How to estimate OG for cyser. Honey + Juice = 1.? Plus apple-pie cyser

[lswhi3]

What's up guys!

I'm going to try and make an apple-pie cyser, similar to what Michael Fairbrother has had a lot of success with (I'll post the link to his awesome podcast at the end).

However, I'm not sure how to estimate the OG BEFORE adding the honey and apple juice together so I can get the measurements right without wasting any precious honey. I'm using EC-1118, which has a 18% alcohol tolerance. I'm probably looking to push that right up to 18% because I'm planning to age it for 18 months, so hopefully it won't be too harsh by then.

I'd also like to keep a bit of residual sweetness, but not too much. Any idea how much over the 18% I should aim for? For example, should I aim for an OG of 1.152, so that 18% ferment would lead to FG 1.020? Or should I aim for a higher sweetness level? I'm hoping to balance the flavours for a DESERT mead (however it's fine if its sessionable as well ).

Additionally, I'd appreciate any recipe feedback.
They Cyser I'm making is:

1 Gallon Batch

Orange Blossom Honey: kg depending on OG
Nudie's apple juice: Lt depending on OG
Madagascar Vanilla Bean (haven't decided to make it into an essence, or whether to just chuck it in towards the end of the ferment, nor do I know how much I'll add)
Vietnamese Cinnamon Stick (haven't decided to make it into an essence, or whether to just chuck it in towards the end of the ferment, nor do I know how much I'll add)
Yeast: EC-1118

Cheers guys!
Luke

Linkys:
http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/07/26/moonlight-meadery-with-michael-fairbrother-beersmith-podcast-43/

 

[Airgead]

Made a batch of orange blossom mead last night. 1kg honey made up to 4.5l with water gave an OG of 1.062. That should give you a starting point.

There is also a calculator on gotmead.com that should be able to calculate it if you know the og of your juice.

1.020 will end up pretty sweet. Sweet meads are a bit trial and error until you get the recipe dialled in. The yeast has a nominal tolerance but it can go higher or lower depending on how its treated. I'd aim for maybe 2-3%ABV over its tolerance. So 20-21% (whatever the is in SG). See how that goes. You can always add more sweetness later if its not enough. Much harder to dry it out if its too sweet.

You may have to make a few before you get it just right. Once you have it dialed in though you can repeat pretty easily.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Not For Horses]

Interesting one.

As Airgead said, an FG of 1.020 would be quite sweet. Perhaps too sweet.

When I ferment my cider, I often like to take gravity readings as it is going. Mainly so I can taste the delicious, sweet, half-fermented juice. I always find that around 1.010 to 1.015 is a really nice sweetness.
Apple juice and honey are both basic sugars, fructose and glucose, so I'd imagine the apparent sweetness should correlate reasonably well.

 

[lswhi3]

OK, so what do you think of this...

OG 1.152
FG 1.018

302g honey in 1L of water = 1.062
1ml of apple juice by itself = 1.052

How would I achieve and OG of 1.052 If I were trying to make a batch size of 4L, how much honey and how much apple juice would I need to add? My carboy's 4.25L to the rim, so was gonna leave 250ml of space for the ferment.
And does that work with attenuation of yeast EC-1118? I'm not so sure how to work all this out...

 

[Not For Horses]

Ok so you're trying to add 100 gravity points to your apple juice. Just based on your numbers, I calculated 487g of honey per litre but this doesn't take into account the extra volume the honey will add.
Punching some numbers into brew target says that 1.4kg of honey added to 3L of water will give 4L of 1.100.
So if you were starting with apple juice rather than water and adding 100 gravity points this would probably give you 1.152.
I'm not 100% sure on my maths though.

 

[lswhi3]

Cool man, yeah lucky one of my housemates is a chemical engineer so we worked out some algebratic equations for honey + apple juice
Just made the 4L batch and I hit 1.152 dead on

 

[Not For Horses]

Nice! What volume of juice and weight of honey did you use?

 

[lswhi3]

So using Airgead's formula for orange blossom honey of 1.062 OG per kilo of honey made up to 4.5L.

y = mx + c

OG = 0.04559 (Honey in kg) + 1

Also, 0.04559 is actually just the short version of an exact fraction, which is 31/680, so use that if you wanna be exact.

So in the cyser, I wanted to get an OG of 1.152

The apple juice was 1.052, so I needed to put enough honey in to get 1.100, assuming I was mixing with water instead of apple juice

1.100 = 0.04559x + 1
or
1.100 = (31-680)x +1

So I need to solve for x, which is our honey in kilos

x = (y - 1) x (680/31)

x = (1.1 - 1) x 21.935483871

x = 0.1 x 21.935483871

x = 2.19

SO, I added 2.19kg of honey (that had an OG in water topped up to to 4.5L) to the pot and topped up with apple juice to 4.5L.

To work it out for 4L, i just divided the honey by 4.5, and then multiplied by 4. you can do the same if you want to make a 20L batch or whatever.

Additionally, if you want to change the OG value of the honey because you're using a different type, you just have to work out the gradient of the honey in a L of water.

So 200g honey topped up to 1L gives you an OG of 1.060. That will mean that 400g honey topped up to 1L will give you 1.120.
Gradient = change in OG / change in honey.
Gradient = 0.060 / 0.2
Gradient = 0.3
OG = 0.3 x 0.2 + 1

And that's how you precisely measure OG of your mead/cyser! Who knew that year 10 maths could ever be applicable in the real world.

 

[lswhi3]

Just went to coles and nudie's apple juice is on special for $5 for 2L. Gonna make a 20L batch

 

[RobW]

Can anybody suggest somewhere in Melbourne to buy small quantities of Madagascar Vanilla Beans?
The price has gone through the roof recently and most places seem to sell in bigger quantities than I need.