Apricot.... Er... Cider?

[Tripsky]

Hi all,

so I was waltzing around the shop the other day and they had a massive juice sale - and sitting on the shelf was massive bottles of preservative free apricot juice. so I grabbed about 5L worth with the intent to brew some sort of apricot cider.

that's the plan anyway. has anyone here attempted this? advice?

some things to note - on closer inspection the juice is actually fruit drink! damn them! I had a look at the ingredients and it's mostly apple juice anyway.

so, i'm looking for advice on what yeast to use, when to bottle ... pretty much everything. I'm pretty new to brewing (brewing successfully, at least) so any tips would be welcome. best case scenario, i'd be looking for an end result something with a cider type feel, or alternatively something heavier, like a mead, that can be mixed with a bit of soda water or some such. you know, for the ladies. more on the sweet side than dry would be the preference as well.

cheers!

 

[Bribie G]

I would go a champagne / sparkly yeast and do a brew to about cask wine strength, and get some yeast nutrient from the LHBS. Do a hydro check with a sample to see what OG and how much sugar to add, then do the simple calc for alcohol yield, assuming that it's going to ferment out quite low gravity. It shouldn't take more than say 3 weeks to ferment out then maybe try lagering it in a cube in the fridge for another couple of weeks and bottle in PET. I've done something fairly similar with ginger beer and it turned out drinkable.
The thing about apricots is :

<historical quite useless information>

In the UK up until they joined the EU, the duty on wine imports was savage and because the UK had no wine industry back then, it was actually cost effective for a couple of companies to import concentrated grape and fruit juices and produce ports, sherries etc in the UK itself. Anyone of an age who lived in the UK will remember brands such as VP (volcanic power ) and QC (Quality counts) ports, sherries and boom-tish apricot wine. Far cheaper than imported wines and the apricot was a huge favourite especially with students - you could take your own bottle and get it refilled from the barrel at the off licence.

<end of quite useless info>

I'd go for it, but if you are looking for a sweet version you would need to really up the sugar content and would be looking at an extended process compared to a dry version. My buddy round the corner made a nicely sweet cider by just kegging it off before it attenuated, no problems with gas pressure as he can bleed excess. This could be an option if you keg.

 

[dent]

I have brewed an apricot ..something.. from fresh whole apricots ( relatives have trees and we were delivered an excess ).

Basically just squeezed out the pips, and put the fruit in a blender. Used a few kilos. Diluted somewhat and added about 1.5 kilos of sugar since the apricots themselves didn't have a lot of fermentables.

Put all this in the kettle diluted to 23l or so and boiled long enough to ensure santiation. Cooled and pitched on some S-05 sludge from another brew.

I was planning on adding some lime cordial or something to add sugar post-ferment, to add to the keg. However the fiance disagreed, so it come out quite tart, but not without a tiny bit of residual sweetness. She actually liked it and drank most of the keg, I didn't care for it much myself. With the blended pulp mixed in it was very sludgy at the start, almost like a frozen coke kind of texture. This thinned out over time, I guess the sludge getting removed from the bottom of the keg.

It wasn't terrible, and I guess for the effort required it wasn't a failure, but I was pretty eager after a few weeks to get that apricot keg out of the fridge so I could fill it with real beer. Someone who likes apricots might enjoy it, maybe some other ingredients could be added to make it more interesting.

 

[Tripsky]

hey guys, cheers for the quick responses. should probably give some details as to what gear i have.

at the moment i'm using 2 x 5L demijohns. one's got brewer pete's JAO mead happily bubbling away in it and the other awaits my apricot brew. i've got a 23L brew tub as well, but want to do a few trial runs before i invest into that. besides that i pretty much have a bottle capper and a hydrometer. so as you can see i don't have an extensive brew set up yet, thus keg options are out at the moment.

bribieG - the cask wine concept sounds good to me. now i said i was newish to brewing (my last attempts were years ago and was just the standard add water larger kit), so a lot of what you said went zooming over my head. will have to do a bit more research.i would be chasing the sweeter version, though. not too hard without a keg?

also, any ideas for things to throw in to add a bit of something special to the brew?

 

[Steve]

Mate grab yourself some oztops from your lhbs:

http://www.oztops.com.au/

Just add yeast supplied, put on the oztops lid that fits the bottles you bought and drink it in a weeks time! No dicking around with demijohns, bottling etc etc.

Cheers
Steve

 

[pk.sax]

Just check the SG of that bottle of fruit drink before you go ahead with it. Fruit drink is mostly water too, so sugar concentration could be a bit low. Check on the label. I think normal apple juice is ~ 10-15g/100ml of sugar. If yours is too thin, you'd need to add. Demijohn with bung and airlock will do just fine for you no need to go spending more on equip when you already have that.

 

[SuiCIDER]

I could almost guarantee you that the apricot flavour will ferment out. I'd either buy another bottle, or leave one left over to backsweeten with.

 

[Tripsky]

again, all great advice! i definitely want some apricot overtones when my brew is being consumed - so thanks to suicider for that tip.

as for using oztops, although i realise i'm just doing a glorified version of the same thing, i can't escape the charm of the demijohn. wish i had have known about them in school, though. plus this is all my experimental phase, for something a bit more interesting than kit beers - but i want it to actually work, too, so trying to keep it as simple as possible. when i get a bit more confident i'll start brewing from all natural ingredients. very jealous of dent's work.

the juice (drink) i'm using has 13.4g per 100ml, so that should be fine without adding sugar, yeah? if anything i might add some honey - unless someone here advises against it. not really sure yet as to how different sugars effect brew taste. but i will throw in some spices i do believe.

thanks again for all the advice, very welcome to a new brewer like myself. sadly the apricot brew thing had to go on the backburner because my other demijohn now has an apple/mango cider in it which is smelling great. but once that is out and bottled the apricot is going in for sure!