Maple Apple Cider



Maple Apple Cider



My little sister brought some really good ciders home from Crispin, a cider house in Minnesota. My favorite was one brewed with a Belgian Ale yeast and maple syrup. I thought this sounded like a fine idea and went about making my own version. I stopped at the store and purchased three, 3L jugs of R.W. Knudsen Organic Apple juice. Since the stuff is pricey, I grabbed some frozen concentrate apple juice as well, to top it up to three gallons. Making cider is something I have done in countless variations. Sometimes I juice all of the fruit myself, sometimes I top up the fresh juice with expensive store bought juice, other times I use gallon jugs of Tree Top spiked with sugar and every once in a while, I use concentrate. The only benefit I have found from using the jugs of juice is that they are already pasteurized, so you just dump them in and toss in the yeast. When using concentrate, I heat the water to sanitize and then drop in the frozen concentrate to cool, which is the route I took this time.

I wasn't able to use the Belgian Ale strain I had reserved for the cider due to using it when another yeast was bunk earlier in the week when brewing a beer. I had to go with wine yeast I had in the fridge, Lalvin K1-V1116 (Montpelier). My original plan of using a spicy ale yeast was out, so I figured I would add my own spices. I ground up a little Indian Coriander and dumped out the last of my dried chamomile from last years garden. I decided not to add additional sugar and just ferment what is in the juice and also not add bottling sugar but instead bottle before fermentation was quite complete and add a small amount of good quality Minnesota maple syrup at that time--hopefully resulting in 3 gallons of a nice pellant or fizzy cider and not bottle bombs or still apple cider.

                                                                                        Tasting Notes:




Crispin Cider with a stowaway

 

It may have been wise to let this stay a little longer in secondary as it is nice and fizzy after only 14 days in the bottle and my experience with cider is that it generally takes a long while to carbonate. The Montpelier yeast really dried this out though and there isn't even a hint of maple in the aroma or in the flavor. It is dry with a tart finish and still somewhat cloudy in appearance, which I was hoping for and why I didn't add any pectin since the Crispin was cloudy and rustic in nature. I would change a few things with this, beginning with the yeast (a fine wine yeast, just not what I wanted for this) and use a Belgian Ale yeast, like Forbidden Fruit, or maybe even an Abbey/Trappist Yeast. I also would try to get the maple flavor through by using fenugreek and upping the other spices as well. Possibly backsweetening with unfermentable apple juice wouldn't be a bad idea either. Overall, it is good and I am glad to have a dry cider around after my last handful of ciders leaned to the sweet side. It will be nice to have this one to choose from, but it is a shame that I will likely have to drink it before it matures to avoid bottle bombs.

Maple Apple Cider Recipe:



Cider at Transfer



3 Gallon Recipe

Ingredients:

9L R.W. Knudsen Organic Apple Juice

3 Cans Apple Juice Concentrate

3L Water

1g Indian Coriander (crushed)

.5g Chamomile (dried)

1 pkg Lalvin K1-V116 (Montpelier) dried yeast

5oz pure maple syrup (Wild Country)

Process:

Day 1

Heat water to 170F, remove from heat and dissolve frozen concentrate (do not boil juice)

Make a small strong tea with coriander and chamomile, strain and add to pot with concentrate

Pour into sanitized fermenter and add bottled juice

Chill to 70F and pitch yeast

Day 7

Rack cider to sanitized fermenter

Day 30

Add maple syrup and bottle