EdWort’s Apfelwein (Apple Wine)

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This week, I made EdWort’s Apfelwein for the first time. EdWort’s recipe is one of the most popular I’ve ever come across, with over 19,000 gallons brewed by HomeBrewTalk.com users alone. Many different users have tweaked Ed’s recipe, using different yeasts, sugars, and base juices. I changed the recipe to suit what I currently had in my pantry, but I encourage you to try the original recipe before tweaking it too much. Below is EdWort’s original recipe and instructions:

Ingredients

5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives) I use Tree Top Apple Juice
2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

Equipment

5 Gallon Carboy (I use a Better Bottle)
Carboy Cap or Stopper with Airlock
Funnel

Instructions

1. First sanitize the carboy, airlock, funnel, stopper or carboy cap.
2. Open one gallon bottle of apple juice and pour half of it into the carboy using the funnel.
3. Open one bag of Dextrose and carefully add it to the now half full bottle of apple juice. Shake well.
4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3, then go to step 5.
5. Pour in the mixture of Apple Juice and Dextrose from both bottles into the carboy.
6. Add all but 1 quart of remaining 3 gallons of apple juice to the carboy.
7. Open the packet of Montrachet Yeast and pour it into the neck of the funnel.
8. Use the remaining quart of juice to wash down any yeast that sticks. I am able to fit all but 3 ounces of apple juice into a 5 gallon Better Bottle. You may need to be patient to let the foam die down from all shaking and pouring.
9. Put your stopper or carboy cap on with an airlock and fill the airlock with cheap vodka. No bacteria will live in vodka and if you get suckback, you just boosted the abv.

The only things I changed in my version were replacing the dextrose with brown sugar and using Saflager S-23 instead of the Montrachet yeast. I only substituted these two ingredients because it was what I had on hand, so we’ll see how it turns out. I hope you enjoy the video and, until next time, happy brewing!