Jan Meyer
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- Joined
- 5/2/13
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I feel like I've finally cracked how to brew proper cider and I thought I would share my methods. The recipe is not so important, it's more about how I do the fermentation that I think works well.
I've searched for ages on how to do a cider that has some sweetness, lots of taste and does not ferment itself down to champagne.
The issues I was having most of the time is that all the yeasts I tried seemed to ferment too far creating very dry and flavourless cider. Not the sort of drink I like (and neither did anyone else I tried to palm it off to). After searching around the majority of suggestions were to crash cold it to stop fermentation or to add an additive that kills the yeast.
Some guy did tons of experiments on the flavour impact of different quantities of this additive and so forth. I did try the cold crash to stop fermentation, but this never really stopped it fully and after a month or so the nice cider became too dry again.
I needed a different solution...
One day I was looking into beer filters to clear up a Belgian I made that was way too cloudy with yeast. Then it hit me, the filter can remove the majority of the yeast, genius!
So here is my current process in full:
* Use Organic pure apple juice, no added sugars or added anything. Different brands taste very different, so find one you like with experimentation.
* I found using Saflager S-23 yeast and actually brewing at around 8 degrees for a nice slow ferment works well. I do this in a fermentation freezer with a temperature controller.
* Put the apple juice in the fermenter by chugging it in vigorously to oxygenate it.
* Put the fermenter in the ferment freezer at 8 degrees for a few hours to overnight to chill the juice to fermentation temperature.
* Make a yeast started from the S-23 by putting it in a clean glass container with some water at room temperature. After 10 minutes of letting the yeast soak I add a teaspoon of Dextrose and stir it in to give it something to work with. About an hour later you should have a nice starter.
* Chuck the yeast in the fermenter that is still in the freezer and leave it for roughly 8-10 days. At 8 degrees it dropped to 1.15 in 9 days.
* I checked the gravity from day 7 to make sure it didn't over ferment. 1.25 was very sweet, 1.15 is slightly sweet. Pick the gravity you think suites your style better.
* Transfer the Cider to a keg using regular methods.
* Purge the oxygen from the keg and have another clean keg available. Fill it with C02 as well at the same pressure as the cider keg.
* Connect the beer filer with 1 micron filter to the two kegs and filter the beer by reducing the pressure in the empty keg slowly.
* You will need to continuously reduce the pressure in the new keg as it fills since the pressure will increase and the filtering will stop.
* Once filtered through, purge the new cider keg for good measure.
* I only mildly gas cider, but this can be done to taste.
Hope this helps someone else having issues getting that nice level of sweet and flavour in their cider.
Cheers
I've searched for ages on how to do a cider that has some sweetness, lots of taste and does not ferment itself down to champagne.
The issues I was having most of the time is that all the yeasts I tried seemed to ferment too far creating very dry and flavourless cider. Not the sort of drink I like (and neither did anyone else I tried to palm it off to). After searching around the majority of suggestions were to crash cold it to stop fermentation or to add an additive that kills the yeast.
Some guy did tons of experiments on the flavour impact of different quantities of this additive and so forth. I did try the cold crash to stop fermentation, but this never really stopped it fully and after a month or so the nice cider became too dry again.
I needed a different solution...
One day I was looking into beer filters to clear up a Belgian I made that was way too cloudy with yeast. Then it hit me, the filter can remove the majority of the yeast, genius!
So here is my current process in full:
* Use Organic pure apple juice, no added sugars or added anything. Different brands taste very different, so find one you like with experimentation.
* I found using Saflager S-23 yeast and actually brewing at around 8 degrees for a nice slow ferment works well. I do this in a fermentation freezer with a temperature controller.
* Put the apple juice in the fermenter by chugging it in vigorously to oxygenate it.
* Put the fermenter in the ferment freezer at 8 degrees for a few hours to overnight to chill the juice to fermentation temperature.
* Make a yeast started from the S-23 by putting it in a clean glass container with some water at room temperature. After 10 minutes of letting the yeast soak I add a teaspoon of Dextrose and stir it in to give it something to work with. About an hour later you should have a nice starter.
* Chuck the yeast in the fermenter that is still in the freezer and leave it for roughly 8-10 days. At 8 degrees it dropped to 1.15 in 9 days.
* I checked the gravity from day 7 to make sure it didn't over ferment. 1.25 was very sweet, 1.15 is slightly sweet. Pick the gravity you think suites your style better.
* Transfer the Cider to a keg using regular methods.
* Purge the oxygen from the keg and have another clean keg available. Fill it with C02 as well at the same pressure as the cider keg.
* Connect the beer filer with 1 micron filter to the two kegs and filter the beer by reducing the pressure in the empty keg slowly.
* You will need to continuously reduce the pressure in the new keg as it fills since the pressure will increase and the filtering will stop.
* Once filtered through, purge the new cider keg for good measure.
* I only mildly gas cider, but this can be done to taste.
Hope this helps someone else having issues getting that nice level of sweet and flavour in their cider.
Cheers
