Boring First Time CIder Maker

Hey Guys,

I know, I know, Another one. I've read as much as I can.


What I need is a simple instructional thingy.


I am wanting to make a sweet fruit cider. I am going to be using fruit juice and fruit juice concentrate, then obviously suger and yeast.

I take it I can use whatever fruit juice I want, I will probably use apple and blackcurrent or something, blueberry maybe.


Anyway!!

Can you people tell me what I need to do.

Mix the ingredients in the fermenter, how long do I leave it to ferment? Also, do I just leave it long enough for the yeast to become innactive? Because I wanna backsweeten it, I know I can use lactose, but it would be awesome to be able to just use fruit juice concentrate, however obviously I can't because the yeast will turn the suger to alcohol.

SO what do I do?

I know I need to use champagne yeast and not orange juice because its too acide.


Can I just ferment for a long time to kill yeast or do I need to do something.


Cheers peeps!

Jake

You just mix your juice and sugar together and add yeast. You don't need champagne yeast you can use whatever kind you want to. If you want it sweet you can stop it at its desired sweetness and bottle pasteurize. See the sticky for pasteurizing. Good luck.

I once made the mistake of adding frozen apple juice concentrate without considering that it had enough ascorbic acid in it to make the reconstituted juice snappy. But added straight to the must which had already been adjusted to correct acidity it made the result undrinkably tart. I had to use chalk to bring the acid down and the stuff was drinkable after several years aging, but was never going to be excellent. I'd keep this in mind for doing any pre-fermentation acid adjustment. In fact, I have stopped adjusting acid for cider before the ferment, because it drops anyway during the process.

Awesome.

Just gonna check the pasturizing thread.

Hope I didn't sound too arsey in the original post, I was at work and had to be quick haha

Okay, read the pasturizing thread.

Thats an awesome method, love it.


However, if I'm to do that, I can't back sweeten, do I need to backsweeten to create a fruity cider?


Also, it would be immensly appreciated if someone could give me a recipe to create 23l of cider.

I just wanna use:

Fruit Juice
Fruit Juice concentrate
Yeast
Water

If someone can give me a standard recipe where I can just change what fruit juice I use, it would be sooo awesome. I've looked for ages and can't find anything.


Also, can you carbonate Cider the same way as beer? With carbonation drops?

You can back sweeten if you pasteurize. Just Do it before it becomes too carbonated. You will want to check a bottle daily to achieve the desired level of carbonation.

Righty!!

I'm getting there.


So I mix ingredients, ferment, Carbonate, wait until its at the right level, then pasteurize?


If i'm to do this, how long do I need to ferment for? Can I just use carbonation drops?


Also, any basic recipes using fruit juice?


For example:

Mix fruit juice, fruit concentrate, suger, yeast, ferment for xxx days, bottle with carbonation drops, open daily to check carbonation level, heat pasturize when desired?

Brewtobelegend said:

Righty!!

I'm getting there.

So I mix ingredients, ferment, Carbonate, wait until its at the right level, then pasteurize?

If i'm to do this, how long do I need to ferment for? Can I just use carbonation drops?

Also, any basic recipes using fruit juice?

For example:

Mix fruit juice, fruit concentrate, suger, yeast, ferment for xxx days, bottle with carbonation drops, open daily to check carbonation level, heat pasturize when desired?

Click to expand...

I have just sampled a few of this recipe, while not super sweet, I find it very tasty already and know it will improve with age. You could add more concentrate at bottling time for sweetness but watch out for the carbonation, it starts slow then happens all of a sudden.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/cider-carbonation-373701/

Cheers Fossey, Mucho Appreciata!

As for when it is done that depends. If you want a sweet cider you can go by taste. Then bottle it and pasteurize when it is carbonated. If you bottle it before it ferments completely dry then you don't need to use carbonation drops. It will ferment on its own in the bottles