How to Flavor Your Hard Cider 4 Ways

let's flavor some ciders four ways [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we did a basic cider and we finished it four different ways we carbonated it made it sweet made it dry all that kind of stuff so today what we're going to do i remade that cider in one gallon we have four mason jars with airlocks affixed yeah put an airlock on it because otherwise you never know and we're going to flavor this four different ways now i'm not going to carbonate any of these or anything fancy like that they're going to stay dry hopefully i'm not doing things that will necessarily alter the abv but should alter the flavor and possibly the color depending and some of this might take a little while but the first is i'm going to add dried elderberry now dried elderberry can have kind of a licorice-like flavor these for some reason they remind me of dried blueberries i really get it's a little more earthy than a blueberry but it's very similar to a dried blueberry so really simple i have my full mason jar i have 25 grams of dried elderberries and i'm dropping them in most of them it comes there's a few things that's stuck yeah a couple didn't make it everybody in and they should sink they might not it's okay don't get freaked out if they don't i will probably have to give this a little bit of a shake every once in a while to keep them going and i'll let that sit for a couple of weeks and extract those flavors now what's going to happen is they're going to soak up that cider and expand a little bit by the way this is a pretty much 6.2 percent apple cider no extra sugars or anything added to it it was just the apple juice that we used in our basic cider um yeast i don't even know what yeast i used probably like a 71 b or something simple and there was some ferment oh so a little bit of nutrient it fermented out dry i tasted it beforehand it's a decent cider it's about a month old so it's still kind of young but anyway there we go elderberry one flavor down the next flavor a lot of people wanted me to do oaking and well we do we have started oaking more recently ken from barrel char wood products has sent us a bunch of things and today i'm using amber on a medium toast why because it was the one that i closed my eyes and reached in the bag and grabbed i believe this is one of his newer varieties that he's offering and when brian yeah he did that he he's really enjoying the aroma so we're very hopeful this is going to be a yummy it's a smoky sweet thing going on it's like if you watched our uh review of some of their stuff the sugar maple it's what i expected the sugar maple to smell like so that tells you something and all i do is i take a mason jar i put the stick of wood in there i add some boiling water let it sit for about five minutes and then it is sanitized and some of the tannins get pulled out just so that it doesn't overwhelm and then i take the stick out it's a little bit warm drop it in and i'm going to put the lid back on and that also will sit for a few weeks to maybe even a couple of months i'm not sure yet it's going to be a smell thing i'll every once in a while give it a smell but i am going to have to keep this wet as well even though the wood will wick the liquid up it probably should prevent anything untoward happening but um i believe this cider is fully degassed at this point so there's really not a lot of gas in here to come out to save anything maybe maybe i'm wrong maybe there is a little bit it does look like there's a little bit of gas okay cool um let me push that all the way in and do that over here too there we go i may have overfilled these air locks we don't typically use these because brian really i don't like them really enjoys the little bloop bloop that you get from this i just don't like these um there's nothing wrong with the three-piece airlocks many people love them because they're easier to clean this and that i just from an aesthetic point of view like the s-loc s airlock better that's all it's all it comes down to for the next one i'm going a little bit more traditional going with one cinnamon stick one cardamom pod that i've been i've slightly bruised and opened five allspice berries and one clove now if you are curious that sounds like a lot of spices for a quart of cider and you'd be right but i don't want to have to let this sit for a very very long time so i want to speed it up a little bit but we are going to have to check this every few days to see if it's extracted enough it's also very difficult to get the flavor profile that you want in such a small volume so ideally we want to be doing this in at least a gallon of each of these but that would be an awful lot of cider for just two of us to do a test on so that's why we exactly did this and there's nothing wrong with doing little experiments like this on a court or even a pint if that's what you have available because this way you can try things and combinations and see what you like and that's the beautiful thing about cider and mead and wine and even beer to some extent you can do a finished product and then afterwards do some of these flavor combinations and play with it a little