Choosing a juice?

[TimT]

General rule is: apples that are good for juice and dessert are NOT good for cider. This is because the sugar that tastes so good in the juice or desserts will all disappear in the fermentation.

Traditional cider apples are high in tannins (to add the winey/astringent taste) and have many other flavours as well - they balance out the fruity sweetness of the apple with bitter, tart, and sour flavours. Crab apples are generally used to add tannins if nothing else will do.

Ciders are generally made with lots of different apples as well, to provide a variety of flavours.

So best idea might be to go with a combination of different juices, with some of the less sweet/more tangy and bitter juices used to add flavour. If need be, adding other ingredients like cinnamon or black tea (as suggested above) can bring tannins back to the cider and help give it a tasty balance.

The sugar in store bought juices may be denatured and so easier to ferment but even so allow for a few weeks for the cider to fully ferment out. A month, maybe more.

 

[TimT]

If you wish to crush a few apples to get out their cider qualities, some store-brought apples are good for cider - Pink Ladys, for instance, contain tannins.

 

[Tahoose]

I like ciders as dry as a dead dingo's donger. So I go 20L 100% Apple juice, tsp of yeast nutrient and wyeast 4766.

Just questioning this as I cracked a bottle of my first cider the other day, I used wyeast 4766 and found it not to dry, still with some sweetness.

I thought that the reason you would use this yeast is because it won't go down as low as a champagne or wine yeast for example...

Side note, the recipe was;
1 tin brigalow cider kit
22ltrs Aldi juice
Wyeast 4766
OG - not confident of my original reading (would be high though)
FG 1012
I think it probably about 7% ABV upwards

 

[Airgead]

Any yeast will dry out a cider. Juice is all simple sugars and unless you go over the alcohol tolerance the yeast will just chew right through it.

If a yeast leaves a cider sweet its often because of poor yeast health or low nutrient levels. That sort of thing is unpredictable. One batch can be sweet another completely dry depending on the juice and how the yeast is handled.

I find it better to make sure you have good yeast health and nutrition, make sure it ends fully dry then back sweeten. Gives a more predictable result.

Cheers
dave

 

[Tahoose]

Maybe some of the stuff in the brigalow tin was unfermentable and have left some sugars there?

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Any yeast will dry out a cider. Juice is all simple sugars and unless you go over the alcohol tolerance the yeast will just chew right through it.

If a yeast leaves a cider sweet its often because of poor yeast health or low nutrient levels. That sort of thing is unpredictable. One batch can be sweet another completely dry depending on the juice and how the yeast is handled.

I find it better to make sure you have good yeast health and nutrition, make sure it ends fully dry then back sweeten. Gives a more predictable result.

Cheers
dave


I've found s04 reliably drops out around 1010 even with nutrients and oxygen. I'm not sure id trust it to bottle in glass, but the flocculation wins, kind of like one often sees using it for brewing beer.

 

[Not For Horses]

I've found s04 reliably drops out around 1010 even with nutrients and oxygen. I'm not sure id trust it to bottle in glass, but the flocculation wins, kind of like one often sees using it for brewing beer.

That is very dangerous advice to give.
I've made a number of ciders over the years. All with proper apple juice and most with ale yeasts, so4 in particular is a favourite for cider. They usually take a short amount of time to get to 1010ish and a long time (6 weeks+) to get to 1000.
Be very careful bottling a cider too early. I've made many a good bottle bomb.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Hence why I said I wouldn't put it in bottles?

 

[Not For Horses]

Yeah I know but I just thought that it needed to be extra extra clear.

 

[Sandy35]

Hey guys,
Great info on here. Me and my girlfriend like a cider that is somewhere between dry and sweet. Rekorderlig is just way to sweet for our liking but something like Strongbow to dry (just as examples). I've heard that Lactose adds sweetness to a cider. Firstly, is that correct and approximately how much would you add. I know this is almost like asking the question, "how long is a piece of string", but I guess any guide would be helpful.
I've sourced this juice on special from coles http://tinyurl.com/otq5vgh which I reckon would be pretty amazing. But I would like to retain some of the sweetness so that's why I thought the lactose would be good. My girlfriend and I aren't lactose intolerant, so that won't be an issue.
Any thoughts would be welcomed. Thanks guys
P.S - my first AHB post....have made many beers at home...want to try a cider
Cheers,
Phil

 

[jacknohe]

My nearly 18 year old daughters pestered me to make a Sweet Cider for their upcoming party. It turned out to be a cracker. All the other 18 year olds loved it!!! Here's what I did.

16L of Aldi Apple Juice
1.7L of Goulburn Valley Pear juice (two cans)
SG of 1.043

Fermented it with Cider yeast right down to 1.002.

I added 15L of the fermented juice (I drank the rest) into the keg and back sweetened with 4L Nudie Apple juice which was 1.047 (Total 19L).

So according to my calcs finished product was 1.011 and 4.2% alc.

Totally recommend fermenting with cheap juice and back sweetening with quality juice. It tastes fresh. This one is a little sweet for my tastes but its pretty damn good. Might lower the back sweetening a little. Next time I won't bother with the pear juice and try just fermenting Aldi juice right out and then back sweeten again with Nudie juice.