Reducing apple cider and fermenting it?

[u/dgerdem]

Several years ago I cooked down some apple cider to make a caramel apple syrup of sorts that was fantastic. I had the thought tonight of reducing a couple gallons of apple cider and fermenting it...has anyone tried this and gotten a beverage that was worth the extra trouble?

Edit: thank you all for the comments!

[u/Magikarp-3000]

Its called "cidre de feu" or fire cider, and its not a new thing, surprised nobody mentioned it yet. They are usually quite strong and nice, can be a bit sweet if so you choose (depends on your yeast and initial density).

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidre_de_feu

I recommend following a recipe, and reducing at a somewhat low temperature to avoid losing all the apple aroma.

To give it a caramel aroma, I suggest a few options.

(Be careful you dont raise your initial density higher than wanted!)

Add candy sugar or straight up caramel

Add bochet honey (aka toasted, caramelized honey)

Add an amber ale wort, with a lot of caramel malt

[u/lifeinrednblack → u/[deleted]]

Just a slight note on the consideration of sugar and ph.

If OP is planning to too back off with water to hit the original volume. Those two things will actually stay the same.

[u/dgerdem → u/lifeinrednblack]

I'm not planning to backfill it with water to replace evaporation losses. I can check and adjust the pH if needed.

[u/lifeinrednblack → u/dgerdem]

Then u/Frequent_Control_632 is correct in that you're going to have a higher gravity and lower pH that you'll. Have to adjust for.

Depending on hight the gravity gets I'd check pitch rates as well

[u/dgerdem → u/lifeinrednblack]

Right, previous batches of hard cider I've made had an SG around 1.05. I plan to reduce it to no more than 1.10 and pitch a half a sachet of voss kveik or belle saison in it with nutrient.

[u/smoked_a_dart]

definitely worth the effort. it will have a similar taste/process as a cyser, or a bochet cyser more specifically. as long as you're in a good OG range for your yeast and supply nutrients it'll come out tasty. it will need more time to age than a typical cider.

[u/HikingBikingViking]

Usually when people concentrate hard apple cider it's after fermentation, in the freezer

[u/dgerdem → u/HikingBikingViking]

Yeah, I've considered freeze distilling, but I'm looking for more of a caramel apple profile.

[u/IronSlanginRed → u/dgerdem]

Its good. Throw a little apple butter, a little caramel, a couple cinnamon sticks, and pie seasoning in. Takes longer to ferment and age nicely, but makes an awesome spiced hard cider for not this upcoming holiday season but the one after.

[u/RashikiB]

I have apple trees on my property, but they're more tart than sweet. The first time I tried to make a batch of cider, it came out at ~3% ABV. For my next batch, I boiled off a lot of the liquid and scooped out the big globs of pectin before fermentation, then added some malic acid to bring pH to 3.5. I pressure fermented two 1.5 gallon batches. One I let ferment to as dry as possible, and I stopped the other one with some residual sugar by chilling it in the fridge. Both came out quite drinkable and very potent. The dry one was somewhere around 13%. The sweet one was 11.5%. Both were quite drinkable.

[u/Relay_Fabric]

id be worried about scorching some of the sugars if you reduce too far, but the flavor could be wild

[u/homebrewfinds]

Sounds like a good thing to try! Love the caramel apple syrup idea too! Sounds delicious.

[u/Daztur]

I've done that before, gives an apple pie/cooked apple flavor. Caramelizing the apple molasses is a bit tricky since there is a fine line between caramelized and burned but if you're careful the caramelized flavor is good.

Did that with highish alcohol tolerance kviek and by adding a bunch of apple molasses to fresh juice to get higher abv.

[u/dgerdem → u/[deleted]]

I've made several batches of hard cider. I will probably make a normal batch along with this one.

[u/sharoncherylike]

You can but it already reduced, I think from King Arthur. It is very good. I used it to add more flavor to a cider, and a mead ( cyser). Both turned out great.

[u/likes2milk]

Heating the juice changes the flavour, just ferment the juice.

[u/VelkyAl]

Tumbling Creek in SWVA do this with their First Watch cider, comes out to 15%!

[u/MaleficentNumber3508]

Why ferment something thats already fermented tho

[u/whatisboom → u/MaleficentNumber3508]

Apple cider is what comes out of pressed apples. Hard apple cider is what you make when you’ve fermented it.

[u/lifeinrednblack → u/whatisboom]

This is only true in the United States. Cider both technically speaking and colloquially in the rest of the English speaking world refers to a bev made of fermented apples (or "Apple Wine")

Apple cider as it's used in the US is just called apple juice everywhere else. Which makes sense. There's is no structural difference between what we call apple juice and apple cider

[u/MaleficentNumber3508 → u/lifeinrednblack]

oh its only a american thing? safe to ignore the first guy then

[u/MaleficentNumber3508 → u/whatisboom]

no basicly everywhere in the would you get juice and you make cider
why confuse it?

[u/Greagtgoggy]

That wouldnt be good if u reduce cider than the alcohol would get concentrated in the already fermented cider

So use apple juice instead