The Cyser Project

Folks who read this blog regularly know what mead is- a wine-like beverage made from honey. But there are many different kinds of mead, including one called Cyser. Essentially cyser is mead made with apple cider rather than with water. So rather than getting 100% of the fermentable sugars from honey, you're getting about half from honey and half from the cider. If mead is an esoteric drink, cyser is straight-up obscure.

I've tried making cyser before, and I didn't have much success. But cider is delicious, and mead is delicious, so I think it's worth another try. Many recipes tell you to dose the cider with campden tablets or to heat the honey-cider mixture to kill wild yeast. I'm not a fan of these approaches. Heating drives off flavors and aromas, as they volatilize at high temperatures. Plus cider has the interesting ability to ferment naturally and taste just as delicious as when fermented with commercial yeast. Honey is naturally resistant to spoliation. For all these reasons I'm in favor of a simple approach of just mixing the ingredients together and letting the yeast do it's thing.

Here I'm using honey from Tremblay Apiaries and cider from Breezy Hill Orchards, which I bought from the Greenmarket in Union Square, here in New York City. The honey is incredible artisanal honey from upstate New York and the cider is delicious preservative free cider from the Hudson Valley. It's important to get preservative free cider, as the preservative prevent spoliation, which will prevent the yeast from fermenting your brew.
The cider has a specific gravity of 1.050. To the five gallons of cider I added about six pounds of honey. This raised the gravity to 1.090. If the champagne yeast ferments to dryness, this should yield about 11.9% alcohol by volume.
To mix the honey and the cider, I used a drill and the mixing attachment I made a while back. This tool does a great job mixing the thick honey up unto the cider. I didn't add any yeast nutrient as I'm guessing that the cider will add enough nutrient to keep the yeast happy, nutrient that is missing from honey. But I will be keeping an eye on the fermentation process to see if progress slows or stalls. So stay tuned to see how this project develops!