Graham's English Cider

Good Afternoon. Is it written correctly that this takes a month to carbonate after bottling with 4 oz's of dextrose? Any other batches I've carbonated have taken 5 to 7 days. Made 8/31 and moved to primary 10/01 so I think it's ready to bottle.

Vox said:

Good Afternoon. Is it written correctly that this takes a month to carbonate after bottling with 4 oz's of dextrose? Any other batches I've carbonated have taken 5 to 7 days. Made 8/31 and moved to primary 10/01 so I think it's ready to bottle.

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I bottled a few larger bottles of this and several smaller bottles. The larger the bottle, the quicker they seem to be carbing up. The largest one (1.5 liters) was fully carbonated at about 3 weeks. The smallest ones (12 ounces) are still not there at 4-5 weeks.

jmg727 said:

I bottled a few larger bottles of this and several smaller bottles. The larger the bottle, the quicker they seem to be carbing up. The largest one (1.5 liters) was fully carbonated at about 3 weeks. The smallest ones (12 ounces) are still not there at 4-5 weeks.

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Weird. Any cider I've ever made has taken about 5 days to carb.

urbanmyth said:

If I were to enter this in a competition, what style would it fall under? I am not familiar with the different styles of cider.

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I did this with S-04 and entered it as 27 B under English Cider. Remember you must also specify carbonation level and sweetness level

wolverinebrewer said:

I did this with S-04 and entered it as 27 B under English Cider. Remember you must also specify carbonation level and sweetness level

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Thanks!

I just moved 5 gallons of this to secondary, and it tasted pretty damn good. Went from 1.056 to 1.002, and was definitely very dry without any real harshness. I'm really excited to get this secondary over with and back sweeten a bit.

Bottled tonight. Has been in carboys for about 3.5 months. Crystal clear. FG just over 1.01. Kept to ball jars for myself to drink still. Tastes good. Looking forward to carbonation.

Edit: I should explain my FG doesn't mean anything as my water is weird.

zymurph said:

I just moved 5 gallons of this to secondary, and it tasted pretty damn good. Went from 1.056 to 1.002, and was definitely very dry without any real harshness. I'm really excited to get this secondary over with and back sweeten a bit.

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Do you plan on backsweetening with some Apple concentrate?

I have cider I made with S04 two months ago and was going to keg it. My ciders usually turn out a not tart so I was thinking of adding the tea bags and lime juice in the secondary. Any thoughts on this?

Might just get cider with tea and lime juice.

I think there's something chemical going in here with acid and tannins. I don't know what they do.

Maybe if you add and age?

You don't think the chemical reaction would still occur?

Vox said:

Do you plan on backsweetening with some Apple concentrate?

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Yup. I've heard two can of AJ concentrate are the way to go. Who am I to argue?

zymurph said:

Yup. I've heard two can of AJ concentrate are the way to go. Who am I to argue?

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May have to give two cans of aj concentrate a try when I bottle.

Vox said:

May have to give two cans of aj concentrate a try when I bottle.

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2 cans may get you bottle bombs if you aren't careful. 1 can is all that's needed per 5 gal batch to carbonate and give a little more apple flavor. 2 for a 10 gal batch. If you want residual sweetness and keg... Crash cool, filter out yeast if you can and then add the two cans & force carb (keep cold if you don't filter to avoid letting the yeast wake up). If you bottle & want sweetness add the 2 cans, but you need to monitor the carb level, and pasteurize when you get to desired carb & sweetness level. There's a huge thread about it... I haven't done it. Only fermented dry and used 1 can AJ to carbonate and let it use up all the sugar. My only sweet ciders have been filtered and kegged.

I keg, and plan to use potassium sorbate to knock the yeast down a peg. Back-sweetening and bottling sounds way to labor intensive (filter, bottle and then pasteurize? Ouch).

Have been drinking this for a couple of weeks now. It's been in bottles for close to a month. Had it in carboy for probably 4 months.

It's really good. And as of the last week or so in bottles, the apple flavor is really starting to jump out.

Going to pitch another this week probably. Way too easy and too good not to keep it coming.

This is so much better than the sweet store-bought cider to me. It really is just what I was looking for.

mike_in_ak said:

Might just get cider with tea and lime juice.

I think there's something chemical going in here with acid and tannins. I don't know what they do.

Maybe if you add and age?

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BWN said:

You don't think the chemical reaction would still occur?

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I just mixed up 5 gallons and only added the tea. I'm not sure how much the lemon juice lowers the pH, but yeast like it better without acid, so I thought it might ferment, clear, and then mature faster if they did their work without the acid. I will add lemon juice at bottling (boil with priming sugar) then age for a few months.

Has anyone oaked this?

Made a batch of this tonight using kirkland signature brand apple juice, english breakfast black tea and Nottingham yeast. What are peoples experiences with nottingham? I saw that people used it but never what the end results were like. Does it get high krausen? I used a 5 gallon carboy so there isnt much headspace...

Could probably pour in 4 gallons then add the 5th after few days to be safe.

You will get some action, but not as much as a beer (not when I did it, anyway). The taste was great! I haven't finished an S-04 batch to compare, yet, but I loved it with Notty.

america said:

Made a batch of this tonight using kirkland signature brand apple juice, english breakfast black tea and Nottingham yeast. What are peoples experiences with nottingham? I saw that people used it but never what the end results were like. Does it get high krausen? I used a 5 gallon carboy so there isnt much headspace...

