Liquefied/juiced apples for cider?

Hi there,

I'm considering brewing my own cider as a summer experiment. There are plenty of recipes out there using store-bought apple juice but to me that seems like cheating a little. Is there any reason not to shove a few kilos of apples through my juicer and use that? From what I have found over the internet the biggest issue is about choosing to add yeast or relying on the wild yeast present on fresh apples.

If this is a feasible way of making cider, what apples are best? I haven't found any easy way of getting cider apples around me so I'm pretty limited by what I can get from my local organic market.

Think I'm going to cause some trouble over the coming months, but hopefully I'll have some successful results!

Ta!

I'm new as well, but just my two cents,

I'm not a huge fan of using wild yeast, unless you have lots of space and free juice. Just adds a big element of unpredictability. Using a recognized brewing yeast eliminates a variable. I don't recomend using lalvin ec1118 though, it's so aggressive it strips out a bunch of flavour.

I would think selecting apple types strong in flavour with a blend of tart and sweet would give you a decent cider.

There isn't really a reason not to use apple pieces in your cider. They frequently add some nice additional flavor. The additional solids in the cider do make it harder to clear the cider. That's really an ascetic thing though. You do need to have a fairly significant liquid volume, so you'd want to press most of the apples and use some cleaned and cored pieces in the brew.

I'd recommend using pectin enzyme as well, or you could end up with lots of sugar stuck as pectin carbohydrate. That's even more true with apples other then juicers. Though it is also true you can juice most types of apples.

x2 on pitching yeast, I'm not a fan of wild yeast strains.

Happy brewing, and I think we could use a bit more trouble around here.

You guys say you wouldn't trust wild yeast, what would be the best way to remove it before you start brewing?

boil your juice before fermenting. That'll kill off any bacteria/yeast and let you control more of what goes down with your cider

Wouldn't boiling set the pectins making a permanent haze? I would think some Camden tablets would kill the wild yeast and Bacteria?

Bluespark said:

Wouldn't boiling set the pectins making a permanent haze? I would think some Camden tablets would kill the wild yeast and Bacteria?

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That would work too. If you use pectin enzyme before boiling then you shouldn't have any pectin to set.

I don't boil my juice completely because I usually get something was already pasteurized but not preserved. Every time I make cider I heat the juice to 155 for about 10 minutes while at the same time I'm dissolving all of the sugars that I add (my cider is more toward a wine at 12% to 14% using Champagne yeast).

I add some pectic enzyme to it and I can either cold crash it or stabilize it with an additive - then refrigerate it and it comes up clear as can be a few days later. That's just my experience with "cooking" the juice.

Just wash your apples before juicing let dry. Juice them add one Camden tablet (crushed) per gallon let sit for 2 days then you will be fine.

i'll add another voice to the crowd, but one from someone who has made many many 'juicer ciders' DON'T HEAT YOUR JUICE! and don't worry about wild yeasts. focus on getting the right apple blend. just think, cider has been made for centuries without pasteurizing, boiling, filtering, even without control of yeasts, just with pressed apples, a bit of burnt sulfur (old school campden tablet), and the same fermenter as the last batch. english-style ciders and to a lesser extent normandy ciders tend to have quite a strong tannic bite, and no regular eating apples have any appreciable tannin content. since finding bittersweet cider varieties is going to be impossible this time of year wherever you are in the world (use of 'ta' points me towards blightly) you can carry on with what you can get, and still make a nice drink, but as bluespark says above definitely at least mix in something tart and don't just go with sweet bland apples like golden delicious, you will get boozy water at the end. think cox orange pippin with a small % granny smith, that kind of thing works for me. and if you can find some crabapples somewhere, in holland you can steal them from people's christmas decorations sometimes, a small amount will give you some nice tannin. you can get powdered tannin if you want to cheat a little. juice everything, let it settle, it's a good idea to hit it with a little bit if sulfite/campden, there is sulfite present in all organisms, you're not adding some crazy radioactive isotope and most of it will be gone by the time you drink it anyways. or don't add it and you will be ok; your domesticated yeast will take over before anything bad takes hold. with juicer ciders i have done them with and without sulfite, with and without pectic enzyme (for me they clear in time either way), and with both wild and domesticated yeast. wild yeast is trickier, you have to be a bit vigilant, best go with a packet of yeast (i like neutral ale yeast s05). remove the persistent thick foam from the top of the juice after it settles (a sanitized spoon, or siphon the juice from underneath), if you added sulfite cover the juice and wait 24 hours, and then add your (rehydrated) yeast. wait at least a month before you do anything. then rack to a clean jug, top up to the absolute top with a bit of fresh juice, and give it a couple more months, to a year. don't underestimate how much it can change in ~ 6 months.
pretty easy really.

wait- you said summer! you're on the other side! where are you, if oz/nz are there cider apples? get your technique down with regular apples and in a few months try to find some bittersweets?