Simplest Cider

[pdilley]

Huge cold swing came in over past 5 days. Temp dropped to 12-15 averages so put down simplest recipe I've done.

22 litres ALDI Pure Apple Juice
s-04 yeast
11.25 Brix

25 litre glass demijohm sanitised.
22 litre juice poured cold, splashed through large sanitised funnel for foaming oxygenation.
Yeast water rehydrated and pitched
Bunged and fermentation lock applied.


Following on from USA brew reports to how well they've fermented ciders with S-04

Pitching Montrachet wine yeast (Craft Brewer) instead of S-04 is reported to match near perfect German Apfelwein in taste when using the same simple cold apple juice as only ingridient. However, the yanks add sugar which Im against for sole purpose of high abv. Without sugar adjunct the abv will be close to real German Apfelwein so if you are a purist stick with pure juice.

Alternatives would include pear juice additions.

Ive heard a lot of cross honey to yeast ferments have shown US-05 makes some of nicer tasting meads than wine yeasts so I am preparing to do some small batch meads with 05 and also D-47 once the weekend frees me up to visit the LHBS for purhasing those yeasts.

Keeping mead abv 10-12% range will reduce the aging time, and consumption happen faster. OG would be closer to 1100 when working with 05.

Now just have to make sure SWMBO doesnt turn on the heater and crank it up to 24 during the day. (fingers crossed)

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Verbyla]

Sorry for my ignorance but are you saying that you decided to brew a cider as the temperature is currently cold???

Is it best to brew cider at lower temperatures to beer?

I've always done mine around the 18-22 mark but haven't really thought that maybe it wasn't the correct temperature or heard any differently.

 

[Ivan Other One]

Hi Pete,
Having heard of this same recipe from my LHBS, am keen to learn how this turns out,AC%, taste, so please do keep us informed.

Cheers, The Other One

 

[pdilley]

The temperature inside the cider must during the fermentation (peak) will be 4 to 5 degrees higher than ambient. So my fermentation temperature is expected to be around the 18 degree mark on average. (16-20 degrees range). You do not want to be fermenting too low if you want to push the ester output of the British Ale yeast to get added fruitiness that wouldn't normally be in the finished cider. I've seen the simple cider fermented down around 14.4 C to 16 C online so I'm not stressing the temp on the first attempt.

SG for the Hydro guys should be 1046. This should be close to 11.25 Brix reading from the Refractometer.
Potential ABV would be 5.8% but expecting lower at around 4.9% mark if I hit a TG of 1006-1008.

Because it is an all apple juice ferment and due to the refractive nature of the sugar involved versus the compound mix of different sugar mix each of differing refractive properties in beer wort, I'll be using Refractometer exclusively for this fermentation as its a perfect match, although with the total volume of this batch using a hydro is perfectly fine. Degassing samples along the way. (Beer worts will require a few brews of each recipe through the different SRM/Lovibond ranges to calibrate your Refractometer to each compound sugar profile at each range in the SRM scale to determine the correction value to use for future brews to get the most accurate readings.)

Once you get into small batch brewing where 5 litres is your demijohn size you worry about racking (losing ~ 1/2 wine bottle for every racking) or multiple hydro readings (losing ~ 300ml for every reading depending on test tube size).

The Montrachet option, being a wine yeast will ferment out completely dry which is in character for German Apfelwein. I'm not into very dry Apfelwein where by your 3rd glass (serving size is small in Germany) you start to get some apple flavours hinting through at last so I'm doing the recommended S-04 for a more traditional cider flavour. If you know anyone who was ever stationed in Germany, using the Montrachet yeast will bring back memories for them when they take a sip of your Apfelwein.

That said over 10,000+ gallons of straight juice + Montrachet, or Juice + Sugar + Montrachet have been brewed and consumed in the States since the original recipe was posted so its tried and true if you want to give Apfelwein a go. No nutrient additions so sulphur elephant farts have happened in the fermenter with a lot of the Apfelweins brewed as Montrachet has a tendency towards sulphur when stressed as it is with just pure apple juice to feed off of as its rather nutrient barren for yeast on its own without ammendments. Most Apfelwein ends up kegged and carbonated and served on tap.

Pick your desired end result and have at it

Maybe we should keep a running volume brewed total if everyone replies to this same post.