bit make it something unique something different and that way if you decide okay i really like this or i really like this you can also make a five gallon batch of a basic cider and then flavor it five different ways into five gallons and have five different things the last and to some arguably best to me i'm not sure i'm going to dry hop this one i have a love hate relationship with hops okay if you remember from anything that we've done with gin or gen-like flavors pine is not really my favorite thing a lot of hops taste like pine it just really isn't such a thing for me i know somebody's going to argue and say that they all don't taste that way i know i know but still it's not my favorite thing it's one of the reasons i'm not a big ipa fan today we are using cascade pellets yeah and i looked this up and the recommendation was three ounces of pellets for five gallons of beer for dry hopping for 48 to 72 hours well i know that a quart is one fourth of a gallon and one gallon is one fifth of five gallons so i just did some math and came out with four grams of hops dry hopping really simple i'm just going to take those and drop them in their recommendation for dry hopping was anywhere from 48 to 72 hours so two to three days which is probably pretty good because i think the spice one might be ready in about the same amount of time the berries and the wood probably need a couple of weeks so we'll just keep an eye on these and we'll fill you in but it's really interesting to see look at the berries already yeah the berries are already changing the color the wood is actually slightly different now too uh it's just really interesting to see how that that occurs and this is the really cool part about homebrew is making it your own if we decide that the hops and the wood were good maybe put them both together next time or maybe elderberry and the spices or some other dried berry why did i use elderberry someone's going to ask me it's because what we had yeah i thought i had dried blueberries nope we didn't have any dry blueberries so i had dried elderberries instead i went with them why did i use cascade hops because that's the hops that i happen to have on hand the wood i already explained and the spices well those are typical apple pie spices so it's kind of like an apple pie cider kind of thing just thought we'd give you a nice idea of how you can flavor your ciders now that said you can experiment with this to your heart's content you can try a million different flavor combinations and honestly i'd like to hear what you guys come up with so leave a comment below letting us know what flavor combination you did and an additional note about doing combinations in this volume because you have such a small volume of liquid to ratio-wise a rather large volume of flavoring you want to keep a close eye on these and check them daily to see how they're coming along uh you need to find yeah that it'll just go pew and go way too far into the flavor somehow this one and this one yes those are the two that will overdo very very quickly hops can become a very very powerful flavor and i'm having some concerns about this one i mean wow it might be done already i mean it's been like five minutes and yeah it's already colored it and everything so you already see how different the outcomes can be based on that okay so two days have gone by and well the hops is done i want to remove it from the cider but in order to do that i have to remove the cider from the hops it smells a bit like beer which is you know understandable because it's hops so here's the thing there's a lot of ways to do this i'm going to do it the most expedient method which means i'm going to pour it some people are really going to hate hearing that but this is only a quart if i try getting a siphon in there i'm afraid i'll probably make more mess and waste more than if i just poured it granted there is some risk here okay just so you know i know i am taking a risk of vinegarization and possible oxidation because this is a lowish abv so it could turn to vinegar do i really think it's going to probably not also i believe this will be consumed within one month therefore the likelihood slim to none so not really all that worried but i'm going to still be very very careful to do that i have a mason jar here sitting in it's not really turbos it's just a our pitcher filled with star sand fluid and i'm just going to let that drain a little bit then i have a strainer bag which is really used for making like nut milks and things like that but it's a very very fine mesh and that's why i chose it because i think the hops might cause a bit of a problem they're going to want to come through almost anything that i put this through like cheesecloth i don't think would be fine enough so really really simple put it there put this over the top open it up a little bit remove the lid and very carefully so as to not introduce more oxygen than necessary pour this through and we have all the hops in the bottom a few pieces in the filter bag here and as i lift it up and out it should be relatively clean that worked pretty well like i said smells like a beer so i think 48 hours was plenty for that