Cidery Fun

[Synthetase]

Hey all.

In the past I've made a few ciders using preservative-free apple juice and a touch of lactose. They usually go down fairly well, especially if they're six months in the bottle. Obviously they are a bit one-dimensional and lacking in the real apple flavour department. I can't really use real apples to improve this, so I'm stuck with using the juice of apples that are presumably (like table grapes) varieties bred specifically for eating or juicing and not for fermenting and are therefore likely to have a much higher water to flavour ratio.

So I thought I might boil down four to five litres of juice into a paste and add that to ~20 litres of untreated juice, add a couple of cloves, a stick of cinnamon and ferment it out with Wyeast 1469 for some estery goodness.

Has anyone else done something similar? Any suggestions/comments?

 

[pk.sax]

I absolutely fail to see why you have to complicate home made cider making that much when it can be done so so simple by fermenting in the bottle...

Even a majority of commercial ciders (yes, even bulmers/magners) are kinda boring.... What makes brewers think cider can be handled just the same as beer!! Just don't let it ferment dry if you want to have a flavoursome cider from preservative free long life juice. Trying to trick Long life apple juice into rich dry cider is a waste of time. It tastes better if arrested prior to fully fermenting it, and then again, aging doesn't help it a lot.

If you do want to make dry cider that can be bottled and aged, use a more complex juice like cloudy apple. Add cloves to that, goes well The cloudy stuff actually benefits from aging.

/end rant ... enjoy your cider

PS: I hope someone comes along and explains the chemistry behind this... (I haven't bothered beyond the rudimentary)

 

[chantele]

whats the best juice to ferment. In the bottle you say. sounds easy. is it or are there some trickes i should be aware off
tia
chantele

 

[Airgead]

whats the best juice to ferment. In the bottle you say. sounds easy. is it or are there some trickes i should be aware off
tia
chantele

The absolute best juice to ferment is a freshly pressed mix of bittersweet and bittertart cider apples. Since that's very hard to get hold of we have to make do with substitutes. I make my ciders from a mix of Jonathan and granny smith apples. Others use shop bought juice.

If you go for shop bought juice, make sure its preservative free. Clear shop bought juice is pretty bland for cider making. The cloudy apple will have extra nutrients and some extra flavour components from the apple pulp that help a bit. Generally though any shop bought juice will make an OK (but not spectacular) cider. Adding some acid and tannin to add balance helps a lot. The lack of acid and tanin is why ciders from shop bought juice are often bland. Keeping them sweet does make them seem a bit more flavourful but really all you are getting is sweet, not extra apple flavour.

Generally, ciders finish dry unless you do something special to them to stop fermentation early. Choice of juice really doesn't matter... all apple juice will ferment out dry as its all simple sugars.

Cheers
Dave

 

[manticle]

I absolutely fail to see why you have to complicate home made cider making that much when it can be done so so simple by fermenting in the bottle...

You can get beautifully complex ciders but fermenting as quickly as possible in a bottle then wacking in the fridge to stall ferment is not one of them. Bulmers are also not a good example of a good complex cider. Refreshing and alcoholic - yes.

However Synthetase, cooking apple may give your cider a stewed apple flavour. I think buying as many different blends of quality juice as you can, using a good yeast at low temps and aging/maturing well will give you a good complexity. While using proper bred cider apples/juice is probably optimum, if you aim for a balance of tart, sweet, bitter and tannic you will approach some of the great ciders.

Until you can get/build a press and scratter, it's probably your best option. Sticking a bottle of half fermented juice in the fridge is not.

Chantele - you can ferment any preservative free juice easily by adding yeast, shaking and leaving at basic room temp with the lid turned to halfway on. Pour out one half cup of juice before you begin to leave some headspace. There are ways to make this dry or sweet, complex or simple that I'll let others describe.

yes it's easy.

 

[Tanga]

Some info on fermenting in the bottle:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=55899

Cider made from the clear juice does benefit from aging. It won't taste complex true, but it does taste stronger of apple and rounded and less sharp.

