Cyser (Apple & Honey)

You will need

• Apples, or fresh-pressed apple juiceabout 4 L juice
• Honey0.8 kg
• Pectic enzymeper dose
• Staggered nutrientas for mead
• Wine/cider yeast1 sachet

Picking it at the right moment

• Apple

  Ripe when the fruit parts from the tree with a gentle upward twist rather than a pull, and the pips inside have turned brown.

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise. A cyser is the old marriage of cider and mead — apple juice fermented with honey instead of, or as well as, its own sugar.

2. 2

   Press the apples for juice (or use good cloudy apple juice); warm the honey gently into a little of it — never boil honey, it drives off the aroma — and combine.

3. 3

   Add pectic enzyme when cool; take a reading, about 1.090 with the honey added.

4. 4

   Pitch the yeast and give the STAGGERED nutrient a mead needs — honey is nitrogen-poor, so feed the yeast in three small doses over the first week or it will finish harsh.

5. 5

   Ferment out, rack, and age at least six months — a cyser is unremarkable young and lovely given time.

6. 6

   A soft, apple-and-honey wine that teaches how the two are balanced by quantity.