help me turn apple cider to wine.

hello, new to the forum from south carolina. just recently fell into the hobby of homebrew wines. have completed a 5 gallon batch of scuppernong/muscadine wine which taste great. did everything from picking the grapes to stomping them with my feet and finally drinking a nice 10-11% wine.

i really enjoyed the process and it looks like i have a new hobby.

i also have 5 gallons of "welches" wine fermenting right now.


so on to my question. this weekend i am going to be in North Carolina and its apple picking season. originally i planned on buying a bushel of apples, pressing the juice out, and making some apple wine. i called the orchard and found out that a bushel of apples costs 34 dollars but they also sell fresh 100% cider from their orchard for 7 dollars a gallon. so to speed the process up im going to pick up 5 gallons of 100% cider.

my question is, will starting with cider instead of apple juice create a more flavorfull wine or will i be wasting money at 7 bucks a gallon when it wont end up any different than if i used regular grocery store apple juice.

i have tried a friends aphelwein or how ever you spell it, and while i thought it was good, it lacked the flavor that i was expecting. i was hoping that the cider would leave a little more flavor after the fermentation process.

also, im planning on using brown sugar instead of white sugar, and maybe adding a little bit of cinnamon to the batch.

and my last question is, how high of a SG should i shoot for? i want to make the wine as "alcoholic" as possible, but dont know where the happy medium is. hoping to end up with something around 11-13% ABV, but not sure if that would be too strong after tasting my friends aphelwein. (his was about 6%)

other than cider,sugar,campden tabs, and yeast, is there anything i need to add to it? yeast nutrient? acid blend?

any comments/pointers/recipe/help would be appreciated.

thanks!

I have little experience fermenting apple cider/juice but I would rather go with the cider than apple juice. Especially if you get it fresh from the orchard. Make sure to pick up some pectic enzyme because there is a fair amount of pectin in apple cider that should be broken down for better clarity in the finished product. Add your camden and 12-24 hours later pitch your pectic enzyme and then 12-24 hours from there finally pitch yeast. Another thing is that apples have higher levels of Malic acid so if you want a less tart and more fruity wine then I might recommend using Lalvin 71B yeast since it does metabolize some of the malic acid.

Made some from 7 Springs Apple Orchard in Hendersonville a few years ago. Nothing special, just follow a good recipe (got mine in the purple book). I presented a bottle to the owners the next year and he put on his counter next to the cash register.

The wine was a little thin and I added a can of apple concentrate before stabilizing and bottling. Tthat was just enough.

I use apple cider to make apple wine. It is far superior to the apple juice you find in the store imho. I add enough sugar to bring the sg to 1.090. I normally use EC-1118 yeast. a teaspoon of tannin, 5 tsp yeast nutrient, 1 tsp yeast energizer and 2 tsp acid blend. Let it age a few months racking every two months or so after the first rack. One of my favorite wines to make and it is so easy.

I have done Ed Worts Apfelwine with EC-1118. When it finished I added Sorbate and Kmeta then back sweetened with another gallon of cider...then kegged it to carb...it is very popular and I'm almost out.

ugh... i made a newbie mistake...... my recipe called for 2.5 tsp of acid blend per 5 gallon batch. somehow i read it wrong and was thinking that was for a gallon batch. i ended up putting in 5 tsp instead of 2.5..... essentially doubling the acid blend in the recipe.

the cider i started with was pretty sweet, didnt really have any acidic taste at all. how will adding twice as much recommended acid blend effect my wine in the end?

man i hope i didnt ruin this batch.

dixiedeerslaya said:

ugh... i made a newbie mistake...... my recipe called for 2.5 tsp of acid blend per 5 gallon batch. somehow i read it wrong and was thinking that was for a gallon batch. i ended up putting in 5 tsp instead of 2.5..... essentially doubling the acid blend in the recipe.

the cider i started with was pretty sweet, didnt really have any acidic taste at all. how will adding twice as much recommended acid blend effect my wine in the end?

man i hope i didnt ruin this batch.

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It might be just fine- acid blend provides tartness. It might be a bit too tart, but probably not. That's not really very much in 5 gallons.

i mis-typed. i meant 5 Table spoons.....which is alot more than 5 teaspoons..... i have been researching on here that backsweetening can take care of some of the bitterness if its too acidic, and i had planned on back sweetening anyway, and also aging can remove some bitterness, so hopefully i can still salvage it.