 

[pk.sax]

Sorry if I misled someone... in my few tries using shop bought apple juice fermented dry in demijohns and bottled, its gone pretty bland. But then, I find the 'fresh' cider that the local brewery here brews to be very bland as well. Even aging didn't (in my trials) help. I ended up pouring half cider/half juice glasses to get some 'freshness' back into it. Its a stop gap. The reason I suggest the juice bottle is that a) easy to temp control b.) lower risk of infection, less (no) transfers made c) Well, its better return for effort than bottling long life juice made cider. If I could be arsed doing fresh apples etc.. I would, but not an option, I'd die to try sometime though

OP wanted to somehow trick store juice into more complex cider.... well, in all my tries, could flavour it with something like a bit of clove, berries (like a friend I know does).. good fermentation helps, sure. But you get exactly what manticle said - Refreshing and alcoholic.

I've even mixed pear and apple and two brands of apple and pear... just nothing special.. Now, the cloudy really actually benefited from aging, hence I recommended it. I still believe that short of pressing your own apples, cloudy apple juice will give a home brewer best results when fermented dry. I just like the taste of apples... If I can conveniently temperature trick the cider to hold some, yayyy.

I did lay my hands on some english ciders from the shop a month ago... I was particularly impressed with one (Found the name - Aspall). Bit expensive.... I'd be darned if anyone can figure out how to make that stuff from tricked store bought juice.

PS: Manticle, I don't try to ferment as quickly as possible..... its just where I now live, it just does. I'd rather do it all at ~ 16C, maybe once I get temp control again up here. Kind of why I'm hesitant to put any beers down until I find a fridge, they are way less forgiving.

 

[manticle]

Not the temp - I find the idea of fermenting in a bottle then wacking in a fridge (or in a fermenter then wacking in a keg) anathema to my idea of a slow, artisanal approach - something I'm still only half way doing myself.

I need to build a press, source proper apples, research keeving properly and maybe then, I will be making the cider I can potentially make. Until then, it's a compromise.

Essentially though, I have no issue with anyone making cider your way - for one I think it' s a great test to see what you want to do (combos, sweetness level etc) and to make a quick, tasty refreshing drink it's also worthwhile.

However doing it other ways is not overcomplicating the 'one and only simple cidermaking method' any more than making beer from grains rather than goop tins is overcomplicating brewing. Cat's skin, multiple methods, etc.

Really, I'm responding to this statement

absolutely fail to see why you have to complicate home made cider making that much when it can be done so so simple by fermenting in the bottle...

rather than anything else.

 

[Synthetase]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

I'm not trying to make a complex cider (I'll stick to beer for that), just wanting to add a little something extra to what is essentially a quick and effortless jaunt into 'cheap alcohol for friends and wives who don't drink beer' land. I think I'll mix up the juice bill a bit and see how that goes without the boiled-down portion (I can always do a demi john trial with that anyway).

EDIT: Odd that I can't edit my first post. I meant to say Wyeast 1968, not 1469. Bah, too many strain numbers to remember. Between the yeast and home and the staph and E. coli at work...

 

[pk.sax]

guess I was a little jumpy

that boiling juice thing kinda set me off. Flavour in store juice is already so thin ...

Heh, what the heck, crazier things are being done

as for real constructive advice.... yes, adjuncts like berries, cloves etc really give another side to these juice made ciders. have a applast (lame .. I kno.. I'm watching cartoons!!)

 

[Synthetase]

Flavour in store juice is already so thin ...

That was the idea behind boiling it down - concentrate the flavours.

 

[Greg.L]

Most store juice is already made from concentrate, then diluted, so trying to turn it back into concentrate is a bit pointless. Is it possible to buy apple concentrate in Australia? Freezing is the best way to concentrate juice, boiling will adversely affect the flavour.

 

[Airgead]

That was the idea behind boiling it down - concentrate the flavours.

There's really nothing there to concentrate other than the sugars. What's missing from store bought juice is acid and tannin. You can add that during fermentation (tartaric/malic acid and some grape tannin) if you like. You can't get it from concentrating low acid low tannin juice.

Cheers
Dave

 

[grantsglutenfreehomebrew]

G'day mate. Try this.

Add a little pear juice to your store bought juice. Can be bought in the can from Woolies. Try a little citric acid (can be bought from woollies as well). Maybe 1 teaspoon to 23 litres. I also like to chop up 1kg of granny smiths. Boil or pasturize for 10 minutes. Then let soak in fermenting barrel in a large dry hopping bag for length of fermentation.

Also Australian Fresh cloudy apple juice added to a 2 litre coke bottle. A sprinkle of oz tops yeast and put on the oz tops cap. 3 to 4 days. Beautiful cider.

I have a cider recipe on my webpage. Link below.

Good cidering.

grantsglutenfreehomebrew.webs.com