2nd Cider about to go down

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Deep End

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Well going to put another one down tommorow morning, FV is currently drip drying after a few hours meta bisulphating, and all assorted gear.

Going to be based off a Brigalow pack again. I have the Brigalow concentrate can 4 litres of apple, blackcurrant, raspberry and strawberry juice and 5 litres of apple and blackcurrant juice. I dont imagine that the extra fruit flavours will make a vast taste difference as the quantities are miniscule, but I'm hoping it might make a pretty red or purply coloured brew.

One question I have is; the brigalow can makes 18 litres, would it hurt to top it up to 20 litres or so with the juice instead of just replacing the water with said juice? I'd like to fill up the FV a little more.

Just out of interest I rang the 1800 number on the can today to see if I could find out what type of yeast is in the kit, had a brief conversation with a bloke on the other end of the phone and he said it was a wine type yeast, one other thing he was keen to let me know was that to make sure I bottle it at 1.000 to 1.004 so that it carbonates, apparently it will go down to .990 and if so wont carbonate as well or at all. Handy tip!

I'm thinking make up the kit, top up to 20 litres with juice and use 1.25 kg of Cane Sugar to biff up the booze level a little, got 9 litres of juice to go in with the can so I reckon 7 litres as water replacing body lifter and 2 for volume is a fair deal, any thoughts?

And then time to save up some coins and get me a press and a apple wrecker and head down the huon for some fresh apples and a have a crack at the "real thing". The kits will do me fine till then though, last one I bottled tasted fairly good, pretty good even, straight out of the FV, hope it stays pretty much the same, because it will be a fine drop with bubbles and 20 degrees less temp on it.

Cheers
 
Bottle it when it's stable and finished. If that's .999 then it's .999. It will carbonate fine if you follow the right procedure.
 
Well I just mixed it all up, made it up to 21 litres, got an OG of 1.054, should give it a bit of bang by the time it gets down around 1.000 :drinks:
 
Well bottled this one the other day, I think I'll call it "Punch in the Face, Kiss on the Cheek", its a bit of a mouth full but so is the product.

Had a taste before I bottled and it punched me in the face with a big alco kick and then kissed me on the cheek with a blackcurrant finish.

I like its potential.

Its going to be around 7.4% on the hangover scale and looks to be another nice drop, got an apple and pear bubbling away at the moment SG was 1050, which I think the pear juice may have something to do with.

Dont expect the FG to be as low as previous brews, due to unfermentables in the pear juice, but will be an interesting brew. It looks like liquid gold in the FV
 
Its drinking well right now and its still young, you"ll like it i reckon
 
I'm loving these ciders, Judging by all the cider threads popping up lately I can see a time when this will become the Aussie Ciderist Forum with a "not cider brewing" subforum for BIAB and HERMS etc :p

My latest keg has just blown, awa' into the garage to fill the next one. On topic - excellent cider weather coming up, ambient temperature brewing all the way around here :super:
 
To further add to my last reply, I seriously have to get some more juice and kits, and get it going, I've only got about 60 bottles of cider left!! And I'm quickly developing the taste for it I can tell you. Might have to go shopping tommorow and see what other flavours and tastes I can come up with, although plain old apple is pretty damn tasty after a few months in the bottle, and the black currant ones a cracker too.
 
I'm hearing ya Bribie, its just too easy to get into. Never really got used to home made beer, not knocking it, and the kit n kilo has produced a few fine ales over the years. But home made cider creams anything I've ever paid good money for, where as I cant say the same for too many of my home made beers. Although I'm sure the grain crushers, mashers and boilers have greater success, but that just sounds like hard work to me.
 
Deep End said:
I'm hearing ya Bribie, its just too easy to get into. Never really got used to home made beer, not knocking it, and the kit n kilo has produced a few fine ales over the years. But home made cider creams anything I've ever paid good money for, where as I cant say the same for too many of my home made beers. Although I'm sure the grain crushers, mashers and boilers have greater success, but that just sounds like hard work to me.
Just you wait till the bug really bites and you start picking, crushing and juicing your own apples (and even growing them). Makes AG brewing look like a picnic.

Cheers
Dave
 
Stealing them is even more exciting. Ask any boy who grew up in the UK before Nintendo arrived.
 
Ahh... you see, unlike the lower orders, I have never had to resort to outright criminality to make my cider. I get given all my cider apples for free because I'm such a splendid chap. And because my missus makes a really nice quince jam that we trade.
 
Deep End said:
Well I just mixed it all up, made it up to 21 litres, got an OG of 1.054, should give it a bit of bang by the time it gets down around 1.000 :drinks:
Mate, can i get you exactly what you put in your's, i'd like to give it a shot
 
Just put down my latest today. Washed out the keg from the brew that blew last night, kegged the one waiting in the FV and had the new one away in around 20 mins all up. Being scrumpy it will be drinkable in an hour or so when the kegmate drags it down to 8 degrees.

12L of Coles Apple and 6L of Apple Blackcurrant, 750 of white sugar and just poured and stirred onto the yeastcake (from Black Rock). Compared to beer the FV contains only clean yeast which I stir up with a sterile spoon with the first 3L of juice, add sugar and dissolve, then pour the rest of the juice in and put the lid on. My cider FV is exactly 20L from BCF. Not cheap but brilliant for the job in hand as no krausen and minimal headspace.

cider FV.jpg

OOps forgot to add nutrient, will do in the morning when I give it an aerate.
 
Widowmaker, I used a Brigalow cider kit, 4 litres of "berri", i think, apple, raspberry, strawberry and blackcurrant juice, 5 litres of just juice apple and blackcurrant juice (these were what was on special at the time). I used 8L of water to make up the kit, with 1.25kg of sugar and the juice, can yeast and nutrient and let her do its thing.
 
Thanks deepend, i laid down 6 days ago a 12 liters of aldi apple juice 11 liters of water and a brigalow kit with 500grams of dextrose. Strated at a SG of 1450 and it's down too 1050 so it seems to be going good
 
Bribie G said:
Compared to beer the FV contains only clean yeast
And dead yeast and lazy yeast.
 
Hey guys just wanted to ask a question in regards to bottling a cider with potential high alc content.

Just started my first cider after reading some posts on this thread.

Ingredients:
Brigalow cider can
Lalvin ec 1118 yeast and brigalow nutrient
6 liters apple
4.8 liters apple/ black current
Roughly 8 liters of water to bring it up to the 20 liter mark.
500g lactose

My OG was 1.068.
Just wondering if it does ferment down to say about 1.000 will this be a problem if I'm using bottle conditioning?
Will I get bottle bombs?
Or am I being paranoid?
Thanks
 
Your being paranoid, heheh, potential alcohol has nothing to do with bottles exploding.

As long as the fermentation goes ahead and you end up with a stable gravity reading over a few days, in the region of 1.000 it will be fine. Bottle bombs are caused by bottling before fermentation is complete; your brew still has some sugars left in it, then you carb it up with more sugar, you end up with geysers or bombs.

So just make sure your fermentation is complete, by taking gravity readings over the course of a few days when you think it has finished, if you get 1.001, 1.001, 1.001 over three days it is safe to assume fermentation is complete, carb and bottle away.

If the readings are higher and slowly dropping over the course of the few days the brew is still working, give it a few more days and try again. I've got a cider thats been going for 22 days or so, was 1.006 two days ago, 1.002 yesterday, so it still has a bit to go, not much, but I imagine it will be bottled by the weekend.

Hope that helps

Mick
 
Haha thanks deep end. I was just abit paranoid never having brewed something with such a high OG. Looking forward to the end result.
Never done a cider before so looking forward to it.
 
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