New To Cider

[Luek]

I'm very new at brewing in general, but I've always preferred cider. Apple, pear, sweet, dry. I'm not at all picky.

Thus far I have only just had my first try, using nothing but a black rock kit, ~22L of water, and 1kg of plain table sugar (was told this sugar makes beer bad/'cidery' so thought it'd be suitable for cider). Turned out very bland, and a bit dry.

I've looked around this forum (and a few others) and seen that brews can get quite complicated.

I'm basically looking for a recipe that will create something that is;
- Cheap (I'd prefer not using heaps of apple juice etc)
- Tastes like apple/pear (as said above, not picky as long as it tastes like the fruit)
- Has a very low potential for bottle bombs
- Easy to aquire ingredients (I live in a small town)

Are these conditions easily met? Or is decent cider inherently expensive?
I will be pretty much forced to use either brigalow cider or black rock kits, as the nearest town's stores only stock this, including a brew specialty store

Also, something else that's been bugging me...
I've read that detergent is a big no-no for cleaning bottles and brew kits, sending everything flat... how much rinsing is necessary to offset this?
I really, really despise bleach. I really cannot stand using it. It's a pet hate I've always had.
So are there any other alternatives for cleaning?

At this point I use detergent to wash gear/bottles, rinse thouroughly, then sterilise once (with that powder stuff, forget brand, brewster? Brewart?), store until necessary, then sterilise again.
Is this sufficient? Or even is it overkill?

Thank you for any help!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Pasteurised apple juice is your friend.

It's cheap from all supermarkets (though cheapest per L at ALDI) - pay around $1/L.

I made an apple & strawberry cider (which I'd be currently enjoying, had i not left something in the gas cylinder on and ran all my gas out - on a triple public holiday), as follows:

20L Aldi Apple Juice,
Red Star Montrachet Yeast

Let it get to 1.010, and cold crashed. Gelatined to run the yeast out (I keg, so I can, but bottlers will require to run the yeast dry).

Then 600g of strawberries in secondary vessel and racked the clear cider onto it for a week's soak in strawberry mashed up.

And if I hadn't run out (been an idiot) of gas, I'd have gassed up cider now.

As it stood, it's a fantastic apple & strawberry still wine.

For a bottler, just get hold of sparkling wine bottles and reuse these - they deal with extra carbonation very well.

It craps all over my old kit cider, takes less time.

Goomba

 

[JDW81]

Pasteurised apple juice is your friend.

It's cheap from all supermarkets (though cheapest per L at ALDI) - pay around $1/L.

I made an apple & strawberry cider (which I'd be currently enjoying, had i not left something in the gas cylinder on and ran all my gas out - on a triple public holiday), as follows:

20L Aldi Apple Juice,
Red Star Montrachet Yeast

Let it get to 1.010, and cold crashed. Gelatined to run the yeast out (I keg, so I can, but bottlers will require to run the yeast dry).

Then 600g of strawberries in secondary vessel and racked the clear cider onto it for a week's soak in strawberry mashed up.

And if I hadn't run out (been an idiot) of gas, I'd have gassed up cider now.

As it stood, it's a fantastic apple & strawberry still wine.

For a bottler, just get hold of sparkling wine bottles and reuse these - they deal with extra carbonation very well.

It craps all over my old kit cider, takes less time.

Goomba

+1 for sparkling bottles. I use them almost exclusively. Make friends with your local publican and you'll have a ready supply in no time.

JD

 

[jameson]

Sorry but pissed :icon_chick
cheers: just got home and seen my berri Apple pear juice 8 bottles that I through in with a sweet wine yeast sn9 bubbling away like a freshly poured coca cola with no crustation? Smells great and think it shall be good for new years for visitors. Got to keep them of my apa that is pouring so good :icon_drool2: any how Coles has berri on special starting tomorrow. Happy new year.

 

[pk.sax]

Sounds like you don't have a store that sells cheap juice...

Well, you can always pulp a few apples and add that to your cider for more taste. Might work. The point is to get unfermentable fruit sugars in there though. Might be an idea to pulp some pears instead.

