Brewing Apfelwein
Yesterday, my favorite brew wench (hi Christie!) and I made our first foray into brewing with fruit. We made Apfelwein, which is a fermented beverage made from apples. From Wikipedia:
Apfelwein (German, apple wine) is a German variant of cider made out of apples. It is also regionally known as Ebbelwoi, Äppler, Stöffsche, Apfelmost (apple must), Viez (from Latin vice, the second or substitute wine), and Saurer Most (sour must). It has an alcohol content of 5.5%–7% and a tart, sour taste. The name Äppler, mainly propagated by large producers, is generally not used in restaurants or by smaller manufacturers who instead call the beverage Schoppen or Schoppe which refers to the measure of the glass.
Our friends have been making Apfelwein using EdWort’s recipe made famous on HomeBrewTalk.com, and we decided it was time to dive in.
EdWort’s recipe is as follows:
5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives) I use Tree Top Apple Juice
2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast
Never wanting to do things the easy way, we decided to use lager yeast (Saflager S-23) and to use wheat DME in place of the corn sugar. I tend to find any excuse I can find to avoid corn sugar, and I thought wheat malt would give some good body and a nice refreshing tartness with the apple juice. I may use brown sugar next time if I’m not happy with the wheat, or if I just want to try something new.
After 24 hours, fermentation has begun, with movement in the airlock about every 2 seconds.
My pantry stays at about 55F this time of year, so I’m hoping that will be cool enough for the lager yeast. Reviews of the S-23 yeast indicate that it can give a fruity flavor, which I would normally cringe at in the face of a lager, but in this case, I can’t imagine that it will compete with the apple juice at all. The reason I’m using lager yeast in place of wine yeast is to leave a smooth and somewhat sweet flavor, where the wine yeast leaves the apfelwein very, very dry.
I’ll post a followup in a month when the apfelwein is ready to keg.
Note: On March 4 (12 days in the carboy) the gravity read 1.018, and the yeast is still working.
how did this turn out
It came out great! The lager yeast did a great job, it finished out to about 8.5%ABV, and is very, very smooth. It goes down a little too easily, so be careful! I am very glad that I didn’t use wine yeast, it finished with a little more residual sugar than with the wine yeast, which I like.