the carboy has slowed down, but not stopped. Tasted. Still young. Keeping it in the carboy to age more.
- 2017-02-12: Still very dark. Tasted. Getting delicious. Surprisingly complex: there's a caramelly sweet-bitter combination, I think from the black honey; and there's definite overtones of maple that work really well in this cyser. Just to double-down on this, I'm adding a half-ounce of medium-toast American oak cubes, because I think it will help.
- 2017-03-04: Bottled, yielding about 87% of a gallon at approx. 14.5% ABV.