So to start it off the counters:
German Apfelwein = 0 total litres brewed by AHB members.
Simplest Cider = 22 total litres brewed by AHB members. (ok i'm cheating a bit as it needs a week or more in the fermenter)

I'll be picking up a lot of the US-05 it looks like this weekend as I have quite a bit of testing to do with it in mead recipes.

 

[tcraig20]

No nutrient additions so sulphur elephant farts have happened in the fermenter with a lot of the Apfelweins brewed as Montrachet has a tendency towards sulphur when stressed as it is with just pure apple juice to feed off of as its rather nutrient barren for yeast on its own without ammendments.

Ive never noticed any sulfur from ciders Ive brewed without nutrient. These days I usually put nutrient in as fermentation is REAALLLY SLOWWW without it - one took near 3 months to ferment out. My nutrient is usually just a couple of packs of old kit yeast boiled up for a couple of minutes.

 

[pdilley]

Are you brewing with the Red Star Montrachet wine yeast strain? It does not always produce sulphur for brewers but does on occasion and nutrient additions are always recommended for remediation of sulphur production.

Let me grab the technical blurb on Montrachet:

Red Star Montrachet (Davis 522), a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been derived from the collection of the University of California. This strain has been widely used in the U.S. since 1963. It is a strong fermenter with good ethanol tolerance, and will readily ferment grape musts and fruit juices to dryness. This strain also has good tolerance to free sulfur dioxide. This strain is recommended for full bodied reds and whites. It is not recommended for grapes that have recently been dusted with sulfur, because of a tendency to produce hydrogen sulfide in the presence of higher concentrations of sulfur compounds. Montrachet is noted for low volatile acidity, good flavor complexity, and intense color.

I have not run Montrachet through ALDI juice so I'm not going to comment on it much until I do.

Fermentation of the German Apfelwein is reported at a 2 to 3 week fermentation and then an additional 2 weeks of very low fermentation lock activity. Some people report rushing it into a keg by 6 weeks but most people report that the Apfelwein will not have cleared by then. For clearing the Apfelwien with Montrachet yeast will appear to not do anything for a minimum of 2 months and then all of a sudden will clear. Other posted reports also mention not to taste it until at least 2 months as it will not taste good. I think this later is related to the high sugar adjunct version they brew over there.

But when waiting for clarity you can not assign a time, so it could be 3 months as you experienced with yours:

What appears to be the hardest concept for new Apfelwein brewers to grasp is that you can't put a schedule on your brew, you need to give it as much times as it needs. Having said that, when you are waiting for clarity, you are waiting for crystal clear brew. You should be able to hold a newspaper on the other side of the carboy and read the smallest print through it. That is assuming you are using a clear carboy though.

Hopefully these quotes will give some good information for those who chose to go the Apfelwein route with Montrachet yeast.

 

[tcraig20]

Are you brewing with the Red Star Montrachet wine yeast strain?

No, sorry I misunderstood.

 

[pdilley]

Not a worry, but something to try next time!

One day I will try the Apfelwein by using Montrachet on ALDI juice. Just not today, want tasty cider that can be consumed quicker and with lower Alc% for now, especially after that Black Rock LHBS kit

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[tcraig20]

Not a worry, but something to try next time!

One day I will try the Apfelwein by using Montrachet on ALDI juice. Just not today, want tasty cider that can be consumed quicker and with lower Alc% for now, especially after that Black Rock LHBS kit

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Yes, I just might do that. I dont mind a bit of sulfur nose to a lager, it might make for an interesting cider!

 

[Melon]

I've had good success with Coles Apple Juice and S-04.

I did a side by side brew test in 5L glass jugs, same juice in both but one with S-04 the other with Champagne yeast.
I found the Champagne yeast left more apple flavours in the mix.

 

[hayden]

as have i just putting 9 litres of of smart buy apple juice and topping up with another 11 litres of water, and put acider yeast through it the tolerant tempt range is 7-35 degrees so making it bullet proof almost. no extra sugar was quite dry at the end but that can be adjusted as well with a bit of lactose ive heard to sweeten it up.

