My First Apple Cider Batch

[benen]

Hi!
I just purchased a 30L fermenter, airlock, thermometer, champagne yeast and sanitiser. All I need now are apples and bottles to get started. I can't wait!
I'd like to crush and press my own apples but will keep my first batch easy to begin with.
Can I use something like Berri UHT apple or apple/pear juice? It's pretty hard to find anything that is not reconstituted/preservatives etc.

Thanks

Benen

 

[Bribie G]

You don't have Aldi there yet but Coles do preservative-free pure juice in 3L bottles for a dollar a litre. I understand that it comes from Berri anyway. (as does Aldi's)

Edit: do you have access to cheap apples? I understand that it takes about 50k of apples to do a batch and then you would need to run them through a juicer for n hours.

 

[benen]

I don't have a juicer unfortunately which is why I'm starting off with shop juice. Us the juice you're talking about uht or is it refrigerated?

 

[Airgead]

50kg of apples makes me about 40l of cider. But I have a really good juicer...

 

[Bribie G]

It's UHT and they also do apple blackcurrant.

 

[benen]

Great thanks for your help! I'll see how I go for a 30L fermenter should I fill to about 27L?

 

[r055c0]

Hey Bribie G, just to be clear, is that the Smart Buy apple juice at coles? The one with the plain white label?

 

[benen]

Coles were out of their home brand juice so I went with something that was $1.40 per liter. Still reconstituted but preservative free. 18L and 7 grams of champagne yeast. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

 

[Fossey]

Hey Bribie G, just to be clear, is that the Smart Buy apple juice at coles? The one with the plain white label?

You can use any 100% juice that is labelled preservative free. If it contains Vitamin C (aka ascorbic acid) that is also fine. Just check ingredients list - definitely no potassium sorbate (preservative 202).

 

[benen]

Put the batch down Saturday afternoon. Was bubbling away nicely by 7am Tuesday morning when I checked it. 18L of UHT juice. Wasn't the home brand one, they were out. Went with the next cheapest. ($1.43/L) and used 18L plus 7g d champagne yeast.
Any suggestions from here? Should I throw in anything like cinamon, honey or some Granny Smiths? Or am I best to just leave it after fermentation has begun to avoid any contamination.

 

[Fossey]

Leave it at least 3 weeks to a month. Then add your additional ingredients.

Best practice would be add the new ingredients to another fermenter, close to the total volume of your brew, syphon your fermented cider on top of it and top up the secondary fermenter (into the neck) with more juice. Airlock on and wait another month or two or as long as you can stand - the longer the better...

Just make sure to sanitise everything!

 

[benen]

Oh really? What is the benefit/necessity of a second fermentation? Do I only need this if I want to add ingredients later rather than at the beginning?

 

[benen]

I'm also concerned that this is going to be too dry to enjoy since it is just apple juice and champagne yeast.

 

[Byran]

It will be dry anyway as all the sugars in the juice are fermentable. You can add body by doing a minimash of grain at a high temp and adding that eg 200grams of malt or wheat at 67 to 70 deg c for an hour. Or you can back sweeten with lactose sugar or apple juice when drinking.

 

[Fossey]

Secondary will get your brew off the dead yeast and help flavours develop (with or without additions) and mellow out the alcohol if its a high ABV. Will also assist in clearing your brew.

Champagne yeast will make it dry, you can add apple juice concentrate at bottling and pasteurise in the bottles. Pasteurising needs to be done - if backsweetening like this - at the right time to ensure desired carb levels are met and to avoid bottles exploding later. There are a couple of methods, I personally use a dishwasher but will go into that if you want that info.

 

[benen]

I don't want to pasteurise at this stage. I like dry cider so I'll see how it goes. Will it not clear and mellow if I just leave it in the primary for a few weeks? I don't understand how moving it can help. Wouldn't the yeast eventually drop to the bottom of the primary anyway?

 

[Bribie G]

Hey Bribie G, just to be clear, is that the Smart Buy apple juice at coles? The one with the plain white label?

That's what I've been using up to now - however see next

Coles were out of their home brand juice so I went with something that was $1.40 per liter. Still reconstituted but preservative free. 18L and 7 grams of champagne yeast. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Funny you should mention this but they only had three bottles of the 3L Smart buy left and I made up the rest of the juice with the Coles brand in the 2L bottles which is $2.40 for the bottle.
On making up my new batch on Wednesday I noted that the Coles brand is definitely darker - more amber - and a side by side proved it to be more fragrant and "appley"

I expect it depends what concentrates they use. I didn't think to do a refrac test, will do next time.

For the sweetness I keg and do one of two things;

Keg before attenuation so it's still fairly sweet, about the same as Mercury Draught
Keg when dry but add apple juice when drinking.

Another trick is to keg while still fairly sweet into a fairly warm fridge around 6 degrees, which is plenty cool for drinking - hey we are home brew men here not pub drinkers :lol:
The cider yeast seems to keep working slowly at that temperature and gasses up the keg till it's really fizzy, I mean like pouring a soft drink from a supermarket PET
It gradually gets dryer over a week or ten days so then at a certain stage I start back sweetening and this cuts the fizz as well as sweetening. Nice balance.

 

[manticle]

I don't want to pasteurise at this stage. I like dry cider so I'll see how it goes. Will it not clear and mellow if I just leave it in the primary for a few weeks? I don't understand how moving it can help. Wouldn't the yeast eventually drop to the bottom of the primary anyway?

