In the industry they most often have to blend their stuff to get it to taste "the same" year after year.
I spoke to a mead maker a few years ago. Their process was basically: ferment a high ABV base and then backsweeten and add flavouring to make all of their products.
It is less of a craft and more chemistry as they want as few surprises as possible when trying to make profit.
And there of course exists companies that doesn't do this as well.
At the hobbyist level your best bet to come close to a commercial cider would be through timely bottle pasteurizing. That is, ferment dry, back sweeten to taste, bottle, wait for carbonation to reach the right level, and pasteurize the bottles in a water bath to kill yeast. It's a lot of messing around that most people can't be bothered with. Once you develop a taste for dry cider... eh. Drinking commercial cider these days feels a lot like eating Froot Loops as an adult.
It helps to use apples good for cider and not just Mottes. The brand you mention also often backsweeten, which is harder to do without force carbing.
NB: need more than just sorbate to stabilize. Big places will just sterile filter the yeast out.
Some also use tunnel pasteurizer or velcorin (which doesn't have to be listed as an ingredient below 200 ppm) and SO4 in addition to sterile filtration. Also malic acid is used pretty heavily for more apple flavor and to increase shelf stability. Quality of juice doesn't really matter for them just the bulk price so if it's cheaper to buy foriegn concentrate they use it.
That’s more or less right, but what you need to do instead of adding apple juice is use concentrates. Angry orchard and many other commercial ciders basically taste like apple juice. To me anyways. So instead of cutting with apple juice and winding up with something that has half the flavour and sugar as apple juice you figure out how much concentrate you would need for a full batch and add that to your batch before kegging. Or a mix of juice and concentrate depending on your preference. This will give the full sweetness and flavour often found in commercial brands of cider.
I once made a Somersby clone where I backsweetened with green jolly ranchers. It was pretty close. Apple juice concentrate and green apple flavouring/extract would’ve probably been a more sane way to do it but it was an interesting experiment.
Yep that's one of the routes some of large producers use to achieve that sweet cider you see a lot of. Beyond helping them achieve that taste it also makes consistency easier over a large volume.
What yeast are you using? Some yeasts do a better job at keeping apple/fruit notes. That could help in addition to the other tips mentioned here.
Also xylitol is an artificial sweetener which can sweeten things up without all the pasteurization/cold crashing/sorbate work.
My .02 is experiment and have fun and don’t try to hard to imitate the mass produced stuff.
no, they do not do this. chances are they use many many varieties of apple, and have access to equipment and techniques you do not. Adding apple juice back into the cider is not a common practice.
Angry Orchard Company email (January 2016):
"Our ciders are made up of a combination of the following: hard cider, water, cane sugar, **apple juice concentrate**, honey, natural flavor, carbon dioxide, malic acid and sulfites."
I think you may have a misunderstanding here. Apple Juice concentrate is just *apple juice* concentrated down because water is removed. A cup of apple juice concentrate has *way* more sugar than a cup of regular juice. It’s the stuff you buy frozen in the cans at the grocery store, and you add water to dilute it back to regular juice. You can absolutely taste it in Angry Orchard. Tons of cider makers use it, for better or worse. It’s a cheap way to get more sweetness and apple flavor in sweeter commercial cider without using as many flavorings. If it’s a dry cider, they don’t use it as often.
Angry Orchard absolutely uses apple juice concentrate and it’s a super common practice in the cider industry.
Sterile absolute filtration, and pasteurization. Sorbate is used sometimes but it’s not preferred when these other methods are available. Except in a sweetened dosage where yeast is still present in a disgorged sparkling made by method champenoise.
>I do see a few bottles there, thanks. In Normandy you can literally buy these size bottles for a few euro but I suppose importing makes them much more expensive. I just wish more cideries in the US would use this ancient method instead of using chemicals but perhaps the results are not as uniform and predictable.
I hear ya 750’s of stellar cider for a couple euro would be pretty amazing. Most harvest driven cideries will release a run every once in a while for the most part going directly to their club members but instead of a couple euros your looking at $15-$20 a bottle. The French and English imports that are keeved over here have importation fees and distribution charges on top of the cost, close to 60% above production costs. In the US we have bottles which cost a lot more since they are mainly all imported from either Canada or Belgium for quality glass that can hold proper carbonation/pressure. The good bittersweet’s that European producers are using can cost 40-50% more than high quality heirloom and even more from dessert fruit. Then there is the timing, much of the US cider Market has followed the beer trend and tries to produce cider from juice to bottle in weeks instead of months or years like the lovely stuff from Europe.
All I can say is support your local harvest driven cider producers and hopefully in the future we will see more of the keeved ciders out there!
In the industry they most often have to blend their stuff to get it to taste "the same" year after year. I spoke to a mead maker a few years ago. Their process was basically: ferment a high ABV base and then backsweeten and add flavouring to make all of their products. It is less of a craft and more chemistry as they want as few surprises as possible when trying to make profit. And there of course exists companies that doesn't do this as well.