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Notty is my favorite so far. Nice residual Flavor and not as toe curling when drinking it early like champagne and white wine yeasts.

Just took second place in the Kansas City biermeisters competition with this recipe! Kudos to the original recipe. I aged it for 14 months.

HarkinBanks said:

Just took second place in the Kansas City biermeisters competition with this recipe! Kudos to the original recipe. I aged it for 14 months.

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Did you bulk age it or bottle age it after following the recipe timeline? How did you backsweeten it? I'm going to bottle mine maybe tomorrow.

It was rather comical. I had to transfer it to a keg due to moving houses after two months. Stored it in a storage locker for 6 months and then my basement. I force carbed it and tapped it recently. No back sweetening. It was so good I had to enter it into a comp. I love this recipe as is.

HarkinBanks said:

It was rather comical. I had to transfer it to a keg due moving after two months. Stored it in a storage locker for 6 months and then my basement. I force carbed it and tapped it recently. No back sweetening. It was so good I had to enter it into a comp. I love this recipe as is.

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Nice, so it benefits from bulk aging. Was supposed to bottle mine a few weeks ago, but haven't yet. Looks like there is white dust on the surface so I'm not sure what that is.

Been poking around looking for a nice cider recipe and found this one. Freezeblade was clever to use black tea and lime to reproduce the tannins and acid in English cider apples. However, I'm wondering why not just use tannin powder and malic acid? You can buy both from your local HBS or online.

Indeed, Gremlyn's recipe is based on Freezeblade's recipe but substitutes tannins for black tea and malic acid for lime juice.

Is there something special about black tea and lime juice? Do they add a flavor not found with tannin powder and malic acid?

It would just seem more repeatable to use the tannins and malic acid, but I'm fairly new to all of this so I definitely could be wrong.

Thanks.

Vox said:

Nice, so it benefits from bulk aging. Was supposed to bottle mine a few weeks ago, but haven't yet. Looks like there is white dust on the surface so I'm not sure what that is.

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Sounds like you might have a pelicle starting but can't say for sure... Can you post a picture?

LoudounBrew said:

Been poking around looking for a nice cider recipe and found this one. Freezeblade was clever to use black tea and lime to reproduce the tannins and acid in English cider apples. However, I'm wondering why not just use tannin powder and malic acid? You can buy both from your local HBS or online.

Indeed, Gremlyn's recipe is based on Freezeblade's recipe but substitutes tannins for black tea and malic acid for lime juice.

Is there something special about black tea and lime juice? Do they add a flavor not found with tannin powder and malic acid?

It would just seem more repeatable to use the tannins and malic acid, but I'm fairly new to all of this so I definitely could be wrong.

Thanks.

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Freezeblade said:

After adding different forms of tannin and acid, using all sorts of ale yeasts to ferment the juice, and I think I have come up with a great recipe that pretty much anyone can do...


Cheers!

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america said:

Sounds like you might have a pelicle starting but can't say for sure... Can you post a picture?

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Here is one I took yesterday. Used a flash on the first one to make sure you could see it.

Vox said:

Here is one I took yesterday. Used a flash on the first one to make sure you could see it.

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Not sure if that's an infection or not. How long has it been like that? Is it getting any "worse"? Could it be something from the juice you used?

Took my first go at making this cider since I am new to brewing it.
And have a couple questions for anyone willing to help.

I was using vodka in my air lock and I think some dripped into the juice mixture. Any teribble effects this will have? Or can the fermentation process handle this?

Secondly. I took an experimental gravity reading and there was nothing it just sunk straight to the bottom. I have only tried brewing beer so I am not positive that cider should even have an inisial gravity. But I am worried that the yeast may not be active or something?
Like I said any advice or input will be greatly appreciated. If I need to scrap the batch and retry I would rather do that than wait months to find out its no good.
Thank you to all.
-c

snowboardc said:

Took my first go at making this cider since I am new to brewing it.
And have a couple questions for anyone willing to help.

I was using vodka in my air lock and I think some dripped into the juice mixture. Any teribble effects this will have? Or can the fermentation process handle this?

Secondly. I took an experimental gravity reading and there was nothing it just sunk straight to the bottom. I have only tried brewing beer so I am not positive that cider should even have an inisial gravity. But I am worried that the yeast may not be active or something?
Like I said any advice or input will be greatly appreciated. If I need to scrap the batch and retry I would rather do that than wait months to find out its no good.
Thank you to all.
-c

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You're fine. Cider can go below one for gravity. If the yeast didn't do anything, the gravity would be higher, rather than lower.

Dropping some vodka in there isn't going to do anything. That's why people use vodka.

Gonna have some fun tomorrow after work

Brewed this again on Sunday. Tick tock tick tock.

"Brewed"

Just made this up tonight ... Per recipe! Fermenting already after 3 hours! Werd!

Still have the white crap floating on the top. Scared to bottle it.

Probably crap from the limes. F- it. Bottle, drink, repeat.

Day 3 of fermentation ... Dem yeasties be hungry .... The yeast cake is massive and extremely active!

Has anyone used a clarifying agent to help clear this cider? The original recipe seems to allow gravity to do the work but I was wondering if anyone has had success speeding up the process.