Experimental apple cider

I took a big apple, cut it into chunks and put in the blender with some water. I added water until it was more fluid, then I filtered out the pulp. The result was two cups of watery apple juice, so I added some brown sugar till it was acceptably sweet. Then in a sanitized bottle I put the juice, leaving a 3 inch head space, pitched 1/4 tsp. dry bread yeast and put an airlock. One problem happening is that the bubbles that form take a long time to break, so some of them are going into the airlock. If it turns out well am going to make more. Any tips, it's my first time attempting to make apple cider.

Use champion yeast or try it with the yeast on the Apple maby? An maby add a bit of Suger

I don't think I would have used bread yeast for brewing.

First of all I applaud your creativity and desire to experiment. I too was going to suggest you stay away from bread yeast but then I saw you were from out of the country so I am wondering do you not have access to wine yeast?? Also what about apple juice concentrate?? Those are two things that could make this whole process a little easier if you can get them.

UpstateMike said:

I don't think I would have used bread yeast for brewing.

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I've used bread yeast before, and let me tell you, champagne and wine yeast is well worth the hassle, it's maybe 60 cents more, but it is consistent.

Where I live there are no brewing stores, so I can only get bread yeast. I'll try to get some no preservatives apple juice. Also, is there some beverage that I can cultivate the yeast from? Thanks for the help.

You can make "wild" yeast starters from just apple skins. I've never tried it myself, but there's a lot of threads about harvesting them on here.

If you like the taste of your product using bread yeast...why not stick with that. It would be better with wine, champagne, cider or ale yeast, but if it tastes good to you...

Do you have access to fresh ginger??? if so Fresh ginger is an easy place to get some wild yeast with out getting other stuff and the yeast will be more suited to the task than bread yeast. here is how you do it:

"To make your ginger bug peel and mince about 2 teaspoons of ginger root. Put it in a small jar or glass with one cup of water and about 2 teaspoons of sugar. Cover the jar with a paper towel and rubber band – your bug needs air to grow. Feed it more ginger and sugar daily. When it starts bubbling in 3 – 6 days you can use it for brewing. If it gets moldy throw it away and start over. Gently swirling the ginger in the jar several times a day will speed up the process and help keep it from molding. You can maintain the ginger bug indefinitely by feeding it more ginger and sugar at least every two days and pouring off the liquid into a new jar when the old jar gets too full of old ginger and spent sugar."

I've made sourdough starter (bread) like that except using rye flour and water. I think the apple peel harvesting is the same basic process. With the peels, you are getting yeasts that are present in the orchard.

After a week the fermentation has slown down, when is it that I should bottle the cider?

You may be able to harvest
yeast from local beers? Beer yeast works well for ciders.

If doing the fresh ginger harvest to get yeast, how much would you use of it in a regular sized brew?

If you want fizzy cider, I think next step is to add more sugar (from honey, or just brown or white sugar), THEN bottle.

maidenchina said:

If doing the fresh ginger harvest to get yeast, how much would you use of it in a regular sized brew?

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You use it like any starter, once it is bubbling away it is good to go like any other starter.

I tasted the cider today and it smell sort of like beer and tasted like wine with apples. I didn't take gravity readings but guesing from the alcoholic kick that it had I'd say it has about 12-10% ABV. Even though I used bread yeast, I was surprised that there wasn't even a hint the "bready" taste.

in my experience the bread yeast aded more of a grain flavor which would explain why it smells like beer.

I got to thinking about your original post and limited access to things:

Isometric said:

I took a big apple, cut it into chunks and put in the blender with some water. I added water until it was more fluid, then I filtered out the pulp. The result was two cups of watery apple juice, so I added some brown sugar till it was acceptably sweet.

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seams to me the water is there to help blend the apples so after your first batch, pore the "watery juice" mix back in the blender, ad more apples and repeat. Each time you do it the volume of juice should increase and the flavor should improve as well. IMHO I still think using the fresh ginger to create a starter will result in a better product than bread yeast.

Daze said:

Do you have access to fresh ginger??? if so Fresh ginger is an easy place to get some wild yeast with out getting other stuff and the yeast will be more suited to the task than bread yeast. here is how you do it:

"To make your ginger bug peel and mince about 2 teaspoons of ginger root. Put it in a small jar or glass with one cup of water and about 2 teaspoons of sugar. Cover the jar with a paper towel and rubber band – your bug needs air to grow. Feed it more ginger and sugar daily. When it starts bubbling in 3 – 6 days you can use it for brewing. If it gets moldy throw it away and start over. Gently swirling the ginger in the jar several times a day will speed up the process and help keep it from molding. You can maintain the ginger bug indefinitely by feeding it more ginger and sugar at least every two days and pouring off the liquid into a new jar when the old jar gets too full of old ginger and spent sugar."

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Do you think grape yeast could be havested this way?

I don't see why not. Gives you a controlled environment to make sure you got what you want before you pitch it. In fact it could be a "wild yeast trap" for all sorts of wild yeasts. Best part about it is if it fails you simply try again with out ruining a batch of beer, wine, or cider.