How to Make Cyser
- Bev
- Aug 28
- 6 min read
You may have made Mead before, but do you know how to make Cyser? Cyser is a fermented drink made with apple juice and honey, and brewed in the same way as Mead.
Table of contents:
What is Cyser?
Cyser is a cross between Cider and Mead, made by fermenting Apple Juice with Honey. It differs from standard Mead which uses water and honey, but the process for making both is the same. It falls into the category of a melomel, ie a mead which is made with fruit, and some people simply call it apple mead. It is believed that the word Cyser is derived from the latin word sicera which means 'strong drink'.
How does Cyser differ from Mead?
As Cyser is made with apple juice rather than water, the two drinks do taste different from each other as you would expect. What’s interesting about using apple juice as the base liquid is that, depending on the juice you use, there may be quite a lot of sugar in it to start with even before you add the honey.
You might imagine that this would make the final drink more alcoholic, as there’s more sugar to turn to alcohol. But since yeasts tend to have a limit to how alcoholic the final wine or mead will be, usually stated on the sachet or packet, it is more likely that there will be residual sugars left over once the yeast has done its work. Which is another way of saying that a cyser made with the same honey and yeast as a mead might turn out to be sweeter in the end.
So your Cyser could have a more rounded taste than a Mead, and a less dry taste than a Cider. I find it quite hard to produce the same drink twice when using home pressed juice and unprocessed honey, as their sugar contents will vary depending on the apples, what the bees foraged on, all sorts. However if you’re using shop bought juice and honey, you are more likely to produce a similar Cyser each time you make it.
That is why it’s helpful to keep notes about the ingredients you used so that, if it’s wonderful, you can replicate it. My (outrageous plug alert) Cider Making Journal is ideal for this purpose.
How long will it be until Cyser is ready to drink?
Theoretically your cyser will be ready to drink about 3 months after it is bottled, plus it will have taken about 3 months to get to the bottling staged before that. So 6 months minimum. In practice the longer you leave cyser to age, the better it will taste.
Tempting as it is therefore open a bottle early on, try to leave it to age for as long as possible. I tend to hijack a bottle and hide it from myself for longer than the rest. Once you’ve tasted a bottle that has been forgotten about for a while, you’ll understand why it’s better to leave it!
You’ll also understand why it’s better to label everything with what is inside and the date you bottled it. I used to think that was just over the top, until I had multiple drinks in backs of cupboards with no indication of how old they were. Or indeed what they were at all… for you think you’ll remember. But I promise you, you won’t.
Can I use shop-bought apple juice to make Cyser?
Yes you can, just as you can use shop bought juice to make cider, so you can use it to make Cyser. As always with homemade drinks, the better the quality of the base ingredients then the better the final result. So if you’re making it with shop bought juice, choose a quality pressed apple juice. Never use ‘juice drinks’ which contain ingredients other than juice in homebrewing, as they generally contain preservatives. Preservatives are designed to stop juice fermenting, which is why they are not suitable to be added to fermented drinks as they are likely to interfere with the process.
Cyser Recipe
This recipe makes around 4.5 litres of Cyser. So it is ideal for making in a standard 4.5 litre demijohn/5 litre bucket, which will ultimately make 6 bottles of Cyser.
Ingredients
4.5 litres of apple juice (if you plan to buy it, ensure that it is preservative free apple juice)
2.5lbs/1.13kg honey
1 lemon, ideally unwaxed, as the whole lemon will be going into your cyser
Mead Yeast Nutrient according to the instructions on the packet for treating 4.5 litres. Or you could add a small handful of raisins
Half a cup/120ml of cold, strong, black tea
1 sachet of Mead Yeast, Mangrove Jack's M05 is great for this, or Lalvin D47 is a good alternative yeast for making Cyser. Using a less specific yeast like this works well if you want to make wine at the same time, as you won’t use the whole sachet for this recipe
1 Campden tablet and/or fermentation stopper (optional)*
wine finings to clear (optional)**
Equipment
A 5 litre food grade bucket and a demijohn (or 2x 5 litre buckets if you want to use buckets throughout
a bored lid that fits both buckets, with grommet
an airlock, plus a bung (either a rubber bung or a cork bung) if your second fermentation vessel is a glass demijohn
a pan
Method
Sterilise all the mead-making equipment. You can leave the bottles and syphon for later.
Scrub the lemon under cold running water.
Put the jar(s) of honey into a pan of warm water to soften, leaving the honey in the jar(s) rather than applying heat directly to it.
Mark the first bucket at the 4.5 litre level.
Pour about 2.5 litres of apple juice into the bucket.
Add the honey to the apple juice and stir until dissolved/mixed in as much as you can.
Cut the lemon into about 8 slices.
Add half the lemon slices, half the raisins (or half the dose of mead yeast nutrient if using) and half the cold tea to the apple juice and honey mixture.
Add your chosen yeast according to the packet instructions.
Put the lid on the bucket, put your finger over the hole and swirl everything around.
Add water to the airlock, fit it to the bucket lid and secure the lid. Leave for 24 hours.
Add the remaining lemon slices, raisins and cold tea to the mix.
Top up to the 4.5 litre mark with apple juice.
Immediately refit the lid and airlock ensuring it is sealed, swirling around again to incorporate the new things you’ve added.
Leave your cyser in a reasonably warm place until fermentation starts. You will know things have begun because the airlock will start bubbling.
Place the bucket out of sunlight at room temperature and leave the cyser to ferment out for 2-3 months.
Rack (syphon) the liquid off from the first bucket into the second sterlised bucket or demijohn, leaving the sediment behind. Top the back up to the 4.5 litre mark (or the shoulders of the demijohn) with a little more apple juice.
Refit the lid and airlock.
Leave for a further 2-3 months. When you are confident fermentation has stopped and the cyser is clear, prepare to bottle.
Bottle and label.
Leave the cyser to mature for at least 3 months. The longer you can leave it, the better it will taste.
*Optional: to be sure fermentation has stopped, you can add a crushed Campden tablet tand fermentation stopper to your finished cyser. I don’t, I just leave it until there’s been no sign of action for ages.
**If the cyser is not yet clear, you could add finings or simply leave it to clear for another few weeks.
Making Cyser - Final Thoughts
Cyser is a lovely drink. If you have a large batch of honey and plan to make more than one demijohn of mead, I highly recommend giving over one demijohn to Cyser to do a ‘compare and contrast’ when they’re ready. Some people find Cyser more to their taste than Mead, though I find them both lovely in their own way.
Want to learn more about homebrewing?
Book Recommendation:
Comments