amount of hops in this dry hopping situation and we'll be back in a few more days to take the spices out of the spiced version derek is back so today we have our spiced cider and it's been sitting on those spices for seven days time to take a little taste of it and see if it's done because spices can overextract and get kind of nasty so right off the bat it smells perfect like just right i'm just gonna pour a little bit off here just a quick sample that was more than i really meant to pour more for me oh that is really interesting i like it wow fruity ants but it's like apple pie it really is that's that's lovely for a dry cider with with spices in it that's really lovely it actually reminds me of spiced apple yogurt if you've ever had spiced apple yogurt it's delicious it was my favorite and that's what it reminds me of i've never even heard of such a thing anyway now we have all these spices to get out of this actually we're going to do the other way around we're going to get the cider out of the spices instead of the spices outsider so what i have here is a nut milk bag and i put it into a clean mason jar everything has been sanitized in turbos and again if this is going to bother you look away pretend i used to siphon all right i'm going to pour this because it's such a small quantity and honestly for this test i'm not that concerned about it this stuff is not going to last that long i plan on drinking this when this test is over so i'm going to pour i'm just going to pour very carefully right through the nut milk bag into the mason jar then just pull out the bag get every last drop stick it back in there to get cleaned up putting the air lock back on it's a safety precaution probably isn't necessary at this point but i like to there's a little bit of air space in there now you might have noticed the elderberry and the one with the wood are still going and there's a good reason for that the elderberry i think needs just a few more days although it's like black okay it's totally dark the wood though i'd like to give them three to four weeks just to give it a real fair shake on a cider probably doesn't need more than that because it's a lighter flavor to begin with so i don't want to overpower but uh yeah maybe the next installment will be taking the elderberries out then after that you'll see the wood and then we're going to do a full tasting of all of them all right we've let these go as long as i care to there's only two left first is the one with the amberana wood in it which smells like french toast okay it just really does vanilla and cinnamon um this one's pretty simple just take the wood out no big deal but i'm gonna save this wood because it's good wood and while we're at it we'll just replace the cap don't need airlocks anymore these are degassed they're fine we're just going to store these in mason jars people ask all the time can you store it in mason jars as long as it is absolutely positively not going to ferment and there is no carbonation yes there's no reason not to mason jars are not known for holding carbonation another question we get asked all the time is how many times can you reuse that wood well there's no real true answer to that sometimes only once sometimes twice but depends how often you want to push it i mean if you want to go further and get three four five tries go for it as you put it into more brews it loses a little bit of potency and it picks up other flavors from that brew so like if you made something really spicy and you didn't want the next thing to be spicy you might not want to use it in that particular brew but when they're complementary flavors there's nothing wrong with it and we have the elderberry version now you might notice that this one is just a little bit dark it's super dark yeah it uh just it's amazing smells incredible and we have the now familiar bag over a mason jar because i'm just not going to siphon this there's a it's a quartz these things are going to be gone within a week i'm not really worried about oxygenation at this point however if that bothers you please don't do this at home and you might even want to look away for about the next 20 seconds but this is why i did it this way because you just do that pull the bag out let it drip a little bit now if you couldn't tell by the glistening of the bag when we had in there i did go ahead and sanitize that bag prior to this process oh yeah absolutely all the lids everything has all been sanitized even my fingers were sanitized when i stuck them in to get the wood out i mean yeah it's just what we do speaking of i'm gonna wash my hands and sanitize them again at this point i can replace all these airlock lids with regular lids we're getting ready for the tasting parts and one thing i want to say about this too is this is just four suggestions for how to do this the possibilities are absolutely endless can you change out for different berries for different fruits absolutely dried fruit frozen fruit you can even use concentrate if you really want to just be wary of re-fermentation i try to keep everything on an even keel keeping it all dry that way when we do the tasting it's not like one is super super