# Apple Ale



## fivebk (Oct 26, 2016)

HI EVERYONE,

I have been making wine since 2008. I have no experience making beer, but I have been throwing around the idea of making an apple ale. I am going to be getting some fresh apple juice from a local orchard soon. I have tried and enjoyed Redds apple ale. I was wondering if anyone has a good recipe with directions. I have a keg system that I could keep it in.
I would appreciate any help

Thanks. BOB


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## Mismost (Oct 27, 2016)

Bob...I have no idea what Apple Ale is....to me ales are malt based, beer in other words. You're talking about apple juice, therefore I think what you are really talking about is making Apple Cider. If that is not corrrect, trust me, it ain't the first time I was wrong today!

Check out this site...it is a list of Apple Cider Recipes...same site also has a Cider forum with lots of good "how to" reading...most of which you will already know from making wine.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=107152

This recipe was for a Dry English Cider and I made 10 gallons...come to find out....I don't like dry cider all that much! But, my English shooting buddies tell me it is dead on to the stuff they have back home. Cider can be back sweetened like wine...which will make it more like Redds apple "ale".


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## BernardSmith (Oct 27, 2016)

Apple ale is quite easy to make. If you have never made beer before what you might do is simply buy some dry malt extract. The extract will have been processed so that yeast can convert the sugars to alcohol (sugars in grain are too complex for the yeast to ferment until the carbs in the grains have been converted to simpler sugars). Look for an extract that is not too dark or too light. Perhaps an amber. A pound of the extract dissolved in a gallon of water will result in a wort of about 1.045. Not sure if this is necessary but most people use boiling water to make the wort. I suspect because the heat kills souring bacteria that might be in the extract - except that the malt has been exposed to super high temperatures in the extraction process... A word of advice, though : dry malt extract LOVES water and will clump like the dickens in the presence of steam so be prepared to really stir the extract. It will completely dissolve. Don't worry

What you do is then decide how much apple to ale you want. If you want 2:1 then take two gallons of apple juice and 1 gallon of beer wort and mix them together and add either a beer yeast or a wine yeast. If you are looking for a more beery cider then perhaps 1:1 or 1:2. 
What yeast might you use? Your call. You might go for a beer yeast - say Nottingham or Safale US-04 or US-05 or you might go for your favorite wine yeast or 71B. 
Using 1 lb of extract for every gallon of ale and using apple juice will give you a starting gravity of about 1.045 - 1.050 or a potential of close to 6% ABV. That is not a "session ale". (I think Guiness is about 3%). If you are looking for a cider ale that has hops you might look for a liquid malt extract with added hops. Liquid extract has a lower gravity pound for pound (1.036), so you may want about 1.25 lbs for every gallon of wort. 
Good luck!


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## fivebk (Oct 30, 2016)

Thanks for the info

BOB


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## botigol (Nov 3, 2016)

I have followed the recipe in the following link several times with good success. I've used different yeasts and added blackberry puree to one batch; quite flexible:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=117117


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## fivebk (Nov 10, 2016)

Ok, so I decided to use Nottingham yeast in this Ale/Cider batch after talking with a local brew shop. If I start with a SG of 1.045/1.050 using the Nottingham yeast it stands to reason it will ferment to dry. I will then be adding priming sugar and bottle it in beer bottles. I will probably want to sweeten this some so what non-fermentable sugar can I use? Mailto-dextrine? Lactose?

BOB

PS. Sorry for all the questions guys when this isn't really a beer I'm making


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## Elmer (Nov 11, 2016)

fivebk said:


> Ok, so I decided to use Nottingham yeast in this Ale/Cider batch after talking with a local brew shop. If I start with a SG of 1.045/1.050 using the Nottingham yeast it stands to reason it will ferment to dry. I will then be adding priming sugar and bottle it in beer bottles. I will probably want to sweeten this some so what non-fermentable sugar can I use? Mailto-dextrine? Lactose?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The last couple of years I have made cider using notty ale yeast.
It never ferments to dry, in my experience it usually stops around 1.010 to 1.006.
I use prime sugar and bottle condition.
I end up with a very dry- tasty cider.

This year I am going to use US-04, which I have been told leaves a little more fruity flavor


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## botigol (Nov 11, 2016)

The use of non-fermentable sugars seems to be pretty subjective in that from my reading different people pick up different flavors from each of them, which you may or may not find objectionable. Secondarily, I haven't tried Redd's, but have read that it is pretty sweet, so depending on the non-fermentable you choose, it may take a significant amount of it to reach the amount of sweetness that you want.

The easier route would be to use the keg that you had mentioned earlier. Then after fermentation you could add potassium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate and then whichever actual sugar you choose since carbonation would be handled by your kegging system.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 11, 2016)

fivebk said:


> Ok, so I decided to use Nottingham yeast in this Ale/Cider batch after talking with a local brew shop. If I start with a SG of 1.045/1.050 using the Nottingham yeast it stands to reason it will ferment to dry. I will then be adding priming sugar and bottle it in beer bottles. I will probably want to sweeten this some so what non-fermentable sugar can I use? Mailto-dextrine? Lactose?
> 
> BOB
> 
> PS. Sorry for all the questions guys when this isn't really a beer I'm making



Whoa, Nelly! Not sure that it stands to reason that it will ferment dry. You are not fermenting only simple sugars. If you are making an apple ale (whether the key element is the cider or the malt) as long as you have added malted grains or extract there will be enough non fermentables in the malt to provide some sweetness. This is why beer generally finishes sweet (an FG of about 1.015 or thereabouts). Of course , the final gravity will depend on how much must there is to wort. In other words, if you have mixed say 2 gallons of apple juice with 1 gallon of wort then the final gravity might be closer to 1.005 (plus or minus)


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