I had a crazy idea to use apple juice in place of water for my hot liquor while brewing a kolsch. Has anyone ever done something like this before? Was it a terrible idea? I’m trying to avoid a wasted batch if I can.
Thanks
I have made a smoked apple amber and used apple cider as the sparge water. It worked great. Expect a pectin haze or use some pectin enzyme to get rid of the pectin haze you will make from boiling the cider.
I liked the blend of tarntess and smokiness in the beers I made.
That’s one I wouldn’t have thought of, Keith. Bet I’d drink a pint or two.
+2 Sounds amazing.
If you are interested in making it it is a similar grain bill to an Alt, and I smoke the malt over apple wood, and add some apples to the share of malt getting smoked. Add the smoked apples to the mash. Use a nice local apple cider. I only brew it when local apples are being harvested and I can get fresh cider.
Wow. That sounds tasty.
I’ll be saving some of our cider we make cyser with in the fall to make this. Damn.
I personally wouldn’t heat the juIce. I would make my concentrated brew then dilute with apple juice to hit the bittering you are shooting for. store bought already pasteurized so just open and pour in. Fresh press throw a campden tablet in the juice let it sit at least a day then throw it in. Less you heat things like juices or honeys the more character you retain Imo
I don’t disagree with you. You lose some of the apple character for sure. My beer has almost a smoky-sour like qualty. I have thought about doing a strong beer and diluting it with fresh cider but haven’t yet.
I would agree, with the caveat of “depends what you’re looking for”. Fresh cider gives much more “fresh apple” character, but heated apple juice gives you more of an apple pie/mulled cider apple character that is a bit different, but still has its place.
While we’re on the topic of creative ways to add apple to beer, you could also boil the juice down to a syrup and add it like a sugar addition or candi syrup. I boiled down a gallon of juice down to syrup to chapitalize some hard cider this fall. I bet apple syrup would also make a nice apple tripel.
Keith and I have bumped into each other previously on this topic…
I’ve been making a smoked apple ale for years as well. This year I decided that I don’t really like the smoke too much so I’ll delete that from my recipe as a personal preference. I basically make a small 2-gallon BIAB batch of beer, then warm up a gallon of cider on the side to about 160-170 F for 15 minutes to sanitize and add at the very end of the boil, to make a total of 3 gallons apple ale. It’s quite delicious. Tart with just a hint of apple, not in your face appley, but pleasant. I heat my cider but don’t boil it, and this helps prevent the cloudiness you would get otherwise.
Recipe:
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=71478&p=662452&hilit=harvest+apple#p662452
I think these are all great ideas. In good apple years I often end up with 15-30 gallons of cider. Last year sucked which generally means this will be a good year unless we get a killing frost while apple trees are blooming. Usually we use all of it to make cyser and hard cider. I might try using some take the wort and some added late. I have a friend who has a business thatakes both cider and cider syrup and he gives me a lot of cider syrup so that might go in the mix too. I’ll definitely use pectic enzyme.
Seems like juice in the mash could screw up your mash pH, but that wouldn’t be a worry as sparge water.
Blast from the past, Dave!
Thanks for all the input.
I must say that the smoked apple ale sounds delicious, and I’ll be adding that to my to do list, but I’m going to go ahead with my experiment (sure to check my mash pH) as I’m not terribly worried about some haze. I also plan on blending the beer with 2.5 +/- gallons of cyser I’ve had sitting around in a carboy since December which should contribute plenty of apple character to replace what is driven off during the boil.
I’ll keep a couple of bottles un-blended though to see how it stands on it’s own.
The boiling removes some of the apple aromatics and flavor so you might consider some apple concentrate after fermentation has finished to bump up apple flavor if needed.
Yes, I didn’t mean in the mash. I think I would do the mash on the thick side and sparge with cider.
I think I would use the cider syrup here.
all my apple trees are blossom bombs this year…should be good.
That sounds like a good idea. Remember that sugars in the cider will be completely fermentable, so you might want to mash a little higher.