sweet and the next one's really really dry because well the sweet one's just gonna taste better that's just the way it is so we wanted to you know more or less have an even playing field so we have our glasses and we're just going to go through and give quick tasting notes on each one do a little pour here there's probably a perfect order to drink these in too we have spices hops amber anna and elderberry i'm not i have no idea i'm not sure that the spices one should be first hops should probably be first because it'll clean your palate slightly i'm spilling of course i'm spilling pouring from a mason jar but i think the amber on and elderberry should probably be the last ones because i think they're going to have the strongest flavors the amberana might not be that strong don't let me let me get the bottles out of the way so you can see these guys because that's just need to know what order we're going for yeah that's why i did this we have spices hops amber anna elderberry obviously you're gonna know which one this one is i think we're just going to leave it that order yeah well the elderberry is obviously the dark one if you didn't know but anyway let's start with the spiced smells a lot like my methagon yeah so if you know brian's a wheelhouse he he will happily stop at this one i don't know i'm going to like the amber on it too i think i'm still going with it smells like spiced apple yogurt yogurt if you if you aren't familiar with bicep or yogurt then you won't understand what i mean but that is why i don't understand the fruit on the bottom version and the spiced apple concentrate part that you mix into the yogurt itself smells like this or at least basically it's like apple pie yes okay it's the yogurt part that's thrown in like sorry memories they're a thing that's quite nice kind of takes me by surprise because the memories that i'm invoking are rather sweet and so when you first get that you don't get sweetness as your first impression and so it's kind of like oh but then you're like oh wait yeah there's the apple notes and there's the spice notes and everything's wonderful it's just it's like apple pie spiced apple cider i mean it really it's quite nice keep in mind this stuff is only like 16 days old in total all this stuff is only 16 days old it sat on the spices for like a week it was just enough there's a hint of spice there but it's not overpowering i actually taste the apple and all the spices if it didn't have any sweetness i think the spices might be too overpowering but there's just a touch of sweetness there so i actually really like it that's nice chilled over ice oh it would be a lovely hot day beverage all right since this isn't a scientific test we're not going to go cleansing pellets and all that kind of stuff we're just going to go on and taste the next one now this is the one that was dry hopped so it'll be more reminiscent of a beer than a straight up cider it does smell like a terrible it's not overpowering it smells like a beer cider hybrid rather than a full-on beer or a full-on seed which is kind of the idea definitely smell the hops and like a green apple smell because the hops have that strong bittering because that's what they're before they're for a bittering i'm getting that kind of lingering on my tongue which when i first drank it i'm like oh this is a lot better than i was anticipating it going to be but then i was like it's a little stringent i if there was a little bit more sweetness in this particular one yeah or if it was cold balance out better and cold this would be refreshing and nice and crisp but i think if you liked beer yeah if you're a beer drinker and you like hops that's the way to go yeah that would be a cool combination for you in insider form definitely gives a beer feel with that apple coming through at the end really really cool stuff all right i have high hopes for this one this is amber on a wood which as soon as it was mentioned to some people they like lost it they freaked out because they thought it was the most awesome thing we've never actually tried it before so this is this is our first try on the smell this smells just like my french toast which is vanilla and cinnamon it smells very sweet which is a little deceiving because i don't think this is going to be overly sweet wow that is really good there is a lot going on in that it's like far more complex in flavor than something you would imagine it's just a pretty generic cider with some wood stuck in it right um it's got smoky notes it's got almost bacony notes it's got see i'm getting french toast he's still stuck on french toast i i'm getting apple cinnamon vanilla yeah it's it's very nice and i i'm still thinking about it you know i got that glazed over look i'm i'm sure or i'm just like oh what else how else can i describe this that's probably my favorite so far though yeah i think if you combine well we're probably gonna [Laughter] okay and now on to the elderberry this is obviously the black sheep of the group no pun intended but um it colored it that way within 24 hours i did it like almost instantly i was so excited on the smell it's fruity like a dark fruit like a dark plum but i get a