# Scrumpy, Baby!



## KenJohnson (30/3/11)

Hey guys,

so im making an experimental cider/scrumpy using nothing but apple juice and wild yeast. 
The juice is Beechworth- Just apple juice, from the organic shop nearby. for the yeast I used organic apple peels in apple juice, made a few batches and waited a week. some smelled yuck, and one smelled really nice and cidery. so im gonna use that one 

did a hydrometer reading, which was 1055


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## KenJohnson (31/3/11)

Its been one day, and there's a nice foamy head on top. so id better keep it nice and cool, darn crazy brisbane weather!


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## Milky11111 (31/3/11)

I'd love to hear how this works out, I'm looking to do a cider in the "not-so-distant" future and cultivating a wild yeast to use sounds intriguing. Hope it goes well! :beer:


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## InCider (31/3/11)

Sounds awesome Ken! :icon_cheers:


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## Punkal (31/3/11)

Nice... I like how you have cultured some wild yeast... You will have to collect some so you can reuse the little buggers, especially if they do there job well...


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## SuiCIDER (1/4/11)

Traditional scrumpy has raw meat in it. Just sayin'.


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## hsb (1/4/11)

:huh: What?


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## Airgead (1/4/11)

S'true... some old recipes for scrumpy had a piece of raw meat added to the juice to assist fermentation. So did a lot of really old ale recipes.

The thinking is that the meat acts as a yeast nutrient (proteins, amino acids etc etc) which for a cider could be quite important as they are often low in nutrients.

Nice robust fermentation but I'm not sure how it would affect the taste...

Cheers
Dave


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## Malted (1/4/11)

Airgead said:


> S'true... some old recipes for scrumpy had a piece of raw meat added
> Nice robust fermentation but I'm not sure how it would affect the taste...




Probably could beef up the flavour!


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## hsb (1/4/11)

I've seen a fair few Scrumpy setups in Somerset and they weren't of the meaty variety, just apples, oak presses and flies - maybe the flies substitute for the meat round shepton 'way.
There seemed to be more than a few nutrients floating around for sure, sounds like an old country tale to put the city folk off, or sell a few extra sides of ham - but i'm sure it's all gone in one way or another over the ages.


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## manticle (1/4/11)

According to Annie Proux it is an old method for kicking off a stuck fermentation, particularly when wild yeasts are relied upon for fermentation and may move very slowly.

She doesn't recommend it.


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## hsb (1/4/11)

Interesting stuff, learn something new every day on here. A little snippet about it here:



> Fermentation in the past was a haphazard affair because no one knew how to control the wild yeasts properly. Often a leg of mutton was thrown into the barrel, or sometimes the cock's throat was slit and blood was poured in! It was said that no traces of meat or bone remained when the barrel was emptied however. It is also true, that rats who drank from the froth at the top of a fermenting barrel often got drunk and fell in.



The cider presses I've seen have been basic as, just wooden presses, a gutter and a barrel. No sign of real temperature control for the ferment, just seasonal variation I guess and definitely no stainless bling! 

Good luck with that wild yeast KJ, you takes your chances with that.


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## KenJohnson (1/4/11)

I know, the wild yeast is a bit of gamble but if it turns out ok, i'll resuse it for sure  raw meat? i think i'll stick with regular yeast nutrient haha. ah experimental brewing, its the best sort


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## Silo Ted (1/4/11)

Nice work, love your approach. I have been toying with the idea of using wildharvested sourdough in a brew bittered by local plants. Your little experiment reminds me that I should pull my finger out and get started. 

Hope you keep this thread updated with the progress.


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## KenJohnson (2/4/11)

I got the technique from a video where this English guy shows you how to do it... now where is that video? 
 
and part 2 


its a pretty good way to lower the chance of getting a crap strain of wild yeast


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## KenJohnson (14/4/11)

Scrumpy has been fermenting for 15 days now. the bubbles have slowed down to about 1-2 per minute. So the question is, should I rack it or leave it for longer? If I do rack, should i top up with more juice? OR should i just take a gravity reading, wait a few days and take another, then bottle etc.
probly dumb questions, but it just seems wrong to leave it in Primary for more then 2 weeks. So what do you all reckon?


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## Feldon (14/4/11)

KenJohnson said:


> Scrumpy has been fermenting for 15 days now. the bubbles have slowed down to about 1-2 per minute. So the question is, should I rack it or leave it for longer? If I do rack, should i top up with more juice? OR should i just take a gravity reading, wait a few days and take another, then bottle etc.
> probly dumb questions, but it just seems wrong to leave it in Primary for more then 2 weeks. So what do you all reckon?




Time to chuck in that leg of pork


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## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (14/4/11)

KenJohnson said:


> Scrumpy has been fermenting for 15 days now. the bubbles have slowed down to about 1-2 per minute. So the question is, should I rack it or leave it for longer? If I do rack, should i top up with more juice? OR should i just take a gravity reading, wait a few days and take another, then bottle etc.
> probly dumb questions, but it just seems wrong to leave it in Primary for more then 2 weeks. So what do you all reckon?



