Nudie Cloudy Apple Cider

[blakie21]

Hi Guys

New to the forum so thought I would try and contribute something simple I have tried.
I was in the shops and saw the Nudie apple cider was on special and thought, why not make a small batch of cider?

Having used oztops before with berri apple juice and finding it semi decent, I went out and bought a couple of 5L demijohns.

My Basic recipe was -

4L Nudie cloudy apple juice
~12 Raisins mashed up (I hear they are good for nutrients and such)
1 cup or ~200g of sugar.
EC-1118 yeast

I also added some baking yeast when heating the apple juice to sterilize because I heard that was also good for nutrients (overkill??)

Bottled this beast today, I forgot to take an OG reading but doing some calcs it comes to around 9.5-10% alcohol
Did a hydro reading (1.001) and of course tasted the cider - Dry as expected but wow not bad for such a strong cider at this early stage!

I thought EC-1118 was meant to really dry out the cider as in below 1 FG - am I at risk of bottle bombs with only 1-2 points on FG? Or am I incorrect? (sorry for noobyness )

Will keep you guys updated once its carbed up

 

[Airgead]

Hi Guys

New to the forum so thought I would try and contribute something simple I have tried.
I was in the shops and saw the Nudie apple cider was on special and thought, why not make a small batch of cider?

Having used oztops before with berri apple juice and finding it semi decent, I went out and bought a couple of 5L demijohns.

My Basic recipe was -

4L Nudie cloudy apple juice
~12 Raisins mashed up (I hear they are good for nutrients and such)
1 cup or ~200g of sugar.
EC-1118 yeast

I also added some baking yeast when heating the apple juice to sterilize because I heard that was also good for nutrients (overkill??)

Bottled this beast today, I forgot to take an OG reading but doing some calcs it comes to around 9.5-10% alcohol
Did a hydro reading (1.001) and of course tasted the cider - Dry as expected but wow not bad for such a strong cider at this early stage!

I thought EC-1118 was meant to really dry out the cider as in below 1 FG - am I at risk of bottle bombs with only 1-2 points on FG? Or am I incorrect? (sorry for noobyness )

Will keep you guys updated once its carbed up

The only way to be sure is to see a stable gravity over several days. I would expect it to drop to 1.000 or lower so there may still be a way to go.

The bakers yeast will add nutrients as long as it is properly killed and not still hanging around in the cider. If adding yeast as a nutrient I either use killed yeast or I make suer I boil it. I think it needs to be boiled anyway to break open the cells and release the good stuff. In any case, there is usually enough nutrient in a0pple juice anyway and the raisins will help a bit (that's old school that is). EC1118 is a pretty tough beast and can cope with low nutrient levels so should be fine.

And yes, most apple juice doesn't need sugar, unless you want rocket fuel. Just plain juice will often get you up to the 6% range.

Cheers
Dave

 

[blakie21]

Thanks for the advice Dave

I kept the apple juice with yeast and raisins at 70 degress for 20+ minutes as I heard boiling fruit (not sure about juice) is bad. I figured it would be enough to kill the bakers yeast too, next time I will either leave out the yeast or boil it separately to make sure, cheers! Luckily I don't detect any off tastes from the other yeast so I am assuming it didnt take over or I am lucky .

I did want a strong cider but after working it out I could have got ~6.5% out of the juice without adding sugar which would be plenty enough.

All improvements for my next batch . Experimentation, the beauty of small batches!

Edit - Thought id mention that this was almost completed in a week or so.

I realise it is dumb to bottle without checking a few days in a row and with my beer I do at least 3 days, however siphoning off every day is a bit of a pain for me, do you think its likely I will get bombs in PET at 1.001?? Ill keep an eye on them and release pressure if needed just want some experienced opinions.

 

[Muggus]

One thing you may find fermenting cloudy apple juice, as opposed to the clear stuff, is the odd bit of funky (vegetal) character from fermenting with solids.
I've had this happen with a couple of previous ciders brewed with 100% cloudy, unpasturised juice, but I didn't heat it, so that might help you.

