Can you brew a decent cider from cheap reconstituted shop bought juice

[Dave70]

I generally only brew cider seasonally when I can get my hands on boxes of cut priced wind fall and mutated looking fruit a local grower puts aside for me. When I've had a go at using something like Westcliff (Aldi) it turned out mouth puckeringly dry and bland. Is there a trick to using a specific yeast and ferment temperature to get the best results when using off the shelf juice?

 

[bradsbrew]

This yeast was made the best ciders for me.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/58210-bulk-buy-awri-350-yeast/

 

[bevan]

Yob is the man to answer this, he used the Aldi apple and mango juice with some coopers yeast he had. It tasted pretty good!

 

[Matplat]

I read the trick is to add a shot of cordial to your glass before you pour the cider....

 

[Bribie G]

Haven't made cider for a couple of years, it was knocking me around too much.

Aldi cider itself is very dry and could be a bit more appley.
As Matplat says, a good shot of Bickfords Cloudy Apple really pimps it.

Another method, if you are a kegger, is to run the finished dry cider into the keg with an additional 2L of Aldi apple juice. Even at serving temperature the cider will continue to slowly ferment and when it gets a bit dry to taste, just open the keg and pour in a further 2 litres.

It also generates a heap of free gas, I could run my kegmate for months just on cider to serve the beers as well.

Another trick I used was, because there is no protein etc trub in the fermenter, this is one occasion where pitching the next batch onto the yeast cake is perfectly acceptable and the second fermentation will take off far more quickly.

Good yeast: I would start my sequence of fermentations with a Black Rock cider kit and the supplied cider yeast, would do me for about four consecutive batches.

 

[RdeVjun]

100% on Bribie's suggestions, did this recently to good effect, pear juice the winner for the top up. Still dries out eventually, but while it's on song its great

 

[earle]

As Bribie says if you keg just backsweeten in the keg. I use 18L the Aldi apple juice for the base and backsweeten with 2L of Nudi juice. Sometimes add some spices for a spiced cider. Or another time I backsweetened with a 750ml bottle of good quality raspberry cordial and a 750ml bottle of lime cordial.

 

[Dave70]

This yeast was made the best ciders for me.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/58210-bulk-buy-awri-350-yeast/

Do you know if its kinda, sorta like WLP720?
Unfortunately I'm about five years to late for that bulk buy..

 

[bradsbrew]

Do you know if its kinda, sorta like WLP720?
Unfortunately I'm about five years to late for that bulk buy..

No idea. I have some WLP775 on order but intend to back sweeten the keg with apple/pear juice.
Could also try http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=2904

 

[Reman]

I always just use cheap juice for SWMBOs ciders, and to be honest there isn't whole lot of difference I can taste. Last batch was Apple/pear juice with a couple of tins of apricot nector which was really tasty with the nector tarting it up quite nicely.

 

[Blind Dog]

Depends on what you mean by decent. Dessert apples (which tend to be the source of juice) will produce a thin, acidic cider mainly because they lack tannins. A lot of commercial Aus made cider seems to use only dessert apples, so if that's your preference, cheap, preservative free, store juice should be fine.

 

[MichaelM]

I haven't had luck with Coles brand apple juice and a wine yeast Sn9. After 2 weeks at 20c there was virtually no change in gravity. I added some dry brewing yeast and forgot about it for a month. The end rest was something resembling apple cider vinegar.

 

[Dave70]

Depends on what you mean by decent. Dessert apples (which tend to be the source of juice) will produce a thin, acidic cider mainly because they lack tannins. A lot of commercial Aus made cider seems to use only dessert apples, so if that's your preference, cheap, preservative free, store juice should be fine.

Its actually more what she finds decent, which is generally Bilpin cider, likely because its made just up the road and the name sounds familiar. Nice drop, not Dupont Reserve, but not 5 Seeds either. They tell me they use mainly Pink lady and Granny Smiths, so for my part, a trolley of juice, a suitable yeast and a little back sweetening may be just the ticket.

 

[stilvia]

I haven't had luck with Coles brand apple juice and a wine yeast Sn9. After 2 weeks at 20c there was virtually no change in gravity. I added some dry brewing yeast and forgot about it for a month. The end rest was something resembling apple cider vinegar.

Was the juice preservative free?

 

[Bribie G]

If you want a bit more tartness you can also add some malic acid. I believe a lot of comp brewers use it.
Also dont forget the yeast nutrient, a good wine nutrient from a LHBS. Could have been MichaelM's problem.

Ive got a pack of malic that you're welcome to.

 

[Bribie G]

If you want a bit more tartness you can also add some malic acid. I believe a lot of comp brewers use it.
Also dont forget the yeast nutrient, a good wine nutrient from a LHBS. Could have been MichaelM's problem.

Ive got a pack of malic that you're welcome to.

 

[klangers]

22 L of Golden Circle apple juice, and WLP007.

Delightful. Yes it's a little tart but I like that.

EDIT: Also added nutrient, and a solid blast with O2 to kick it off. Fermented very low temperature too.

 

[Bribie G]

Double posting on Android again.

 

[Blind Dog]

If you want a bit more tartness you can also add some malic acid. I believe a lot of comp brewers use it.
Also dont forget the yeast nutrient, a good wine nutrient from a LHBS. Could have been MichaelM's problem.
Ive got a pack of malic that you're welcome to.

I know people do both, but I don't really understand why

Dessert apples are often classified as sharps as they have a decent amount of malic acid with little tannin (e.g. Golden delicious has a malic acid content of 0.45% and tannin of 0.06%, per Long Ashton data making it a mild sharp. Granny Smiths has a higher acid content with similar tannin levels). They're often used in the UK, particularly in the eastern counties, to provide the sharp component of the juice blend. Adding malic acid seems counterintuitive when you're already likely to have it in abundance without any tannins for balance.

Cider makers in the UK and France go to some lengths to reduce the nutrient levels in their juice before fermentation whether by minimising fertiliser use/timing or keeving, to discourage the yeast from fermenting the juice to complete dryness, or at least slowing that process down.

 

[Blind Dog]

Its actually more what she finds decent, which is generally Bilpin cider, likely because its made just up the road and the name sounds familiar. Nice drop, not Dupont Reserve, but not 5 Seeds either. They tell me they use mainly Pink lady and Granny Smiths, so for my part, a trolley of juice, a suitable yeast and a little back sweetening may be just the ticket.

Unless they've changed their recipe, I think they use red delicious as the base with pink lady and Granny Smith in decent quantities (for original) - I have a vague recollection of 50:25:25. It's fresh pressed juice though so hopefully better quality than cheap store bought juice.

As the juice comes in a ready made fermentor, it's fairly easy to experiment with different juices, juice blends, adding nutrients or not, yeast varieties, oaking etc. it's kind of fun, but also what convinced me to plant proper cider apples and perry pears