Just leave it in primary. You'd move it if you were going to bulk age for months or bulk prime or rack onto other fruit or something. A few weeks is no drama. Once main ferment has finished, make it as airtight as you can and put it in the fridges for a while. It will clear and mature nicely.

The reason for moving is mainly to do with a thing called autolysis which can produce unwelcome flavours in a brew but the risk of its occurrence over the time frame you mention is very small in my experience and contact with yeast does wonderful things for maturation.

 

[benen]

So in reality my best bet is to bottle it when fermentation is complete and just we it in the bottles? So much to learn! Everyone here is so helpful!

 

[manticle]

and just we it in the bottles?

I'm not quite sure what you mean but it doesn't sound nice. Cider in bottles, drink cider, then wee it in the appropriate receptacle (not usually a bottle).

In that order (well that's how I do it anyway). I cold condition my cider in bulk for 2-3 weeks before bottling.

 

[benen]

Haha. Sorry. iPhone autocorrect. I'm not sure what I was going to type. Age it in the bottles maybe? Along those lines anyway.

 

[benen]

So my first batch has been going steady for over a week now. Has slowed significantly but still bubbling away more than once a minute. I think I'll keep this one simple and bottle it straight from the tap on the fermenter in another fortnight or so and then age it for as long as I can stand.
Aging is best at high teens/low twentys?
For carbing in longnecks, should I use carb tabs or white sugar?
First batch took a couple of days to get the airlock started but the second 5L batch started overnight which confuses me. Same temp and same yeast.

 

[manticle]

Once carbed, age it as cool as you can. Make sure it is finished before bottling.

Carb as you would beer - if you use carb drops and are happy with them you can use them. i prefer lower carbonation than carb drops give.

Forget the airlock - it is not a reliable indication of fermentation (or lack thereof).

 

[benen]

This is my first brew so I've never bottled. A few of my mates brew an said dont bother with a hydrometer as every time you open up you risk infection but one has a refractometer? to lend me to make sure fermentation has finished.

 

[manticle]

First - you don't need to open up the vessel to use a hydrometer. Presuming your fermenter has a tap and the hydrometer you have/will buy has a sample tube, you simply run off a tube's worth (<200 mL) and measure that then drink it to see how it tastes. Minimal infection risk.

Refractometer will not give a true reading once alcohol is present. You can correct for this with conversion charts/software.

Any of your friends ever bottle in glass and find the occasional one goes 'BOOM'?

 

[iralosavic]

There are a couple of methods, I personally use a dishwasher but will go into that if you want that info.

Please do. Also, how do you calculate the timing between sufficient and excessive carbonation? (I doubt I'm alone in stating that the missus would prefer a sweeter finish than possible without back-sweetening and pasteurizing.)

 

[Fossey]

Please do. Also, how do you calculate the timing between sufficient and excessive carbonation? (I doubt I'm alone in stating that the missus would prefer a sweeter finish than possible without back-sweetening and pasteurizing.)

For a sweeter cider, you would need to check the gravity with a hydrometer and pasteurise when the gravity is higher - like 1010 - 1030 depending on how sweet you want it.

Be careful bottling at these gravities though, if they aren't pasteurised, they will explode for sure.

Stopping primary at this gravity will leave a lot of yeast in solution though. If you ferment dry then backsweeten with a concentrate to bring the sweetness to your taste, then pasteurise, your cider will clear a lot better.

If you can, putting the whole fermenter in a fridge for a couple of days will assist clearing as will transferring to a bottling bucket before bottling.

To determine the correct carbonation for sweet ciders (still a bit of guesswork), fill a couple of plastic 600mL soft drink bottles when you bottle the others. When they are hard, ie can't be squeezed in, they are carbed. This can happen pretty quick so you have to keep an eye on them and be ready to pasteurise. By that I mean the bottle may not be hard for days then be ready over night.

Pasteurising - I set my dishwasher to the hottest cycle - mine is an intensive wash, states 70 deg C. That cycle runs for 2 hours 15. I'm not sure what temp the inside of the bottles get up to but they are too hot to touch for up to half an hour after the cycle finishes. To kill the yeast and stop fermentation, 70 deg for 10 minutes would be plenty (temp of cider inside bottle). Can be achieved at lower temps for longer periods, hence I run the long hot cycle.

I bottle my ciders into 500mL bottles and fit 25L in my dishwasher no probs and pasteurise the whole batch in one cycle.

I'm sure there is info I've left out or do differently to others, but this works for me...

 

[benen]

Took my first hydrometer sample today. Sitting just a hair over 1.00 so must be close to finishing. Should be at about 5% as OG was 1.042. Was nervous to taste at first as it is my first ever brew but it smelt good and was lightly carbonate, pale and a bit cloudy. Tasted surprisingly good. I expected it to be quite tart and it was but not as much as I expected. Should be good after aging for a while.

 

[benen]

My fermentation has finally stopped. I was hoping to keep the temperature a little more consistent but it ended up ranging between 17 and 24 over the few weeks.
I have some questions about bottling. Once I sterilise the bottles and caps, what would be the best way to bottle from a 30L fermenter. Should I just use the tap in the bottom or will that stir up what has settled. Would I be better sticking a spring valve on the end of a syphon tube and full he bottles keeping the tube just under the surface of the cider in the fermenter?
Also, I'm using longnecks, should I just use carbonation drops or is white sugar a better option?
Lastly, how full do I fill the bottles?

Thanks
Benen

 

[pk.sax]

Bottling wand, tap, normal sugar, carb/fill as per beer kit instruction. Nothing fancy. Whatever little you rouse will settle out in the bottles with the carbonating yeast.