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Malted Cider
I decided to try making a malted, spiced cider this fall. Most of the recipes I have seen were more cider and not much malt. I thought I would try making something a little maltier, so I brewed up a three gallon batch of beer using 6.3 lbs of Munich LME, a pound and a half of C80 and a pound of Carapils. I also added 5 cinnamon sticks and a tespoon of nutmeg for the last 10 minutes of the boil. It had an OG of 1.090. I used T-58 for the yeast, I thought it would maybe throw some fruity esters and when I used it before it didn't attenuate all that well, so I thought it would leave some sweetness. I let this ferment for a few days and then added three gallons of fresh, pasteurized cider with an OG of 1.040.
It sat in the primary for a little over three weeks. I checked it yesterday and the gravity was down to 1.014. When I tasted the sample it didn't taste at all malty. It didn't really taste like cider, just a little tartness. There was very little sweetness. A little alcohol bite, but not much. So basically it doesn't taste like much at all. So I have six gallons of slightly tart, slightly alcohol flavored liquid. I am kind of confused.
I sanitized, cored and chunked up eight Granny Smith and eight Macintosh apples and racked it into a secondary with them to try and add some apple flavor. I can always add more spices, but I want to see what the apples do first. Maybe it just needs more time to come together.
Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
it's going to need plenty of time to come together. wait several months, then taste it again.
I am about to rack a smoked cider experiment. it has been in primary for about 4 weeks. I used apple juice and smoked malt. I plan to add some apple cider when I move it to secondary and let it sit there for another month. I used a wine yeast, so I know it takes a while to get the flavor you want. I will let you know how it tastes tonight or sometime soon once Iv tried a sample today.
These higher gravity ciders and "big beers" can age for a long time and the flavor will keep changing and evolving. My cider ends up around 12-14% and spends 3-4 months in the fermenter and then another 6 in the bottle before the flavors start really meshing together.
Do yourself two favors:
1) TAKE GOOD NOTES
2) Hide a few bottles where you won't be tempted to open them and open one after 6 months and one after a year in the bottle.
Sounds like an interesting experiment, you never know, with a year of aging this could be the best brew you've ever done.
I was hoping to have this ready by Christmas/New Years. Maybe next year?
When you average the gravity between the beer and the cider, it came out to 1.065. Not low, but by no means all that high either. The beer I brewed the same weekend had an OG of 1.065 and i bottled it today. But I guess this is a different animal and different rules apply.
So I guess I will wait, I don't have much choice, do I? I know waiting is always good advice, I'm just not always too good at taking good advice 
Like I said, just keep a bottle or two...or four...out of sight, you by no means need to keep the whole batch out of reach for a year. But with experiments like this one it seems it might behoove you to try aging some and checking in on it periodically to know when it's flavor peaks to your taste...if it does at all. Like is mentioned with the famous "African Amber" it's great until after it's aged for a couple months and then it's un-f-ing believable. That may be the case with your beer, uh, cider, uh, whatever...
And when I say take good notes, include tasting notes with the recipe; keep enough blank space between recipe's and experiments in your notebook to have several months of tasting notes for each batch. Years from now you may reminice about this great beer you brewed, but can't remember how long it needed to age to be so damn good. Or weather it aged in a basement on a particularly hot year, or in the attick on a particularly cold year or if you put it in a safe and dropped it in a lake for three years and scuba dived to get it back (I've done that three times and am still working on the pros and cons...I'll get back to you on that one)...etc, etc, etc.
I'm interested to hear how this one comes out though! Sounds cool. For all I know it might be perfect by Christmas this year, and great alcohol sooner is always better than later!
I did what I called a malted cider last year. I did three gallons of cider, one gallon of water and 2#s of DME. No hops or anything. I fermented it with english ale yeast (Fermentis S-04).
What I discovered was that it fermented pretty dry, but the malt helped to hold up some residual sweetness. Not much though as the Og was still under 1.010, but it helped to keep enough sweetness to make it taste like apples. It was great and simple.
Just my experience.
cheers.
I racked mine today. I only used 1/2 gallon juice and half water plus the .5 cup of smoked malt. That's a mistake. The taste was good. Mild smoked flavor, which is what I am looking for so it should be stronger after aging. It just tasted like a crispin. Very light and barely alcoholic. I will change the recipe for sure next time. I will use a full gallon of apple juice next time. Its too weak for me right now. I might only get about 3% ABV out of it 
I plan on letting it sit for a month and check it again. See how it tastes. I just hope all those apples soften up sitting in there, or else they are going to be a bitch to get out of the carboy.
I keep all my notes on the computer. I have all the recipes I have brewed in plain text files, and add notes to the file when I brew, any problems, how I think it turned out, things I might try, things I wouldn't change blah blah blah. Plenty of room for notes. Maybe not as handy as a journal, but so far it works for me.
I will probably bottle my smoked malt cider within a month. I racked it for a 3rd time and it came together quite nicely. I am happy with it. I still wish i used a full gallon, but I know for next time. The apple flavor and the cherry wood smoked malt go together beautifully. This is going to be a great cider once cold and carbonated. Word of caution, I used a yeast that lets the apple flavor come through well and it did perfectly, but it smells absolutely horrible. That must be a requirement. Good cider must stink.
I finally bottled the Malted Cider about ten days ago. When I bottled it the spice flavors were about gone, so I boiled three cinnamon sticks and a whole nutmeg in a quart of water, disolved the sucralose for backsweetening and then added the priming sugar. I had one bottle that didn't get quite full so I thought I would give it a taste test.
The malt and cider flavors are well balanced, and there is a nice apple flavor from the apples I put in the secondary. I maybe overdid the backsweetening just a bit, but I wanted something a little on the sweeter side. The spices are complimentary, there, but not overpowering. There was a decent amount of carbonation, but it is a little hard to tell from this bottle, and it hasn't been that long. The alcohol still has a pretty good bite. I think I will stash these away until fall, maybe sample one a month just to see how they are coming along. I think by October these might be damn tasty!
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