First ever attempt without any equipment!

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Noz03

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Ok this is a bit of a unique situation as I am actually living in a country where any kind of specialized brewing equipment or ingredients are not available and importing would be expensive, but I decided to give it a try anyway and found this video which seems like a very simple brew that I can attempt with the stuff I have available.
Heres the vid if anyone wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufzTNLSZOk4

So basically the plan is to put 2L of cheap lukewarm apple juice into a 5L water bottle. add a few table spoons of table sugar, a teaspoon of bread yeast (beer or wine yeast is not available), a few raisins, stir, cover with saran wrap with a pin hole in it and leave it in my kitchen cupboard (approx 0-10°C depending on the time of day) for about a month.

So how does this sound? Honestly I am not expecting a great finished product from this, but as long as it would be drinkable and have a decent amount of alcohol I will be very happy. And if this experiment goes well maybe I can consider importing some equipment for my next batch :)
 
A lot of people have had decent results with this method. As long as you can sanitize everything...water with a little bleach in it would work...and then rinse really well. Then make sure there are no preservatives in the juice. I'd also suggest maybe more than a few tablespoons of sugar...6-10? And a brown or raw sugar would also be my suggestion if it's available. If you can find a small ballon, use that instead of the plastic wrap. (but plastic wrap will work fine) This will allow you to observe the active fermentation a little better and you can also see when it's on the down side.

Your temp range is a bit low. I don't know how low Bread Yeast will ferment, but I'm betting that 32ºF (0ºC) isn't going to produce much. 10ºC is better, but I'd suggest wrapping it with some towels to keep it as warm as possible. (15º-20º C would be ideal)

Good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
Ok brown sugar and balloon, those should be easy enough I guess. For the bleach though I'm not so sure, I'm a little paranoid about using it for eating/drinking equipment... too many horror stories. Would regular washing-up-liquid and rinse boiling water not be enough?

For the temperature my house is unheated so we just use an electric heater for whatever room we are in, but I will use the towels and keep it in the warmest room I have (5-20C room temp) would that be better? I guess the fermentation process also produces some heat also and the towels will keep that held in.
 
The bleach would only be left on any surface that would come in contact with your cider for about 10-15 mins...then...wash it off thoroughly. You don't want to leave any on there. Make sure to rinse it well. But you can try without it. I wouldn't use dish liquid because it will leave a film if you aren't careful. Boiling water will work, but might melt or deform your water bottle.

You'll know pretty quickly if the cider isn't warm enough. It either won't start fermentation or will stall quickly if the temp drops too much. The towels should help a lot.
 
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