Also, that table sugar just ups the alcohol. It does nothing special for the taste. Might be an idea to add LDME - light dry malt extract - to your kit instead of the sugar. I'm sure the hbs near you will have some.

 

[JDW81]

Sounds like you don't have a store that sells cheap juice...

Well, you can always pulp a few apples and add that to your cider for more taste. Might work. The point is to get unfermentable fruit sugars in there though. Might be an idea to pulp some pears instead.

Also, that table sugar just ups the alcohol. It does nothing special for the taste. Might be an idea to add LDME - light dry malt extract - to your kit instead of the sugar. I'm sure the hbs near you will have some.

I put a few quartered apples which i boil in juice in my cider. Comes up a treat.

 

[pk.sax]

I put a few quartered apples which i boil in juice in my cider. Comes up a treat.

I might give that a try actually. Never thought of boiling in juice... I'm out if cider and so this will be the next one

 

[troopa]

$20 of aldi juice ferment dry and back sweeten with lactose to taste(around 300-500g ) .. easy as pie and cheaper then the blackrock kit my wife picked up the other day to test out ... doubt ill be using it :|

 

[J Grimmer]

I'm very new at brewing in general, but I've always preferred cider. Apple, pear, sweet, dry. I'm not at all picky.

Thus far I have only just had my first try, using nothing but a black rock kit, ~22L of water, and 1kg of plain table sugar (was told this sugar makes beer bad/'cidery' so thought it'd be suitable for cider). Turned out very bland, and a bit dry.

I've looked around this forum (and a few others) and seen that brews can get quite complicated.

I'm basically looking for a recipe that will create something that is;
- Cheap (I'd prefer not using heaps of apple juice etc)
- Tastes like apple/pear (as said above, not picky as long as it tastes like the fruit)
- Has a very low potential for bottle bombs
- Easy to aquire ingredients (I live in a small town)

Are these conditions easily met? Or is decent cider inherently expensive?
I will be pretty much forced to use either brigalow cider or black rock kits, as the nearest town's stores only stock this, including a brew specialty store

Also, something else that's been bugging me...
I've read that detergent is a big no-no for cleaning bottles and brew kits, sending everything flat... how much rinsing is necessary to offset this?
I really, really despise bleach. I really cannot stand using it. It's a pet hate I've always had.
So are there any other alternatives for cleaning?

At this point I use detergent to wash gear/bottles, rinse thouroughly, then sterilise once (with that powder stuff, forget brand, brewster? Brewart?), store until necessary, then sterilise again.
Is this sufficient? Or even is it overkill?

Thank you for any help!

I agree with the previous quotes about the cider being made from juice i have found it better and cheaper than the mentioned kits, i have heard good things from the Mangrove Jacks cider kits. which have a pear cider and apple cider.

Detergent can effect head retention, i can not see it effecting carbonation levels.

 

[rizrah]

Hi Guys!

i too am new to home-brew, having only done one JSGA clone (under an experienced mates supervision). i read about how easy cider was an decided to give it a go.

Recipe is as follows -

- 22 Litres of Berri Apple & Pear juice (as woolies had it on special for <$1/L)
- 5g sachet Lalvin EC1118 Champagne Yeast

Left for 2 weeks in fermenter until SG was stable, then bottled using Coopers Carbonation drops as per standard instructions.
The cider has been bottled for almost 3 weeks (Bottled on 8th Dec), but has very little carbonation. there is definately fizz to it, just not a promising sound when opened, nor right mouth feel.

Why is there so little fizz?, Will the cider gain carbonation the longer it is in the bottle, or was more carbonation drops needed?

The forums have been a great help but i can find little on cider carbonation....

 

[pk.sax]

A few questions:

Did you crash chill to drop the yeast out? That'd slow the carbing up.

What temperature are you keeping the bottles at? Too low and they'd take time.

What size bottles and how many carb drops per bottle? From the one time that I did use them, one per coopers plastic bottle was fine.

For future reference, it's much easier to add a measured amount of juice into secondary (bottling bucket/carboy) and watch it start kicking. Then bottle it active. Makes sure its not a dud yeast issue.

