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.