HELP! Ripe apples, no clue!

Hello! I have an apple tree full of worm free ripe macintosh (I think) apples. I want to pick them, put them through a juicer, and stick the juice into a 5 gallon airtight (with a co2 wine carb) waterjug. I am looking for apple wine or hard cider recipes. Please help as I have lost my book on homebrew. Thank You!

Look no further, EdWort's Apfelwein. This stuff is good, and by good I mean the best thing you can make with apples on this planet.

That is exactly what I needed. I live in a small town, do you think that our local organic food store will have wine yeast?

no I don't but it's worth a try. If not look for a LHBS or order some off the net.

Would bakers yeast create an eye blinding poison Or, maybe, a yeasty bread cider, good for holloween party?

Baker's wont poison you , but maybe you will wish it did when you taste it! It tends to create a number of off flavors in fermentation; a proper brewer's yeast is highly recommended and should provide much cleaner flavor. Find some other stuff you need and order from one of the numerous HBS's on the net, or see if there's a chapter of the AHA nearby if you can't find a LHBS.

You can buy some from Midwest Supply for $.50 a packet, buy several of them and they'll store in your fridge for quite a long time. Trust me, once you try some of this stuff you'll probably want to make some more. You'll need the extra yeast.

I found a local brewery here in Helena that is also a homebrew supply place. I'm sterilizing a 5 gallon jug, and sticking a wine Co2 carb on it. I plan on boiling the apple juice, adding the extra sugar during the cooking process.. and then letting it cool to 80 degrees before adding the yeast. I have a downstairs room where I plan to let it set for however long it takes (recipe says about 4 weeks till it clears).. I've only done this once before.. and that was with a do it yourself wine kit from wallmart. Do you think that cooking the juice is nscry? I think that it would bring out the sugars, and kill any natural yeast.

You shouldn't boil the juice- you'll set the pectin (think apple jelly). You can buy campden tablets and add one per gallon of juice and that kills all the nasties and wild yeasts, but doesn't inhibit wine yeast. I make apple wine (not the apfelwein recipe) and it's one of the best but it does take a while. My recipe is under my avatar, under apple juice wine. You can juice the apples, then make it as written.

I don't know what you mean by co2 carb. You should use an airlock.

mtusername said:

Hello! I have an apple tree full of worm free ripe macintosh (I think) apples. I want to pick them, put them through a juicer, and stick the juice into a 5 gallon airtight (with a co2 wine carb) waterjug. I am looking for apple wine or hard cider recipes. Please help as I have lost my book on homebrew. Thank You!

Click to expand...

I don't think I would make Ed's Apfelwein with fresh apples. The biggest challenge is going to be turning the apples into cider.

If you want you can checkout my first attempt, and good luck:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=36792


Oh and by the way... the best recommendation I can give you is be patient... If you're looking at the bottle more than once a week after it starts to ferment you're getting impatient. It needs time.

For example, I'm drinking a wine right now that tasted like crap when it was given to me, but after 1 year it's not bad at all.

Not saying cider will take a year, but it might get good around 3 to 6 months.

Once you brew that, move on