Apple Beer

[sundontlie]

I can't remember - I may have asked this question before - but has anyone here ever brewed an apple beer? and if so/not what would be the recommended process? I can think of about a million different ways to go about it.. I want it to be a nice light drinkable beer with just enough of the right malty backbone to carry the apple flavor. Do I brew a hard cider and a beer and combine them in a secondary? do i brew a beer and add plain cider after 5 days of fermentation to kick up another vigorous fermentation? Is a standard beer yeast ok to use or should I use a special type or two different kinds? would it be ok to boil some cider with the wort? what does everyone think? your .5 cents is greatly appreciated..

[beerking]

Sun,
I have made many fruit beers, and even a cider or two (plus a couple of cysers, mead with apple juice), but I have never contemplated an apple beer.
First, I would use beer yeast. You want a beer with apple character, and if you use a different yeast, you might lose some beer character. I suggest an estery ale yeast, such as London or British Ale.
Second, whenever I use fruit, my standard for beer is ~1# per gallon (up to 2# per gallon for mead). I always use real fruit, not juice in my beers. I recommend adding it to the secondary (but early). 5 days into ferment should be good.
If you choose juice, make sure you are getting pure juice that has not had anything added. Corn syrup is bad enough, but many juices have chemicals added (potassium sorbate for one) to kill yeast and prevent fermentation! :eek:
Finally, I always avoid boiling fruit, because I don't want to set the pectin and produce alcoholic jello (as fun as that might sound). If you heat it, I recommend adding pectic enzyme.

[Fweezle]

One of our first beers was an experimental apple ale that turned out exquisite. Ours was heavier than what you want to brew so our recipe wouldn't fit your style but I will tell you that we used 4 quarts of organic pure apple cider, not juice and boiled in 2 1/2 - 3 gallons of water (reduced to a little over a half), amber malt extract, brown and amber malt grains for steeping, cinnamon sticks, brown Belgium sugar candy, brown sugar, and some hops (forgive me I don't have the recipe present so I don't know how much or what type) and we used Wylabs Super Ale yeast. We got that beast to right about 10-11% ABV (we're sure we can get more, we think the yeast petered out too soon so we might try it again and finish it with another strain). It can be done, but you'll need to play around with a recipe for the style you want to brew and go for it.