 

[Luek]

Aldi isn't too far, I'll try get there sometime soon...
Do they (or woolie's etc) have any reasonably priced pear juice that is suitable for use too? I might try 10L apple + 10L pear.

Cold crashed?
Gelatined?

What's all this?

Can I just get some yeast from a brew store and whack it in, then bottle with carb drops?

Will I need to add sugar to the wort? Or will there be enough fermentable sugars to end up with anywhere between 4-6% alcohol?

Sorry if I skipped over some stuff that's been said. I don't have the internet at home and I'm being rushed off the computer (missus' parents' place) as I type now.

 

[rizrah]

A few questions:

Did you crash chill to drop the yeast out? That'd slow the carbing up.

What temperature are you keeping the bottles at? Too low and they'd take time.

What size bottles and how many carb drops per bottle? From the one time that I did use them, one per coopers plastic bottle was fine.

For future reference, it's much easier to add a measured amount of juice into secondary (bottling bucket/carboy) and watch it start kicking. Then bottle it active. Makes sure its not a dud yeast issue.

Thanks for the quick reply!

No, didn't bother crash chilling, just bottled at about 18deg.

bottles are sitting in the shed at approx 17 degs

i used 10L of long necks (2 drops each), and 10 L of stubbies (1 drop each).

dont have a secondary yet, hoping to get one soon as it seems to make bottling and priming easier

 

[pk.sax]

@rish should be Ok mate. Just give it time. 17 is a coolish temp for bottles, the yeast is fighting a pressurised bottle, I takes just a bit longer than what an open fermentation (primary) takes. Chill out.

@ Luek, if u can lay hands on lots of juice there isn't much better than that except juicing/pressing your own. No need to add sugar, already enough for 6-7%. With carbonation, any of the usual method work. if doing back to back ferments, I'd just steal some of the next batch's juice or juice from the fridge. The label says the sugar concentration per 100 ml, quite easy to calculate how much to add. As a bonus, it ferments rather well

 

[rizrah]

cheers practicalfool, i know I'm impatient, already bought the next juice but im keen to taste this in all its glory before throwing down the next one.
im thinking of adding some cinnamon and vanilla beans!

 

[pk.sax]

Quite frankly, LL preservative free juice cider will ferment quite dry to start with and not be anything amazing. Not without additives like other fruit and/or spices. But they do develop some character over time. esp using good juices with a bit more than just fruit sugars - cloudy juice is the simplest then you could also pulp your own. I haven't intentionally aged cider but te occasional bottles that do get aged turn out quite well

 

[rizrah]

i also bottled 3 500ml shofferhoffer bottles, which i primed with 1.5 carbo drop, so they have a bit higher sugar ratio (1.5/500ml rather than the 2/750ml). tried one of those tonight and they were a lot more carbonated.

 

[Luek]

Thanks so much for the replies!

I was thinking of waiting until berri (etc) juice is on sale, and more or less doing what RisRah said, except I want to try using a finings sachet I got from Big W (bad idea? no idea what this crap does).

Just have to ask homebrew store about champagne yeast.

Anything else I should drop in? Like a little extra sugar/LDME?

Also, where do I buy lactose? Is it something in woolie's I've always missed?

Edit: "Extra Juicy" 2.4L @ $1.98 ea at the moment at Woolworths, hopefully it's preservative free & they have apple + pear

 

[Matt Browne]

I'm interested in this too.

If you took Lord Gaja Goombas recipe:-

20L Aldi Apple Juice,
Red Star Montrachet Yeast
Let it get to 1.010, and cold crashed. Gelatined to run the yeast out (I keg, so I can, but bottlers will require to run the yeast dry).
Then 600g of strawberries in secondary vessel and racked the clear cider onto it for a week's soak in strawberry mashed up.

What alcohol % would you expect to get?
Is there an ideal temperature for brewing cider?
I assume you can bulk prime bottles as you would for beer?

Cheers

Matt

 

[Matt Browne]

Can anyone help with my questions above?

Cheers Matt