How to get started in Cider. The definitive(ish) guide to beginner&#39

[Greg.L]

I think the ripeness is more important than the variety, with non-cider varieties. If you have a choice get out your refractometer and take the apples with the highest brix, chances are they will make the best cider. Fully ripe grannies are good for cider, but if they are under-ripe they won't give much flavour.
Also apples from cold store lose their acid, so apples from the current season are best.

 

[Mutaneer]

I'm just relying on the producers bringing juice along to the local farmers markets, so don;t really have a choice.
The one I'm using now do make and sell a lot of their own juice mixes.

Interesting about the addition of tea.

And finally, I'm toying with the idea of barrel aging some cider,
As one of our "big" craft producers down here (Willie Smiths) have a wonderful Lark Whiskey, Barrel-Aged Cider

 

[Airgead]

Yeast wise DV10 and EC1118 are both quite similar. If you can get hold of some try some CRU005 or 71B. Both can partly metabolise malic acid (which the others can't) which mellows out the acidity in the juice and makes it seem a little sweeter than it really is.

For apples you want a balance of sweet, acid and tannin. Most eating apples are low in tannin. Most are also low in acid. I find about 20% granny smith in the mix adds plenty of acidity. Tannin is harder to get with commercial apples though.

 

[Mutaneer]

Have just had a quick chat with the supplier tonight and he's informed me the last couple of batches of juice have had a reasonable amount of Red Delicious in with them so there should be a decent amount of Tanin.

I'll probably leave this batch as is, but might experiment with some tea in the next one.

At the end of the day, $30 gets me 25L of juice, so if i ruin a batch or two in the process, it's not a big cost at all.
Especially compared with paying $10 per 750ml bottle of the good craft ciders available locally.

And I'm all for experimenting with different yeats, etc.
But i'm trying to steer clear of using anything artificial to boost it.
I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to things like this, so using different natural ingredients/ aging/ yeasts to get the desired result is all part of the journey.
And you get a buzz from the finished product.

I also bought a 5L charred oak barrel too.
I'll need to flush and flavour it with whiskey for a few months first, but should give some interesting results

 

[Mutaneer]

Just reporting in here
we finally opened the first matured bottles of my first batch of cider over the weekend,
Simplest recepie, Just pure fresh local juice (80% Jonagold, 20% Fuji, i think) and some using DV10 and some using EC1118 yeasts
no other additives at all, fermented fully dry and it's had 8 weeks in the bottle.

I was astounded at how good it actually was. it was dry, but nothing like the mouth puckering dryness it had before carbonation.
And even the otehr drinkers who like the lolly water stuff, really enjoyed it,
so much so that all bar 2 bottles of my first 10L batch were gone in a few hours..

I'm really considering not bothering with any more additions to my batches.
The simplest recipe is brilliant, easily drinkable straight from the fridge, 4' but even better up at about 8'.

SO i'll probably just bang out 20L batches of the simple variant and do smaller 5L batches with different additives.

 

[H0U5ECAT]

Is it OK to use tetra long life juice?
I always thought that the heat treated juice was a little questionable to ferment.
Anywho, I'm going to do a batch with the juice from a company called "black rock".
I've tried his juice and it tastes rather decent.
Looking through recipes on the net, I decided to also add in some honey.

I was in Maitland and picked up some really nice iron bark honey.
Doing a few small batch tests, I worked out about 180ml of honey to 20ltrs of juice and I have a pearler of cider.

Now... My question is...
If I want a nice and clear cider, can I add Irish moss or similar?

 

[TimT]

We have a 4 litre scrumpy we've just started: windfall apples from around Bright and Wandiligong and a few of our own garden pickings - mostly Granny Smith and Pink Lady. Did the milling and crushing at home which shortened the process considerably, though it was still a lot of hard work. A few raisins thrown into the mix to give the yeast something to think about. Champagne yeast (can't remember exactly which variety). Last year we did a similar batch and after three quarters of a year it came out really well. So, er, I'll let you know how this lot goes.... in 10 months or so.

