First Time Cider

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petetheo

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Okay, so I've brewed plenty of beer but this will be my first crack at cider. I'm a a little short on cash so I can't spring for anything fancy. I recently took a trip to an apple orchard and my family picked some apples as well as purchased a gallon jug of "flash pasteurized" apple cider. I'm interested in making some hard cider using my already available brew kit. I stopped by LHBS this morning and picked up some White Labs WLP775 English Cider Yeast and at the suggestion of the clerk, some campden tablets. There seem to be so many options on how I could proceed and I guess I'm just looking at the easiest and quickest method to produce the most enjoyable cider. Any suggestions?

The clerk said I should put two tablets in the jug and let it sit for 24-48 hours. Then pour the cider into my carboy and pitch the yeast at room temp. He said it wasn't necessary to use a secondary and he said that bottle conditioning would be best. Any thoughts?

BTW.. I want to start today so hurry up and answer. :)
 
no need for campden with pasteurized juice, just pitch the yeast. also with campden its 1 tab per gallon. secondary isnt necessary but you can get a yeasty taste.
 
no need for campden with pasteurized juice, just pitch the yeast. also with campden its 1 tab per gallon. secondary isnt necessary but you can get a yeasty taste.

You're saying that the yeasty taste MIGHT come if I DON'T do a secondary?
 
Hey, I'm more or less in the same boat. The only difference is that I picked up 5 gallons of cider from a local organic farm, it was pressed on premises without any form of UV or pasteurization I literally watched them grind and press the apples into cider a few hours ago.

That being said I picked up some "White Labs WLP775 Cider Yeast Liquid Yeast", some "LD Carlson Yeast Nutrient", some "LD Carlson Pectic Enzyme", and some "LD Carlson Campden Tablets (KMS) Sterilant & Preservative" at the suggestion of my lhbs. The place was about to close so I didn't want to keep them late with questions about cider making, just asked them to set me up with everything I'd need. I have no idea what these additives are or what they do or what order I should use them in.

Normally I'd stay and shoot the ****/get all the info I could but everyone around here is rushing to prepare their homes for Hurricane Sandy. I didn't want to be that guy who kept my lhbs crew from getting to The Home Depot to pick up whatever gear they needed so I figured I'd just get my ass home and ask the forum.

So here are my questions.

1. Does my fresh pressed today cider really need the Campden Tabs?
2. At what point do I add the Pectic Enzyme?
3. At what point do I add the yeast nutrient?
3a. At what point/temp do I pitch the liquid yeast?
4. I was told not to boil my cider because it would haze, isn't that what the pectic enzyme is for?
5. Does anyone have a method or favorite recipe for making cider with unpasteurized product?

Thanks in advance, I've been brewing beer for a long time but this is my first cider batch so any and all advice would be most appreciated.
 
Been fermenting for about five days so far. It's been smelling like freshly pounded butthole but I've read that's normal. The bad smell is starting to subside and the cider smell is starting to come out. It's bubbling about once every ten seconds. When should I transfer it to secondary? Does anyone have any opinions?
 
I keep hearing smells like pounded butthole and Rhino farts but that just hasn't been my experience. All my batches smell lightly appley during fermentation.
 
The bad smell has settle out quite a bit. It was in primary for two weeks. I just racked it yesterday and it was at 1.000 at room temp. I wanted to rack it onto some cinnamon sticks but I didn't have any laying around. I picked some up today but I'm not how many to use in a one gallon carboy. Any ideas?

Also, I want to back sweeten with frozen concentrate. How much should I use?
 
I use lalvin EC 1118 for all my ciders, they come out on the dry side. I use 1 large can of Tree Top frozen concentrate per 5 gallons to back sweeten mine. Turns out pretty good, at least I think so. Just checked my last batch, SG was 1.076 when i started, pitched the yeast on 11/3 and tonight it was at 1.01. Another week or so and I will rack it into the secondary for another couple of weeks before back sweeten, and bottling. Never had a bad smell on any of my batches with the 1118 yeast.
 
Yea, 1118 brags about their low "rhino fart" emissions... Just it wasn't like trying to stop a freight train when trying to stop a fermentation from that yeast. I wanted to preserve as much original apple flavor (raw, fresh pressed cider) as possible, so I wanted to stop it before it went completely dry.
 
I use lalvin EC 1118 for all my ciders, they come out on the dry side. I use 1 large can of Tree Top frozen concentrate per 5 gallons to back sweeten mine. Turns out pretty good, at least I think so. Just checked my last batch, SG was 1.076 when i started, pitched the yeast on 11/3 and tonight it was at 1.01. Another week or so and I will rack it into the secondary for another couple of weeks before back sweeten, and bottling. Never had a bad smell on any of my batches with the 1118 yeast.


Now, I'm interested in backsweetening and I'm also interested in having a sparkling cider in about a week from now. Haha. Actually, that's impossible. But anyways, how do I go about adding the concentrate? Do I just rack onto it in my bottling bucket? Or am I supposed to kill the yeast, rack onto it in a secondary and then let it settle out and then bottle?
 
I only use the concentrate with still ciders. I put in the juice, let go until i like the flavor, the throw in campden tabs to stop the secondary fermentation that started. If you bottle with yeast still going, you may blow your bottles.
 
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