New England Apfelwein

An old brew--it took a full six to eight months after bottling to be good, but now--down to my last few bottles--I'm wishing I had far more of it left.  I'm thinking I'm going to brew it again soon, with a couple differences; use 4 gallons of apple juice, and different yeast--preferably an English Ale yeast, otherwise it'll be the Belgian-Canadian strain from Wyeast.
Another modification, if I so feel like it (and am using the Belgian yeast), may be to use a medium candi syrup (homemade, naturally) along with the molasses.  Or made with molasses...

Rustic New England Apfelwein

6 cans apple juice concentrate
1 gallon apple juice
2.5 pounds granny smith apples (cleaned, cored and pureed
2 cinnamon sticks
4 pounds brown sugar, half dark, half light (or white sugar and molasses)
Water to 4.5 gallons?

Safale 05 yeast

In secondary:
Oak.  35 beans of medium toast, soaked in apple liqueur.
5-6 tablespoons Orange zest, soaked in vodka
2 more cinnamon sticks

3-20-13: Cider is started, OG is 1.072

3-21-13: Pulled off ½ gallon—to stop the eruptions—and put in fridge.  I’ll add it back in after the first racking.

4-8-13: SG is 1.007.

4-13-13: Racked it off of most of the gross lees.  Also added 35 beans of medium toast oak (sanitized in apple liqueur), and 2 more sticks of cinnamon.  Added the ½ gallon I pulled off in the beginning.

5-13-13; Racked off of more gross lees and the oak beans.  Added 5-6 tablespoons of orange zest in vodka.

5-22-13; Racked off of the orange zest.

6-21-13; Bottled.  3 growlers, and 23 12ers (pasteurized).  Added 1 12 oz container of apple concentrate to backsweeten.

UPDATE: I opened one of the last bottles of this on 2-23-15 and found that it was definitely past it's peak.  I suggest drinking between 6 and 16 months.

© John Frey, 2014. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.  The recipes and other contents therein may not be used for any commercial purposes.