Cider Recipe

[lobo]

put down my 1st cider today,

9l apple/pear juice
8l apple juice
800g honey
18g cinnamon powder
20g ginger powder
(honey, cinnamon and ginger and yeast nutrient boiled in 2l water)

3L top up water og 1048

22l

nottingham dried yeast

fermenting at 19deg.


any comments? even though it is too late to change anything.

Lobo

 

[barls]

i wouldnt have boiled the honey, if you must add right at the end of the boil.

 

[lobo]

really? too late, it was only a 5min boil. what does it do?

Lobo

 

[kram]

Hey lobo, you probably made a good choice with the Nottingham.

Check the Northern Brewer forums here for an extensive test on yeats/sugars etc with Cider. The Nottingham came out pretty good.

 

[barls]

you loose the aromatics from the honey. you wont have lost the lot just a fair chunk. personally i treat mine with camden tablets.

 

[tcraig20]

Hey lobo, you probably made a good choice with the Nottingham.

Check the Northern Brewer forums here for an extensive test on yeats/sugars etc with Cider. The Nottingham came out pretty good.

Interesting to note how poorly the liquid cider yeast rated. Havent tried nottingham in cider yet - might have to in the next batch.

Just bottled a batch with windsor yeast today - early days but I didnt notice a 'sour' taste from the hydro samples that CvilleKevin mentions - see what happens when it's been in the bottle for a while I guess.

 

[lobo]

thanks kram, i will.
barls, i was thinkin 800g was too much anyway, and the main reason i was putting it in was i thought honey wasnt completely fermentable, so will leave a bit of residual sweetness, well more than strait juice. just noticed the yeast hasnt kicked too much, i put in the same amount of yeast nutrient in the mini boil as i would for my ag beers, maybe i should sprinkle a little dry on the top.

Lobo

 

[lobo]

well, im a bit worried.

this brew has been down now for over 72hrs, with very little activity.

nottingham packet was pitched as per normal, and left at 20deg. 48hrs with no activity saw me pull out a pint of my ipa which is in primary and full of yeast and thrown in. still very little activity, a tiny bit of krausen on top. next to nothing changed in the hydrometer.

is this normal?

i put in 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient with the mini boil of honey and spices.

then sprinkled another teaspoon over it at 24hrs.


anyone have any experience with this? ive never had a beer not kick.


cheers,

Lobo

 

[muckanic]

I have played around with fresh ginger for its amylase content, and have fancied that it acts as a bit of a fungicide. Kava is certainly unfermentable, and the taste is similar, as well as the botany IIRC. 20 g powder in 20 L is quite a bit. I have successfully used up to 40 g fresh in a mash, which isn't quite the same as adding it to the boiler or fermenter.

 

[lobo]

i didnt realise ginger was a bad thing. it is slowly getting there today.

how do they make alcaholic ginger beer?

Lobo

 

[mickoz]

You could always try lactose as an addition to your cider. Roughly 10gms\litre will give a medium sweet cider and double that amount for a sweet cider. I believe lactose is 16% the sweetness of sucrose so you could rough it out with sugar and a cup of water to figure out how sweet you wanted things. Lactose is also a non fermentable so it will remain after the ferment is over.

Mick

Edit - Fixed some typos and explained that lactose doesn't ferment

 

[Flash635]

well, im a bit worried.

this brew has been down now for over 72hrs, with very little activity.

nottingham packet was pitched as per normal, and left at 20deg. 48hrs with no activity saw me pull out a pint of my ipa which is in primary and full of yeast and thrown in. still very little activity, a tiny bit of krausen on top. next to nothing changed in the hydrometer.

is this normal?

i put in 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient with the mini boil of honey and spices.

then sprinkled another teaspoon over it at 24hrs.


anyone have any experience with this? ive never had a beer not kick.


cheers,

Lobo

It is normal for cider to take a long time to kick, but 72 hours seems a bit long. It also takes longer to bottle mature than beer does so be prepared.

If it still hasn't kicked and it's still ok, try a champagne yeast.

 

[Flash635]

I have played around with fresh ginger for its amylase content, and have fancied that it acts as a bit of a fungicide. Kava is certainly unfermentable, and the taste is similar, as well as the botany IIRC. 20 g powder in 20 L is quite a bit. I have successfully used up to 40 g fresh in a mash, which isn't quite the same as adding it to the boiler or fermenter.

I made an alcoholic ginger beer once using only fresh ginger, it didn't interfere with the fermentation.

 

[boingk]

Definite +1 on the champagne yeast, I used one for my shot at cider in one of my first brews...came out well, but with a bit of a mishap...

~20L apple juice [make sure it doesn't have preservatives in it],
2~3kg sugar,
couple cinnamon sticks,
couple split and scraped vanilla beans.

OG was something like 1.085, I bottled at 1.020! Newbie mistake meant I had actual champagne on my hands, and with the plastic bottles I actually got to drink the stuff. Dead set, if you are interested at all have a try at this one - especially if you have champagne bottles on hand. Light bodied, aromatic champers went down well...great stuff, even down to the little bubble trails up the side of the glass. The vanilla beans and cinnamon were defnitely worth it, too.

Just my 2c - boingk