I’m working on a maple mead now where I’ve added 1.8L maple syrup to an 11L batch of honey mead. So far this is tasting much better. You get lots of maple flavour but it’s not overly sweet and the balance is really nice.

Another idea might be to make a really dry white wine, then add a few litres of maple syrup to that. So you get your alcohol content from the wine, and the maple flavour ought to overpower the wine and dominate the taste.

Hope this helps,
Mark

How’s this maple wine coming along? It’s been the better part of a year now. Is it on the sweet side or on the dry side? I’m looking to make either a 1- or 2.5-gallon batch of this pretty soon, but I’d like it as sweet and mapley as possible. Thought about a sweet-mead yeast, but I know that Gorman’s recipe uses champagne yeast. Any tasting notes or fermentation notes would be a great help.

Big thanks,
Andy

I totally understand why they add the chemicals — the stuff is meant to be consumed, not bootlegged. You’re right that buying the cider fresh from an apple farm is the best route. However I don’t have a car, and trying to break chemicals is fun

The PC Sweet Pressed Apple Cider is brilliant for fermenting. Tastes great and no heavy preservatives, plus it’s available year round. I recently made a batch where I mulled the cider with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and maple syrup before fermenting. Needless to say it was absolutely delicious!

That’s an amazing idea using apple peels for starter, thank you! I will definitely try that in a future batch. Probably easiest to wait until summer when 30C heat will kick it off quickly.

Thanks again for coming out to Nerd Nite, hope you enjoyed it!

Mark

If you want a cheap source for EC1118 – go to Esperia on Warden, one bus stop north of the subway station. They sell EC1118 sachets for 50 cents which is cheaper than bread yeast.

Asorbic acid is Vit C – Lovely stuff and no threat to yeast.

The reason they chuck chemicals in is not because they’re buggers, but because apple skins are covered in yeast and they want to preserve that fresh pressed taste. Why the blue blazes do they not pasteurize it. Well, that’s the cheap easy option. If you’ve bought loblaws fresh pressed sweet apple cider (on sale at time of writing) then you know you can make a kick ass cider out of it. That stuff’s pasteurized. However, apples don’t work well under heat, in fact they cook. The PC stuff, has a slight apple pie-ness about it.

Not bad, just not cider. That’s why the orchards sorbate or sulphite their stuff. If you get to them at the right time, at pressing time, they’ll give you apple juice happily without sullying it with heat or chemicals. You can drink it right away, or leave it a few days and it’ll ferment by itself!!! for free!! no EC1118 or fleischman’s in sight.

So apple skins are covered in yeast. If you want free cider yeast., buy some organic apples, fill some sanitized 2L pop bottles with apple juice and grate the apple peel into those bottles. Loosen the lid to let gas escape. The bottles that do not grow mould, smell and taste lovely, will have a lovely deposit of genuine cider yeast at the bottom.

Phil

How did your blueberry wine turn out?

Mark

Nice to see someone else trying to get away from using berries by using quality juice. I just wish I had read this before trying the same thing. I used pure juice as well and mine came out really thick. I’d like to know how your Black Cherry wine tastes after 6 months aging. Unfortunately I adapted my recipe from a normal cherry recipe on the net. Couldn’t find any recipes using juice, not berries. Anyway, this recipe, and most like it, calls for tannin and acid blend. I’d like to know what it tastes like without all that.

I’m about to put on a batch of Blueberry using the same type of juice… It was on sale. I think I’ll try half juice and half water this time.

Cheers

Corey