Take a couple of gravity readings. Say every couple of days, if the readings are all the same bottle!

Out of curiosity..... What temp did you brew at? and what does the hydro sample taste like?

Also I wouldn't rack and add more juice, this will make the brew take longer to ferment.

1 more thing....... Never having done a scrumpy or anything like it, the scrumpys ive seen in tv shows  have all been cloudy as all buggery! So i have no idea why racking to secondary would be beneficial.


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## KenJohnson (14/4/11)

thnks guys  ok i'll just take some readings and see how its actually going. I know the airlock isnt a true guage of the fermentation, so i'll do that tomorrow and have a little taste of course 

temp was around 20 degrees, give or take.


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## manticle (14/4/11)

_WALLACE_ said:


> Take a couple of gravity readings. Say every couple of days, if the readings are all the same bottle!
> 
> Out of curiosity..... What temp did you brew at? and what does the hydro sample taste like?
> 
> ...



It's not beer Wallace. Naturally fermented cider can take a very long time and can stall so the couple of day reading thing doesn't apply here. Racking to secondary is for maturation and maturation happens better in bulk volume.

Ken: racking to secondary is fine for this kind of beverage. Leaving it for a couple of weeks in primary won't do any harm though. I'd rack when your SG is around 3/4 the way to your expected finish. Forget counting bubbles. Some more fresh yeast will grow but you'll take it off the old dead cells.

If you do rack then you do want to minimise headspace so adding juice isn't crazy - however you will be kicking of ferment agan. Depending on how much headspace is there, you can top with cooled, boiled water or simply put some sanitised marbles in the vessel to raise the level


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## Lord Raja Goomba I (14/4/11)

+1 - cider takes longer than beer, trust me. And appears to need more priming sugar to get fizz. I'm not sure why, but mine ended up with lower carb levels than beer.

Having said that, my mum likes it less fizzy and she is the main consumer. She'd drink most blokes under the table, despite being only 5'1". She polishes it off for me, all good. When I get it right, I'll neglect to tell her, 'tis all.

Cheers,

Goomba


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## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (14/4/11)

manticle said:


> It's not beer Wallace. Naturally fermented cider can take a very long time and can stall so the couple of day reading thing doesn't apply here. Racking to secondary is for maturation and maturation happens better in bulk volume.



No pun intended here manticle, but thanks for clearing the racking to secondary thing up for me, (ur right i was going from beer experience)


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## KenJohnson (15/4/11)

thanks guys, that clears things up a bit. took a gravity reading today, which was 1004. the original gravity was 1055. 
@Manticle, that marble idea is pretty cool, you learn a new thing everyday


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## manticle (15/4/11)

1004 is pretty close. If you intend to age for a month or more then I'd rack now. If you only intend a few weeks maturation then let it finish, leave a week then put into cold storage for as long as you like.

Either way, cold storage once finished will help things along and reduce chances of infection etc.


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## KenJohnson (27/4/11)

well i bottled it on sunday, and I also topped it up with some more apple juice before bottling, for priming purposes. I know carbonating is departing a bit from the Scrumpy theme, but oh well  

i just took a gravity reading of the juice, and figured out how many ml id need to get the priming sugars right. it ended up being about a cup of juice. i added this but it was still under the 4.5 L mark, so I added a bit of water too. then bottled. 

I used these flip top bottles which seem to be working fine, except for 1 bottle which leaked. on further investigation it has a small crack near the bottom. i looked at all the others and they're fine, just must have gotten one dud bottle. anyway i'll just wait a couple more days and then chuck them in the fridge for a bit


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## 431neb (4/11/12)

Been reading a fair bit about cider and scrumpy and have decided today is "D" day for "Ben's Berry Nice Cider". Early crow on the nice cider I know - it'll probably taste like shit.

I'm looking to stay simple and have taken the advice of various members and bought 20l of Aldi juice. It's all apple except two, 2L bottles - one cranberry "juice" and one apple and blackcurrant juice. The cranberry is a drink made from concentrate. All have no preservatives.

The vessels are two Bunnings cubes of 15 l capacity each and I'll be putting 10l in each. They fit snugly into one of my eskies (chilly bin / cooler - whatever) so I can keep the temp hovering around 18 degrees. On the topic of the vessel, I can't easily fit an airlock so I'm thinking of using a trick I employed on a fermenter when the grommet pushed into the brew whereby I simply sticky taped over the hole and pit a pin hole in it. That'll be Ok if the cider doesn't throw a massive krausen in which case I'll have to jury rig an improvised overflow hose. I think I will prepare the overflow hoses in advance. Anyone used micro-irrigation hose for this purpose before? I have some already. I hope it doesn't block up with krud. Would it be too rough and ready to leave the lids on the jerries cracked open slightly and let the shit come out of there? I could spray with starsan every now and then.... I know it hasn't happened yet and I'm already cutting corners....

