Beer/Cider mix - anyone tried this?

[PhillyBrewer]

Perfect. Thanks Dave. Excited to brew this in the fall.

[PhillyBrewer]

Last question. What's the OG, ideally without the cider? I'm trying to get this into Promash and it's giving an OG of 1.073 w/o the cider (at 2.0 gallons) which seems a bit high since the cider will bring some gravity points along with increased volume.

[dmtaylor]

I actually shoot for about 3.2 gallons or so to account for trub losses, etc. So basically, to end up with 30 12-ounce bottles, brew the 2.something gallons of beer to the upper 1.060s or 1.070 max, then add your gallon of cider. Make sense? Good luck.

[AdamWiz]

Thank you very much, Dave. I haven't chimed in on this in a while because Philly's questions have pretty much covered anything I would have asked.(Thanks Philly as well). I am looking forward to brewing this very soon, when more carboy space opens up

Cheers,
Adam

[PhillyBrewer]

Makes sense! Thanks Dave.

Adam: No prob. It looks like you're hitting the ground running with your brewing. Very cool.

[bcastine]

Mixing Beer(lager) and Cider is common in the U.K. Its called a "Snakebite" . However its typically mixed at the time of consumption. When I have cider I always keep some Blonde Ale on tap to mix with it, Its how i prefer to drink my cider as the sweetness of the beer balances the dryness to an extent. In the UK sometimes they add grenadine or black currant syrup to a snake bit as well.

[guitarmaker]

I'm just gonna throw my hat into the ring with a recipe that I've been developing for a little while. It's always a huge hit.

Here is my cider recipe, it's still being tweaked, but I'll get ya the latest one, then future additions/subtractions.

-4gal of Kirkland 100% apple Juice (or something without preservatives, but for me, kirkland works best. Treetop gives sulfury flavors/aromas and some hot alcohol flavors)
-1 lb light DME
-1 lb amber DME
.5 lb crystal 120
-3 oz flaked oat
-2 oz flaked wheat
-3lbs orange blossom honey
-1 tsp spice house apple pie spice (www.thespicehouse.com)
-.5 oz willamette (30 min)
2 packs of rehydrated S-05.

NOW for the additions/subtractions.

I would change the orange blossom honey for regular, high quality clover honey.

Reduce flaked oat down to 2oz.

Remove the hops.

Add 1 lb of table sugar

Replace the amber with light.

Change the C120 to C60

Add pectic enzyme at time of pitching for clarity.


Steep the grains in .5 gal water for 30-40 min, roughly 150-160. Bring to a boil, add the DME, and boil for 30 min. Add the spices at 0 min, but into the boil. (If you cool the wort, it'll be even clearer, but whatever. I just throw it into the juice and say f-it)

Meanwhile, I pour the AJ into the fermenter, and at half gallon, I shake the crap out of the jug (cap on, obviously) to get some O2 into it. I also dissolve the honey (kinda dissolve, I'm too impatient, and the yeast are efficient) into the juice, and reserve 1 TBS for an English Muffin (at least with the Orange blossom honey).

Pour the wort into the rest, and top up to 5 gal with water.

Pitch yeast, and primary for 1 month. I got mine down to 1.018. IIRC, my OG was somewhere around 1.1. (my maths came out to 9.96% ABV and with a pound of table sugar, it'll make it a bit lighter, and bump it to just about 11%)

I pitch/ferment at 65. IF I had the ability for more temp control on the ferment, I'd start to ramp up the temperature after day 7. Possibly a degree/day up to 70, and hold there for a week or two.

BTW, I bottled with the usual 5 oz of dextrose. To my best guess, it's somewhere around 2.8 volumes. It's taken roughly 2 months for it to get really good and carbonated, and with experience, it's quite a thing of beauty at 6-8 month.


I had a professional brewer taste it, and he mentioned that it would benefit from another month in primary, or possibly a secondary.

Always interested on what people think, so if you brew it, please let me know.

[AdamWiz]

Hey Dave - I've been thinking a lot about this one, so it's getting moved up in the rotation. I bought the ingredients that I didn't already have today, and will be brewing tomorrow. I wanted to thank you again for the inspiration and the recipe- not only will this be my first apple beer, it will be my first all-grain batch. One last question: did you make a starter or no?


Adam