Beer Forum

So I have about 4 gallons of a back sweetend mulled cider I made for Christmas last year. Actually I feel like I added too much spice. It was my first try at cider. Still turned out pretty good. I was considering making a mead to blend this with to make something new for this year. I specifically had in mind something similar to Kurt's apple pie from moonlight. I seem to remember an episode of the session where they talked w Michael about it and I thought they gave a recipe, but I can't seem to find it. Any idea what episode this was? Any ideas on a recipe that I could blend with this cider that I have, or have a recipe for Kurt's? Thanks for the help!

From what I remember they talk about it at length but they never give the recipe. It is his best seller, so he might be holding back that information but it never hurts to ask.

He gives it on one of the Beersmith podcasts. It was pretty straightforward as I recall.

You can make your basic cyser recipe and add a vanilla bean and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon after fermentation has completed.

For the vanilla, simply chop the bean into 4 or 5 pieces and throw them into the carboy in secondary.
With the cinnamon, you can use your run of the mill cinnamon, but the real vietnamese cinnamon would be even better. You can use a bit more of the VN cinnamon as well since it is a much smoother toned down flavor. Grind them up or buy in powdered form. Wouldn't use more than a tblsp per 5 gallons. Throw into secondary as well.

Rerack once desired level of vanilla and cinnamon is reached.

Kurts apple pie is pretty sweet, so if you're shooting for that level of sweetness, I would suggest using cider with a decent acidity level to better balance the final product. No water into the must either, use all cider.

You can get great results with 71B, but if you feel like getting experimental, try splitting the batch and hitting one of them with D47. It can really bring out the apple flavor you get post fermentation!

Side note: you can source awesome quality madagascar bourbon vanilla beans AND vietnamese cinnamon on eBay for ridiculously low prices. Just make sure to buy from a reputable seller with excellent ratings.

Cheers! And keep us posted !

I, too, am looking for the episode where michael fairbrother talks about making kurt's apple pie. Has anyone had luck in locating this episode? the guy is on the show so much it's damn near impossible to search through the episodes looking for that particular one.