In the wine industry we tend to cold settle and clarify the juice for white wines and ferment only the clear juice to get a clean ferment and predictable result. But I spose SO2 and sterile filtration is also used in the wine industry too, so that tends to get rid of most bugs...as opposed to any form of heating or paturisation.

 

[blakie21]

Cheers Muggus, glad you mentioned it because I would probably have no idea where it came from if I had a funky character. Ill see how it goes, seems decent out of the primary.

As for the SO2, I have never tried it and figured that heating would be the best way without putting chems in my cider. The only other cider I made was with berri pasteurised juice so its a first for me.

 

[Muggus]

As for the SO2, I have never tried it and figured that heating would be the best way without putting chems in my cider. The only other cider I made was with berri pasteurised juice so its a first for me.

Yeah i'd avoid having to use SO2, or any other sort of preservative, where possible.
Its a bit of a necessary evil in the wine game - heat paturisation is pretty much seen as a no-no, boils off aromatics, etc.

Hope it goes well! I've been playing with the idea of doing another cider in the near future.

 

[blakie21]

Its a bit of a necessary evil in the wine game - heat paturisation is pretty much seen as a no-no, boils off aromatics, etc.

Ill keep that in mind! I thought heating it would be better than SO2 but guess I was wrong and I didn't want to chance leaving it without any sort of sanitising.

Either way, ill let you guys know how it goes for me since it seems like ive done things a little differently, for better or for worse haha.

Cheers

 

[Airgead]

Ill keep that in mind! I thought heating it would be better than SO2 but guess I was wrong and I didn't want to chance leaving it without any sort of sanitising.

Either way, ill let you guys know how it goes for me since it seems like ive done things a little differently, for better or for worse haha.

Cheers

My ciders are made from fresh squeezed apples. I cold settle the juice overnight and that's it. No sanitation. No SO2.

Shop bought juice should be perfectly fine just as is.

Oh, and you should be OK in PET from 1.001. It may be overcarbed but they should hold the pressure. Glass on the other hand...

Cheers
Dave

 

[Greg.L]

Store bought juice would have already been pasteurised once so there's not much point in doing it again. Beer people often have this idea that apple juice has to be sterilised before fermenting, there's no need at all, even for fresh pressed juice. Winegrapes don't even get washed before fermenting, you should see the crap that goes in with the grapes, They call it MOG. A good ferment sorts out most microbes, the co2, so2, acid and alcohol make for a pretty tough environment for most things.

 

[Muggus]

Winegrapes don't even get washed before fermenting, you should see the crap that goes in with the grapes, They call it MOG. A good ferment sorts out most microbes, the co2, so2, acid and alcohol make for a pretty tough environment for most things.

:icon_offtopic: Apologies...
MOG, depending on your harvesting and processing method, will often be removed by your crusher/destemmer. There's always a good chance, particularly with machine harvested fruit, that MOG will makes its way into the press with whites, and can cause some serious damage to airbag presses. Rather annoying!

But yeah, what i'm getting at is that the must is seperated from the juice itself in the pressing process, however that doesn't make the juice clear or clean.
What you'll probably find is that the "cloudy" apple juice is made in a similiar way (with all the MOA included) but NOT settled before bottling, and has to be kept refridgerated at all times to avoid spontaneous fermentation.
Tastes amazing, yeah, but it is actually quite prone to either fermenting or oxidation...which is why it's always gonna require some sort of "sanitisation" to eliminate unwanted microbes - and it's probably moreso prone to so than wine grapes, without the low pH and (in reds anyway) presence of anthocyanins.

 

[Greg.L]

I reckon cloudy apple juice is just ordinary apple juice with some sort of polymer added. Any juice in a supermarket is definitely pasteurised. The time frame for getting from the factory (probably in china) to the supermarket fridge wouldn't allow for unpasteurised juice. Even in a fridge with so2 and sorbate added it would get fizzy pretty quick.

I don't think that a destemmer separates the caterpillars and spiders from the berries. Most of the crap gets through.

 

[pk.sax]

Coincidentally, I bought the same juice this week.

