Juice and strain - cider making made simple from whole apples

[Onslowsdry]

Hello and greetings from Guildford, England. I have made a post to the Welcome Forum. However, two of your good countrymen have suggested that non-beer-brewing is where i should be, so here goes again.

Please have a look at our short YouTube video, Cider making made simple at home.

.

Yes, it really is that simple. To date I've used Breville juicers and they are amazing machines. I recommend that if you have surplus apples and a juicer gathering dust, dig it out, team up with neighbours and friends and get juicing and cider making. It's great fun and the fresh chilled apple juice is simple delicious and enjoyed particularly by the ladies. The cider is good too, but takes a little longer to mature.

Our second video has the link:

For those with patience our third video is a thirteen minute BBC Radfio interview which is a good laugh, see:

If you want the whole story to date, then my blog tells all, well almost all :

http://juiceandstrain.wordpress.com/

Nevin

 

[r055c0]

I was chatting to you about what yeast to use on the post in the welcome section but will continue the conversation here.

You said you used champagne yeast instead of letting the wild yeast do the fermenting, do you need to do anything to kill off the wild yeast first or does the champagne yeast out compete it early enough for it not to be a factor?

 

[Onslowsdry]

I sterilise all my kit beforehand with bisulphite solution, rinse off and juice and strain. I have chosen not to sulphite the apple juice before yeast addition. To date, and as you say, the champagne yeast outcompetes the wild yeasts and the fermentation kicks in quickly, reaching a peak of activity after two days or so. I have now made about 100 gallons in fifteen batches and have yet to encounter a problem of spoilage due to yeasts.

 

[Airgead]

I sterilise all my kit beforehand with bisulphite solution

If you are using bisulphite they you aren't sterilising... or even really sanitising. Bisulphite is an antioxidant and microbial inhibitor. Its not a good sanitiser. That's a real 70's winemaking throwback. Even most winemakers wouldn't sanitise with that anymore. If they do, they will use it in combination with citric (or other) acid to lower the Ph.

Its also horrible stuff to work with as it gets into your lungs and can trigger asthma attacks even in non asthmatics.

I'd be using a more modern sanitiser and saving the sulphur compounds for use as antioxidants when racking or transferring the cider (mind you, with a very asthmatic wife I don't do that either).

On the yeast q2uestion, most wine yeasts 9but not beer) are what are known as killer yeasts. They actively suppress other yeasts and take over very rapidly. The wine industry has bred them that way to out compete the wild yeasts present on the fruit. If you pitch enough yeast before wild yeast can start an active fermentation you are pretty much guaranteed that the win yeast will out compete the wild.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Onslowsdry]

Thanks Dave. My wine making dates back to the 80's and, yes, Campden tablets were in. More recently with my cider making, I have followed Michael Pooley and John Lomax's advice in their book "Real Cidermaking on a small scale". On page 53 they describe a method using conc. bisuphite solution to "sterilise" vessels. i have followed this advice and it has worked well for me. I don't add organic carboxylic acids to generate free suphur dioxide, I just rely on the equilibrium conc. of free SO2, probably at the ppm level, at the pH of the aqueous solution.

I have never been a fan of peroxide bleaches, either as a fashion statement or in food contact.

 

[Airgead]

Bleach i spretty old school as well. I use iodophor myself. Cheap and no rinse. I have also used starsan. Same deal. Cheap, no rinse.

Much kinder on the lungs and way more effective as a sanitiser. I use them for beer, mead, cider, whatever.

A lot of cidermaking books do date from the 70s/80s even 90s and are kind of out of date when it comes to that sort of thing. Winemakers are a consevative lot...

Cheers
Dave

 

[punkin]

Do you play with the PH, O?

Last years effort saw be buy a bottle of lactic acid of industrial size and have a bit of a play round. It took a while to get the whizz fizz feeling out but came good in the end (i ferment to dryness and slightly carbonate).

 

[drsmurto]

I've got cider on tap now that was just organic (johnathon) apples. Picked slightly early to give it some acid. Crushed and pressed.

I used potassium metabisulphite to stun the wild yeasts (juice has a low enough pH to push the equilibrium in favour of SO2) and then 48 hours later pitched the English cider yeast (Whitelabs 775).

A lot of H2S production due to fermenting slow at 14C for a few weeks but warming up once it hit FG (0.998) and priming the kegs with dextrose has removed it. Great old school English cider, some funky aromas that remind me of good English cider and the Breton ciders I still love. I had planned on adding the dregs of a bottle of French cider but the funk level is already high enough for my taste.

Everytime I tried using champagne yeast I made a one dimensional apple wine of sorts. Reminded me far too much of big commercial dry cider.

The only issue I have with it is I am used to drinking beer in the 3-4.5% range. The cider is ~6.8% and gave me an awesome hangover on the weekend due entirely to over consumption. Haven't had a hangover like that in years so will have to show the cider some respect.

 

[manticle]

Haven't been able to find any info that suggests whitelabs UK cider is a different strain from 4766. Some sites suggest a comparison but I can't tell if they are recommending using either/or as opposed to something like the Mr Malty comparison chart (which doesn't list the cider yeasts).

Anyone know? I have used 4766 before but not the WL and if Smurto is getting a bit of UK funk from it then I'm interested.

 

[Airgead]

Used it once quite some time ago but don't remember any funk. From memory it was very similar to the 4766.

Maybe some wild fermentation in the 48 hours between juicing and pitching? Or the very low fermentation temp. I tend to run mine at 15-16 so 14 may stress the yeast a bit...

Cheers
Dave

 

[drsmurto]

No wild yeast, it was hit with SO2 out of the press.

Pitched 2 vials of WL775 into 5L of juice + 5g of yeast nutrient and left for 48 hours. This went into 2 fermenters of 20 and 25L of juice.

I've used WY4766 quite a few times and liken it to the US05 of the cider yeast world. It does not offensive but adds nothing to the cider.

I'll get a few trained noses onto the job of deciphering the aromas so that it is a little bit more descriptive than funk which is all I have.

Could be that the lower than recommended fermentation temperatures produced some aroma compounds that are out of character.

 

[manticle]

I normally aim for around 14 anyway. Think I've got a slant of the whitelabs somewhere so I'll fire her up and see how she goes.