How Is Clear Cider Even Possible?

[manticle]

Yum yum yum: my version is very half arsed and involves no sulphite or chloride additions. I read something about it in regards to getting clear cider - I still use a pure yeast strain to ferment and end up with dry cider. It is clear at the end but what I'm doing couldn't really be called keeving.

I have crushed and juiced my own apples but never extract enough juice for a full batch so top up with store bought.

Basically I've just let the soft cider sit until it gets frothy and ugly on top (usually 48 hours) then racked into another vessel, added an active starter of wine yeast or cider yeast and fermented cool (14-15 degrees). Takes around the same time as a lager to ferment then a week or more to cold condition. Carbonation done as usual (bulk prime).

I have used sulphites before but never will again - they taste wrong, give me a headace and I firmly believe require much more maturation time than sulphite free.

@QB - thanks for the info.

 

[speedie]

a cider maker from england suggested to me to rack off the yeast towards the end of the ferment
his explaination was that it stressed the yeast which resulted in under attenuated ferment thus leaving some residual sweetness
havent tried it my self but makes sense though
still get clear cider
speedster

 

[jonocarroll]

Hell, speedie - did you just post something that made sense? What a world. </jibe>

Racking many times is indeed one way to get a sweet, clear cider - the thinking goes that each time you crash chill and rack, you remove some yeast and trub, eventually leading to a ferment stall that won't recover. Doing this until there is just enough strength to carbonate a bottle works, but you need to be sure that the yeast isn't just having a nap - bottling sweet cider and having the yeast get a second wind = b00m!

 

[hopjunkie]

So I am thinking of putting down a cider for a party I have coming up.
It is going to served from a keg instead of from bottles, my question is:
If i use a basic black rock kit with some extra juice from the supermarket, then when filling the keg pour in a litre of Bulmers will that skew the taste to provide a more "Bulmer(ish)" taste to the final product?
Thanks for any advice!

 

[Bribie G]

My k n k mate round the back from here makes the killer Black Rock that I posted a piccie of earlier, and apart from the supermarket juice and a shedload of dex he doesn't do anything else to it. I reckon Bulmers would just get lost in the taste anyway as it's very commercial tasting as-is. Just me, but if you wanted a 'fuller' flavour maybe sub some of the dex and pour in a couple of bottles of cheap Liquorland spewmante.

 

[DanRayner]

So I am thinking of putting down a cider for a party I have coming up.
It is going to served from a keg instead of from bottles, my question is:
If i use a basic black rock kit with some extra juice from the supermarket, then when filling the keg pour in a litre of Bulmers will that skew the taste to provide a more "Bulmer(ish)" taste to the final product?
Thanks for any advice!

Woolies still has 2 x 2.4L Berri apple juice for $6

19.2L of cider for $24...

#justsayin



I would probably consider back-sweetening it with juice after ferment (if you're kegging and are able to keep the temperature of the keg nice and low after sweetening it)

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Woolies still has 2 x 2.4L Berri apple juice for $6

19.2L of cider for $24...

#justsayin



I would probably consider back-sweetening it with juice after ferment (if you're kegging and are able to keep the temperature of the keg nice and low after sweetening it)

ALDI - $1.89 for 2L. Coles $2.89 for 3L bottles.

I'm going to spec my next cider with spec juice (there is a place here that sells varietal apple juice from Stanthorpe).

Last time was apple juice from supermarket on top of brigalow (it was $4 for a tin, I couldn't pass it up) and fermented with champagne yeast. SWMBO and mum liked it lots, but I found that it had an artificial sweetener taste, and, whilst drinkable, wasn't something I liked that much. It had a sour taste too. And undercarbed.

So it'll be 10g (I have champagne bottles, corks, cages) per bottle and I'll ditch the brigalow for pure juice, with something nice to give it a broader flavour.

I liked the idea of using NS (maybe citra for me) hops at the end.

How does it affect the taste?


Goomba

 

[Phoney]

I buy fresh pressed juice straight from the orchard for $1.20/L. Turn up with 25L cubes and get them filled to the brim with 50/50 granny smith/pink lady.

Come home, pour them into fermenters, add 300g of LDME & 2 sticks of cinnamon per batch, 4766. 2 weeks @ 17C then rack, 2 weeks @ 2C. Bottle or keg and it comes out crystal clear & delicious.

 

[Phoney]

Case in point:





I could read a newspaper through it if I really wanted to.

 

[brettprevans]

I sourced mine from the Adelaide Hills - the local club organised with a grower to have a crush day, and he rounded up his leftover stock which we purchased for ridiculously low prices. I probably got lucky with the wild yeast, but as per the keeving recommendations I sulphured off roughly half the yeast to begin with to get a nice slow ferment.


Bit of a contradiction there.

For the uninitiated (or those who know how it works, and yet at the same time, don't) the keeving process involves forming a krausen-like gel on top of the juice in which nutrients get trapped and thus become unavailable to the yeast, stalling the ferment. This leads to sweet cider without back-sweetening. The top layer also protects the juice from oxygen during the slow ferment, and clears up the cider to crystal quality. The gel (chapeau-brun, or 'brown cap') is formed from the pectin in the cell walls combined with calcium chloride. In order to get the pectin to free itself up you need an enzyme - pectin methyl esterase (PME) - which occurs naturally in apples anyway (which is why cider makers will leave the crush overnight before pressing; to let this enzyme do some work breaking down pectin and releasing more juice) but can be added by hand if you can source it in a pure enough form (*any* of the wrong enantiomer will ruin the reaction). I managed to get my hands on a decent sample amount, and would be happy to pass on the info to anyone interested who PMs me.

When done properly, the ferment takes about 2-3 months, followed by another 6 in the bottle to carbonate (no priming), resulting in sweet, clear, carbonated, unoxidised, bottled cider. I added a small amount of Nelson Sauvin hop tea to my best batch and managed to impress a commercial cider maker.

Awsome post. I'm very interested in that info. Just found out the mother in law has loads of weird granny smith looking crab apple kind of apples as well as nashi type fruit. The missus would prefer sweet cider rather than dry like me but I don't want to use sulfates etc to stop fermentation.

Edit: in re to OP - it's called extended lagering. My last batch was crystal clear after about 6 months lagering

 

[jonocarroll]

I'm very interested in that info.

PM coming your way.