Bottle says, made in oz from local apples. There goes the made in china theory.
No preservatives, but BB date is 22 sept. That's a good 3 weeks, at least. I have to agree, must've bn pasteurized. But that said, taste is different from say - Coles brand cloudy. I'm leaning towards them using something weird like ultrasonic waves to kill baddies.

Also, it proclaims that it's not reconstituted. 'from apple to bottle in 72 hours.....'. Don't think it's chemically cloudy. Definitely been filtered to some degree though as I can't find much settled pulp.

By the way, my cloudy ciders don't normally ferment to 1000. I just carb conservatively. Not like it's gonna hold any head regardless of carbonation, excessive CO2 just drives the flavour off and gives it an excessive pucker taste.
I just carb with pasteurized LL apple juice to avoid adding too much solids to the bottles. Through the ferment I make sure to give the carboy a few gentle swirls every few days to make sure the yeast does it's best. Let age atleast a week on the lees. I kinda don't much like taking samples out of a carboy either.... Only at the end and if it isn't finished it gets racked.

 

[manticle]

Absolutely no need for pasteurisation or SO2 with store bought juice. Pour juice in bucket/fermenter/carboy, add yeast, ferment.

Simple as that. I've recently added a small amount of malic and tannic acid to a mixed juice cloudy cider (mixed as in made from as many different brands of preservative free juice as I could find) and I reckon it's great. Carbed really low, does actually form and hold a small head for a little while, dry but with complexity.

 

[Muggus]

Absolutely no need for pasteurisation or SO2 with store bought juice. Pour juice in bucket/fermenter/carboy, add yeast, ferment.

Simple as that. I've recently added a small amount of malic and tannic acid to a mixed juice cloudy cider (mixed as in made from as many different brands of preservative free juice as I could find) and I reckon it's great. Carbed really low, does actually form and hold a small head for a little while, dry but with complexity.

Are you talking about fresh "cloudy" stuff though?

I really seem to think, as with wine, that solids, ie the cloudy shit, lead to unpredictable funky character during fermentation. Which is all good if you like that kinda stuff, but clarification of some sort may be necessary if you want a cleaner cider.

 

[manticle]

Are you talking about fresh "cloudy" stuff though?

I really seem to think, as with wine, that solids, ie the cloudy shit, lead to unpredictable funky character during fermentation. Which is all good if you like that kinda stuff, but clarification of some sort may be necessary if you want a cleaner cider.

I'm talking about store bought juice mainly which, to the best of my knowledge will be already pasteurised somehow.

The most recent cider I made is a blend of as many different store bought, preservative free juices as I could afford. About half were clear and the other half cloudy.

The resulting cider is cloudy and, to my palate has not a trace of funk. Most other juice based ciders I've made have been clear.

You could be right - my experience of cloudy as opposed to clear cider isn't massive and maybe I just escaped the funk with this one but none of the store bought juice based ciders I've made have resulted in any funkiness. Even the fresh store bought stuff will have been pateurised or cold pressured (or whatever it is they do to preshafruit) as far as I'm aware so pasteurising again yourself seems pointless.

My understanding (and small experience) of making stuff yourself from fresh apples (unless on a commercial scale where consistency and control might be more important) is that pasteurisation and sulphite additions are also unnecessary and if you pitch healthy yeast that will be enough.

When I've made cider from squeezing my own apples (pain in the arse with a juicer but I should have a small fruit press by the middle of next week), I've simply left it overnight, racked from underneath any crust and pitched an active starter at it the next day. That seems to be enough although I also do this in winter time. I can imagine if you bought unpasteurised, soft cider from somewhere that there would be a window of opportunity for funky microflora to establish a stronger footing (or if you made it during warmer months).

 

[blakie21]

This may be disgraceful for those out there who like to age ciders but I just had to have a taste last night (I drank out of the crappy dregs which i bottled anyway).

I have to say it really is good.. for something that is so strong I am impressed. I couldn't just take my opinion though, since I haven't really tried many ciders. I asked a couple of friends who come from the UK and lived near alot of local cider places and they even said it tasted 'like home'.

Overall very impressed and assuming it will only get better with some more time in the bottle since it wasn't even carbed very much yet.