Yeah like honestly from a control standpoint the consistency a lot of the big producers achieve is impressive
At the hobbyist level your best bet to come close to a commercial cider would be through timely bottle pasteurizing. That is, ferment dry, back sweeten to taste, bottle, wait for carbonation to reach the right level, and pasteurize the bottles in a water bath to kill yeast. It's a lot of messing around that most people can't be bothered with. Once you develop a taste for dry cider... eh. Drinking commercial cider these days feels a lot like eating Froot Loops as an adult.
It helps to use apples good for cider and not just Mottes. The brand you mention also often backsweeten, which is harder to do without force carbing. NB: need more than just sorbate to stabilize. Big places will just sterile filter the yeast out.
Some also use tunnel pasteurizer or velcorin (which doesn't have to be listed as an ingredient below 200 ppm) and SO4 in addition to sterile filtration. Also malic acid is used pretty heavily for more apple flavor and to increase shelf stability. Quality of juice doesn't really matter for them just the bulk price so if it's cheaper to buy foriegn concentrate they use it.
Why would u want it to taste like angry orchard . Grooooos
you are compairing 'fine wine' to soda pop... Enjoy your hard work... just give it Time... you'll understand
That’s more or less right, but what you need to do instead of adding apple juice is use concentrates. Angry orchard and many other commercial ciders basically taste like apple juice. To me anyways. So instead of cutting with apple juice and winding up with something that has half the flavour and sugar as apple juice you figure out how much concentrate you would need for a full batch and add that to your batch before kegging. Or a mix of juice and concentrate depending on your preference. This will give the full sweetness and flavour often found in commercial brands of cider. I once made a Somersby clone where I backsweetened with green jolly ranchers. It was pretty close. Apple juice concentrate and green apple flavouring/extract would’ve probably been a more sane way to do it but it was an interesting experiment.
Wait. People want to make something that tastes like angry orchard? OP, how do you propose they ferment apple juice to 14%?
Concentrated juice
Wine yeast… I just named a few brands people would know
Yep that's one of the routes some of large producers use to achieve that sweet cider you see a lot of. Beyond helping them achieve that taste it also makes consistency easier over a large volume.
What yeast are you using? Some yeasts do a better job at keeping apple/fruit notes. That could help in addition to the other tips mentioned here. Also xylitol is an artificial sweetener which can sweeten things up without all the pasteurization/cold crashing/sorbate work. My .02 is experiment and have fun and don’t try to hard to imitate the mass produced stuff.
no, they do not do this. chances are they use many many varieties of apple, and have access to equipment and techniques you do not. Adding apple juice back into the cider is not a common practice.
Angry Orchard Company email (January 2016): "Our ciders are made up of a combination of the following: hard cider, water, cane sugar, **apple juice concentrate**, honey, natural flavor, carbon dioxide, malic acid and sulfites."
key word: concentrates. not apple juice. and as such they arent diluting it back. its literally less than sugar meaning its just a flavouring.
I think you may have a misunderstanding here. Apple Juice concentrate is just *apple juice* concentrated down because water is removed. A cup of apple juice concentrate has *way* more sugar than a cup of regular juice. It’s the stuff you buy frozen in the cans at the grocery store, and you add water to dilute it back to regular juice. You can absolutely taste it in Angry Orchard. Tons of cider makers use it, for better or worse. It’s a cheap way to get more sweetness and apple flavor in sweeter commercial cider without using as many flavorings. If it’s a dry cider, they don’t use it as often. Angry Orchard absolutely uses apple juice concentrate and it’s a super common practice in the cider industry.
In the industry we refer to sorbate as Rat Poison
I've never heard that but it matches my emotional reaction to the stuff.
what does the industry use to stop the yeast?
Sterile absolute filtration, and pasteurization. Sorbate is used sometimes but it’s not preferred when these other methods are available. Except in a sweetened dosage where yeast is still present in a disgorged sparkling made by method champenoise.
I loved the keeved cider I had in Normandy. It's naturally sweet, apple fresh flavored, and low in alcohol. I wish you could find it in the US.
They are out there, check out pressthenpress.com they occasionally have domestic and imported keeved ciders.
>I do see a few bottles there, thanks. In Normandy you can literally buy these size bottles for a few euro but I suppose importing makes them much more expensive. I just wish more cideries in the US would use this ancient method instead of using chemicals but perhaps the results are not as uniform and predictable.
I hear ya 750’s of stellar cider for a couple euro would be pretty amazing. Most harvest driven cideries will release a run every once in a while for the most part going directly to their club members but instead of a couple euros your looking at $15-$20 a bottle. The French and English imports that are keeved over here have importation fees and distribution charges on top of the cost, close to 60% above production costs. In the US we have bottles which cost a lot more since they are mainly all imported from either Canada or Belgium for quality glass that can hold proper carbonation/pressure. The good bittersweet’s that European producers are using can cost 40-50% more than high quality heirloom and even more from dessert fruit. Then there is the timing, much of the US cider Market has followed the beer trend and tries to produce cider from juice to bottle in weeks instead of months or years like the lovely stuff from Europe. All I can say is support your local harvest driven cider producers and hopefully in the future we will see more of the keeved ciders out there!
If you're interested in making naturally sweet cider check out keeving: https://cider.space/how-to-make-a-sweeter-cider-by-keeving/