 

[pdilley]

As Murphy would have it, SWMBO had the heater on and it was 22 on the first day. She set the temporary temp to 14 but left the program mode running which ran the previous owners program of different heat during the day. I corrected that one. Photo of day one shows minor krausen formation. After temperature corrected, no foaming at all, completely disappeared. Day two had slow fermentation lock activity, Day three has faster activity. I'm in no rush.

Melon: You'll have to add the litres of your S-04 brews to the AHB Simplest Cider number tally.

I have a champagne strain here so I can always do a small batch 5 litre fermentation with it once I get some more 5 litre bottles from the LHBS.

Half-fix: That would be a low ABV drink which would be nice, still good enough to back sweeten with fresh juice which lowers the ABV even more which is fine. High ABV isn't the goal, a nice drink is.

Even if the yeast says it has a range 7-35 degrees, try and keep it under 20 as much as you can. Yeast grows best at the high temperatures but excrete all sorts of aweful muck at those temperatures. Keeping it low slows them down considerably and adds a bit of stress but lets you ferment a lot "cleaner". My Black Rock kit I allowed to ferment between 20-25 C and I will never do that again

 

[Melon]

Melon: You'll have to add the litres of your S-04 brews to the AHB Simplest Cider number tally.

Add 16 Litres to your totals.

 

[pdilley]

German Apfelwein = 0 total litres brewed by AHB members.
Simplest Cider = 38 total litres brewed by AHB members.

I'll have to make some html coded signature block with these counters people can cut and paste into their signatures that link back to this post.

 

[hayden]

the higher ABV is only for what im trying to accomplish. seeing if i can make something to the celtic cider i had gotten once from my relatives. but again personal preference.

im really not fussed usually on it. the end product tends to be really quite dry, from the yeast used but thats just from ive noticed

 

[Airgead]

Of course, if you really want an absolutely minimal cider you could let the wild yeast do the job...

Plenty of wild yeast on the skin of an apple...

 

[brettprevans]

inspired to do a quick/simple cider for ease sake.

19L apple/pear juice (no preservitives)
3L water
s-04 or Montrachet (not sure yet)
guessing abv 9%
0.25L pomagranite concentrate
1 vanilla bean

once fermented out (say 6 weeks), I'll keg with the pomagranite juice and vanilla bean.

I figure the dry Montrachet yeast (if I use it) would be countered by the sweet pomagranite concentrate. or I could backsweeten slightly with lactose or similar.

then again the 204 traditional cider flavour may also well compliment the flavour of the pomagranite.

thoughts.

 

[drsmurto]

German Apfelwein = 0 total litres brewed by AHB members.
Simplest Cider = 38 total litres brewed by AHB members.

I'll have to make some html coded signature block with these counters people can cut and paste into their signatures that link back to this post.

Not meaning to sound derogatory Pete but if you were to do a search of AHB you would find that apple juice + yeast has been done ad infinitum.

I've been doing this for more than year and got the idea from this very website (Tangent brought a keg along to a brewing get together some time in 2007 - juice + wyeast 4766). Lost count of how many batches i have done - either bought apple juice or juice apples myself plus a yeast.

The poms on Jims Beer Kit have been doing it for a lot longer and refer to it as turbo cider (TC). They have played around with a variety of ale yeasts as well as wine yeasts.

I have used S-04 before and champagne (EC-1118) but found that the Wyeast 4766 allowed the apple flavour to shine through.

Cheers
DrSmurto

edit - spelling

 

[brettprevans]

Carn Smurto, give us ur 2c worth on my piss ant concoction. hmm m 4766 huh. ashame i dont have any

edit: yes its basicly for ladies (or their knickers hehe). but bet your bottom dollar ill be drinking it also

 

[drsmurto]

Carn Smurto, give us ur 2c worth on my piss ant concoction. hmm m 4766 huh. ashame i dont have any

edit: yes its basicly for ladies (or their knickers hehe). but bet your bottom dollar ill be drinking it also

It wont be anywhere near 9%.

Straight apple juice has an OG of 1.046-8 (well, that depends on what sort of apples you use but apple juice from a bottle has as OG of 1.048).

When using the champers yeast FG 1.000 giving an abv of 7.2%.

With Wyeast 4766 - FG 1.010 giving an abv of 5.8%

The only thing i have added to a cider before is some lemon zest and a cinnamon stick. I prefer a straight cider.

Pomegranate concentrate might be interesting