The yeast is leftover Coopers ale yeast from kits that I have kick started overnight in a weak sugar solution.I'm not using any nutrient as I won't be sorry if it does not ferment out fully. Indeed I will probably bottle early with carbonation drops and throw the whole lot in the fridge as soon as an appropriate carbonation level has been reached. 

So as you can see , I'm not aiming for anything complex , just some alcoholic apple juice that'll take the edge off at the end of a hot day, that an uneducated palate can enjoy.

My last cider was a Morgans(?) kit in the squishy bag that was a recommended as a Magners clone. It went like hot-cakes amongst our friends but I thought it far too sweet and would recommend that the "apple cider flavour" not be included as it is really just a sachet of chemicals to boost the sweetness. 

Having said that I would not rule out sweetening with Stevia if I could source something a little more natural than Potassium whatever it was in the sachet... Back sweetening will be a something I'll resort to if I mis-time something and it's too dry to swill.

Also plan to sanitise some of the old bottles and bottle some of my jungle juice as a scrumpy. If needed I can carbonate in the soda-stream as I don't do kegs. Incidentally I just scored two kegs from my scrap-metal man. Happy days. Just have to decide on what to do with them. Keg or BIAB?


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## pk.sax (4/11/12)

Just leave the cap on not tight and you'll be fine.

Or, put glad wrap in place of the cap and rubber band that for the first couple of active weeks anyway. Then again, cap itself is fine except if it builds up pressure inside from one done tighter than you thought it's a PITA to take off.

Re nutrient, well, stressed out yeast fart. Pretty badly in the case of cider. Chuck a few raisins in there mate.

Good luck with your jungle grenades anyway, don't pop anyone's eye(s).


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## 431neb (4/11/12)

Hopefully my icy cold bombs don't last long enough to detonate!


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## 431neb (4/11/12)

practicalfool said:


> Re nutrient, well, stressed out yeast fart. Pretty badly in the case of cider. Chuck a few raisins in there mate.



On the topic of nutrient. I have read about sulphur smells etc and the sultana thing is something I considered but I opted to skip it because I thought that the blueberry and cranberry might bring enough to keep 'em from making any really feral smells. What do you think practicalfool?

Also , has anyone carbonated in the juice bottles themselves? I know they are not meant to hold pressure but I wondered if they might be capable of doing the job anyway. I really don't think this lot will last long so they would only have to function until it was carbed and then they would get nailed.

Thanks in advance.


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## pk.sax (4/11/12)

First, sulphur smells, imo, they dissipate quite quickly in the glass. Then again, I don't usually make a cider from long life apple juice. Cloudy juice is my choice.

Second, carbonating in a juice bottle is easy, so is fermenting in one. What is the difference between a bottle and a cube apart from type of plastic?! Heaps of threads and the topic has been beaten to death. It's a quick way to make it, bottle it and carb up. Not ideal for long term storage.


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## 431neb (11/11/12)

431neb said:


> Been reading a fair bit about cider and scrumpy and have decided today is "D" day for "Ben's Berry Nice Cider". Early crow on the nice cider I know - it'll probably taste like shit.
> 
> I'm looking to stay simple and have taken the advice of various members and bought 20l of Aldi juice. It's all apple except two, 2L bottles - one cranberry "juice" and one apple and blackcurrant juice. The cranberry is a drink made from concentrate. All have no preservatives.
> 
> ...






Just a cut and paste from another thread but as I started rambling here I thought it relevant.

My experience thus-far.



2 15L Square cubes from Bunnings ( they fit in my esky).16 L Aldi apple juice2L Aldi cranberry juice.2L Aldi apple and black currant.Coopers leftover yeast. Ale yeast I suppose.

No nutrient.

Forgot the gravity so have assumed about 1.045 from my reading.Pitched my yeast starter after mixing and splitting the mix between the two cubes at 10L each.

Both formed a greasy looking pastel purple krausen. Weird after beer. This is my first "cider". -_ edit- technically my second but the first one that is not a kit.

After 6 days the krausen started to drop away.

I should note her that the temp of the wort(?) was maintained at about 16 to 18 degrees after pitching into room temp juice.
Yesterday I siphoned(no taps on these suckers or hey don't fit into esky) one cube into the original Aldi bottles. The hydro reading was 1.016. It's sweet and tastes good, cloudy but clearing I think. Tat will put 'em at about 4.5% I think.

I'm leaving the bottles at ambient temps to carb a little then I'll store in the fridge. I also capped some in stubbies with a carbonation drop each and I'll keep a very close eye on them and refrigerate as soon as they reach a level I'm happy with.

I'm not going to store any of these they are for quaffing.

10 L remains in a cube to clear some more. Maybe do a dry cider carbonate and backsweeten if needed.

It's clear that this will be a workable drink for Summer.

There you have it . Very rough and ready but maybe enough to help others decide what to do._


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