hint of that licorice too not a lot just just a hint of it i'm almost getting kind of like a raisin note uh like a dried fruit note oh wow change the flavor completely it's like apple berry no it it's really really good you wouldn't necessarily think of it as cider i think of it as a wine yeah it comes more across like a wine than a cider very cool it it almost feels petallent i know it's not but i got that sensation for petal it means mildly carbonated yeah sorry um i got that sensation for something else that we tasted recently and i don't remember what it was but it's kind of like a tingling on my tongue and it might just be my personal reaction to elderberry i don't know but tactile wise i got a different sensation from that than i did the other ones and now we play mad scientist this was mad scientist all along are you talking yeah so i combined the spiced with the amber anna because i think that's going to be the winner yeah oh on the smell it's amazing just save me some ah yeah i'm gonna let him get the first sip in there so i don't i don't over sip hmm i remember you just came off the elderberry i think it weakened both too much i think had i spiced it and oaked it at the same time it would be a stronger on each because what happened is you get half the oak and half the spices and it just kind of made it a little less than it's still good though yeah well now we got these two we have to mix the hops and the why not right well there's a little tiny dribble in there no i'm drinking that one okay i'll drink i'll drink this i'm trying to self-cleanse my palate self-cleansing your palate see elderberry is kind of earthy already and the hops with the cleansing astringent effect might actually be a nice combo wouldn't be my favorite choice no it kind of reminds me of coffee it went a little bit it feels dryer yeah keep in mind all these were dry these were totally dry okay my least favorite would be the hops and the elderberry and hops together um then elderberry then the spiced then the amber on i think the ombre was my favorite one and i really think that if i had done spiced and amber on it together that would be a winner with a little bit of sweetness in there that would be amazing not even much just four or six points of sweetness yeah would really change that do you what was your i agree i think oaking the spiced cider would be really nice particularly particularly with the amberana and i feel overall from my personal taste preferences just a little tiny bit more sweetness would yeah well i didn't use dry on purpose right right um but as far as flavorance for cider compared to the original cider i think they all we have the original would you like to taste that sure give me a moment all right so this is one of the oh had a little bit of petalants there apparently uh this is the still and dry version so this doesn't have any flavorants added and i use the exact same recipe to make these so it's the same thing this one's just maybe another month or two older so it's got slight age to it and apparently a touch of carbonation it smells young i like that one too oh yeah i think the fruit tastes much better than it smells the fruit comes forward more on that one which definitely makes more sense because that's all that's in there really i like them all i i'm i'm having it a difficult time neither of us are really a huge fan of hops so that's why the hops was kind of on the downside there um i do think that the plane was better than the hops other than that i think they all improved it in some way that would be that would be my assessment even the elderberry and hops mixed together was on par with just the the straight in my opinion if i was going to put scores on them so why did we make this video well we wanted to show you that you're only limited to your imagination on how you flavor your brews and what you can put your hands on as long as you have a stable base that you know isn't going to continue the fermentation process then you can pretty much add to it whatever you like just remember based on what you choose the time will vary on how long you want to steep it yeah that's why every one of ours took a little bit different time and i probably could have left it on the amberona for months if i wanted to but we wanted to get this video out so three weeks it was but anyway as always thanks so much for watching guys have a great day bye bye [Music] okay so you if you watched that let me start that over again so we did a basic cider and we finished it four different ways we carbonated it made it sweet made it dry all that kind of stuff

Channel: City Steading Brews

Views: 38,823

Keywords: How to Flavor Hard Cider, flavor hard cider, flavored hard cider, flavor apple cider, flavored apple cider, flavored cider, hops in cider, oaked cider, elderberry cider, apple pie cider, flavoring hard cider, flavoring cider, Flavoring apple cider, hard cider, flavored hard cider recipes, flavored ciders, flavored cider recipes, elderberry cider recipe, apple pie cider recipe, apple pie cider alcohol, apple pie cider drink, apple pie cider recipe homebrew

Id: a6CufaR5Zt0

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2022