 

[TimT]

The original gravity, btw, was around 1.064/1.063 - probably 1.063, making a correction for the temp here at the moment.

How many people bother carbonating their cider here? I'm not really sold on the idea - I know it makes it more like commercial/champagne ciders but I suspect it would obscure more than it would reveal.

 

[Airgead]

Is it OK to use tetra long life juice?

If I want a nice and clear cider, can I add Irish moss or similar?

Ummm.... yeah. You can. Will it make a great cider? Probably not. It will ferment but you'll want to add plenty of oxygen and nutrient to start things off.

And yes, you can add irish moss. I don't bother though. A few months settling and the cider is perfectly clear.

 

[Airgead]

How many people bother carbonating their cider here? I'm not really sold on the idea - I know it makes it more like commercial/champagne ciders but I suspect it would obscure more than it would reveal.

Yep. I keg mine and carb just like I would a beer. Low carbonation level though.

Apparently there are 3 levels of carbonation in cider judging - still, petulant and sparkling. Still is, well, still. Sparkling is 2.5 volume or more. often champagne type carbonation (4+ volumes). Petulant is just slightly carbonated. Sort of 1-1.5 volumes. I aim for petulant (mostly because its such a cool word).

Cheers
Dave

 

[TimT]

"Petulant!" Cool word indeed!

 

[Not For Horses]

Interesting choice of adjective...
'Irritable, impatient or sullen in a peevish or capricious way'.
Doesn't really sound like 'kinda carbonated but not really'

 

[TimT]

My aim is to give it plenty of wine flavours with the body, depth, complexity, and fragrances brought to it by the apples - I was blown away by the way our scrumpy settled out last year (after several months of ageing) into a delicious complex wine. I don't think carbonation would bring anything more to this, though the bubbles may well obscure some of the subtler flavours.

I suppose carbonation may work well with perfectly-balanced ciders and of course it's a good match for commercial ones - as it hides faults well.

 

[Airgead]

Well... its pronounced petulant but the actual spelling (now that I check) is French - petillant.

 

[TimT]

I'm guessing it means something like "little bubble", I do remember French for "small" is "Petit".

 

[Greg.L]

I carb my cider, (primed with 7g/l) and also drink it at room temperature. For craft cider room temperature allows more of the flavour to come through. For the Somerset or French styles with tannins etc drinking them chilled is a bit of a waste, you will miss a lot of the flavour.

The classic way to get petillant cider is to arrest the fermentation with either keeving or cold crashing and racking over a few months. Then when the cider is bottled there will be a slow fermentation continuing in the bottle to give a sweet petillant cider. (or bottle bombs if you don't get it right.)

 

[TimT]

Write up about our latest cider.

 

[Tahoose]

Made a small batch cider the other day.

8ltrs
7 ltrs Aldi Apple Juice
500g brown sugar dissolved in 500mls of water
2 tea bags soaked in 200ml of boiled water

Fermenting at ambient temps with Nottingham ale yeast.

OG 1.056

Will report back when finished

So I put this batch into a keg the yesterday, I have a sneaking suspicion that this was originally
higher than the reported OG.

I put it into a 9.5 litre keg and added 1ltr of unfermented juice and a sugar syrup (3 tablespoons sugar/100ml water)

This gave it a nice semi-sweet flavour and kept every body happy. Drank well and was carbonated on the low-mid scale.

I think it must have been on the 7%abv as it knocked a few people around. Ended up with a nice golden clear colour

 

[Wilkensone]

So I put this batch into a keg the yesterday, I have a sneaking suspicion that this was originally
higher than the reported OG.

I put it into a 9.5 litre keg and added 1ltr of unfermented juice and a sugar syrup (3 tablespoons sugar/100ml water)

This gave it a nice semi-sweet flavour and kept every body happy. Drank well and was carbonated on the low-mid scale.

I think it must have been on the 7%abv as it knocked a few people around. Ended up with a nice golden clear colour

cmoooon show us a picture =p

 

[Tahoose]

Haha don't have one as of yet but I'll try to remember, not home so not near the keg.