Author: Marshall Schott

A few months back, I posted about making a simple backsweetened hard cider. At least partially inspired by this article, a good buddy and fantastic brewer, Brad, decided to give it whirl with a couple changes– he fermented with Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast and threw in a 2 oz dry hop charge of Citra and Amarillo toward the end of fermentation. The resultant cider was, well, as my difficult-to-impress-with-alcoholic-beverages wife put it, “This is the best cider I’ve ever had, why can’t yours taste like this?” She finished the entire pint, something I’ve never seen her do. I’ve no clue what it feels like to be cheated on, and I certainly don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a whisper of pathetic impotence. I patched together my wounded ego and set out to prove myself.

Preparation for making hard cider couldn’t get much easier and starts by gathering your wares. I purchased 5 x 1 gallon bottles of my closest supermarket’s cheapest apple juice, which is preservative-free and has made good cider for me in the past.

Since my local brew shop doesn’t carry Wyeast, Brad offered to share some of what he harvested from a previous starter with me, hence the jar. I’m a dork about numbers and always take OG readings of the juice prior to fermenting it– 1.050 on the nose, perfect!

While you can certainly add simple sugars to boost the ABV, I prefer my hard cider a bit more sessionable, plus the lower OG usually requires less time to ferment and condition. I added 1.5 liters of apple juice to a sanitized flask, poured in the 3711 slurry, and let it spin with plans to harvest a pint for future use.

As one with a tendency to get hung-up on semantics, I have a hard time referring to cider making as “brewing,” it really only takes about 10 minutes, 9 of which consists of opening and pouring apple juice into a carboy. The open-and-pouring day went off without a hitch and the yeast was pitched.

Prior to making this cider, Brad informed me he fermented his at a fairly warm temperature, anywhere between 78˚F and 80˚F. This was my first and most significant departure from Brad’s process– I controlled the fermentation to 66°F because, well, that’s what I’d done in the past when using this yeast… to ferment a Saison. I always ramp temps as fermentation appears to slow anyway, I figured all would be fine.

A couple days after pitching the yeast, my airlock was bubbling slowly and there was nary a sign of krausen, some smallish bubbles on the surface of the cider. I wasn’t terribly concerned, I’d heard people speak of ciders not developing much krausen due to a lack of proteins.

In my experience making hard cider with SafAle S-04, things go gangbusters for the first 4 to 5 days then activity drops drastically, which is when I take an initial FG reading. I did the same with this batch.

Over 5 days of fermentation, the juice dropped a paltry .011 points. There went my plans to turn this cider around in time for a club meeting the following weekend. I immediately bumped the temp of the chamber to, ahem, 74°F and gave the cider a gentle swirl to kick some yeast back up into suspension. This led to a slight increase in visible activity. I left it alone for 11 days before taking another sample.

Knowing that Brad’s cider finished at 1.004, I was disappointed the see my hydrometer at a sweet 1.012. Urgh. I left it alone for another week, occasionally giving the plastic carboy a couple bumps toward the bottom to kick up some yeast.

The gravity was dropping, slowly but surely, I remained hopeful. After an entire month of fermenting, 3 of which were around 74°F, the FG was finally to a respectable 1.006.

Thankfully, the hydrometer sample tasted pretty damn good, not too sweet with no noticeable off-flavors. It was time to put the yeast to sleep by adding 1/2 tsp potassium metabisulfite and 2.5 tsp potassium sorbate, which I mixed into pre-boiled and chilled water.

After 24 hours, I added my dry hop charge of 46 grams (1.6 oz) Amarillo and 15 grams (.5 oz) CTZ. I actually had plenty of Galaxy on hand, but thought the blend of Amarillo and CTZ would be nice in a hard cider.

While I usually just throw dry hop additions directly into the carboy with no filtration, I decided to use a stainless mesh dry hop tube I received a few years back, mainly because I found it while cleaning up and was curious.

I let the hops sit in the cider for 3 days, cold crashing the day after adding them. At packaging time, I added 3 cans of apple juice concentrate to the keg then racked the hard cider on top using one of my favorite tools, the sterile siphon starter.

I’d used only 2 cans of concentrate to back-sweeten in the past, but Brad used 3 and my wife liked his, so…

I like my hard cider sparkling, so I hit it with 30 psi of CO2 for a full 2 days before reducing it to 20 psi for serving. This produced a very pleasing, almost champagne-like fizziness that left bubbles clinging to the side of the glass despite being very clean. The cider was crystal clear.

| IMPRESSIONS |

The first person, other than myself, to taste the cider was my beautiful and awesomely honest wife, Laura. She approached her first sip cautiously and allowed a meager amount between her lips. “Hmm, I can drink this one, but it’s different than Brad’s.”

Hey, I asked her to be totally honest, I guess I’m glad she wasn’t feeding me a line of bullshit. Personally, I thought my cider was pretty damn close to Brad’s, though the dry hop character may not have been as strong, which I blame on the fact I used that sheath thing– when removing and cleaning it, there was a fair amount of dry (not wet) hop matter packed in the middle.

I’ve since shared the cider with many friends, Brad included, all agreeing that it is really tasty. No one mentioned any flaws and the growlers always go fast. My personal opinion is that this is the best hard cider I’ve made, I can see myself using 3711 and dry hopping more often than not, it’s that good. I always tend to get sort of an orange-like character from Amarillo, which melded well with the subtle dankiness of the CTZ. I plan on dry hopping my next batch with Mosaic, one of my new favorite hop varieties.

If you like hops and you like hard cider, I highly recommend you give this a shot, it’s easy and very tasty. Cheers!

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