My first cider...

Just finished mixing my first batch of cider...first time brewing anything! After reading through everyone's posts and gathering several recipes, I settled on something similar to this :

12 liters of unpasteurized apple cider
7.5 liters of apple juice (from frozen concentrate: apple juice, water, ascorbic acid)
2 kg dark brown sugar (raw cane sugar + molassas)
1 kg of clover honey
2 packages of Lavin EC-1118 yeast

I threw the unpasteurized cider in the carboy. I warmed each batch of reconstituted juice on the stove to bathtub temps mixing in the sugar and honey, then funneling it into the carboy. I rehydrated the yeast and pitched it in. Added water to the neck of the carboy. I gave it a good stir, and checked the specific gravity...1.0069. Put the airlock on.

Bubbling a bit already...

Sounds good. Some would argue that would be more of a cyser because of the honey, but not really me

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

BTW, how long do you plan for primary and secondary? Going for a sweet, semi-sweet, dry?

mrzud said:

BTW, how long do you plan for primary and secondary? Going for a sweet, semi-sweet, dry?

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Probably standard 5-7 days then change, but I don't have alot of experience so I'll just wait until the bubbling slows and see. It's going very, very strongly now.

I'd prefer a sweet cider, but I hadn't planned on stopping the fermentation early and I don't have any campden tablets. From the looks of how fast it is going now, it seems like I'd have to use a campden tablet to stop fermentation if I want any sugar left in it.

It smells really great...I thought it was supposed to stink like hell?

corvus said:

I threw the unpasteurized cider in the carboy. I warmed each batch of reconstituted juice on the stove to bathtub temps mixing in the sugar and honey, then funneling it into the carboy. I rehydrated the yeast and pitched it in. Added water to the neck of the carboy. I gave it a good stir, and checked the specific gravity...1.0069. Put the airlock on.

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Should not have filled it to the neck of the carboy...it bubbled up into the airlock and spilled out on the carboy. I cleaned and sanitized it, and took another hygrometer reading to lower the fluid level (1.0064). I'm a little worried that all this air exposure will cause mold or bacteria problems. Anyway, still bubbling well so we'll see in a few days.

You found out about the initial fermentation fairly painlessly there it seems! You'll wing it i'm sure. For the price involved i'd recommend a brew bin to start the big fizz before transfering to glass and also campden tablets as a way of destroying bacteria when you move it as good belt & braces way of keeping the process more controlled. Interested in what you plan to do as mrzud asked regarding sweet, semi, or dry (or even primed and bottled?)...

Caplan said:

You found out about the initial fermentation fairly painlessly there it seems! You'll wing it i'm sure. For the price involved i'd recommend a brew bin to start the big fizz before transfering to glass and also campden tablets as a way of destroying bacteria when you move it as good belt & braces way of keeping the process more controlled. Interested in what you plan to do as mrzud asked regarding sweet, semi, or dry (or even primed and bottled?)...

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Well I'm on the 72nd hour of my primary fermentation, and it's finally just starting to slow down a bit. There's a thick rim of orangy paste around the neck of the carboy, but otherwise it looks good and smells ok too. This process is going to get boring soon so I better start planning my next batch.

I chose to do my primary fermentation in my carboy (I do have a bucket too) because I couldn't decide if I was going to do a single or double stage fermentation. I'm still undecided because I'd have to buy another carboy to rack it in to for a two-stage. Next time I do this, I will use the bucket for my primary because cleaning that carboy is going to be alot harder than cleaning a bucket.

I've decided I am going to avoid using the campden tablets to stop the ferment and let the cider go to completion. If it's too dry, I'll try using a sweet mead or ale yeast or something less aggressive next time. I can always add apple juice when I drink it if this batch is too dry.

I'll lightly prime most of the bottles because I prefer sparkling, but I'll leave some unprimed to see what happens. I have 32 stella bottles ready to go, no doubt I'll have the 66 in time for the batch to be done.

One week! Checked the sg and it's at 1.028 now, so that's about 6% alcohol. It tastes delicious! Very sweet, and tons of honey and apple flavor. A little yeasty, but I suppose that will settle out over time. Hopefully if I don't screw up the racking or the bottling I'll have an excellent beverage!

Time to consider moving to the secondary...but it is still bubbling pretty strongly, a bubble every second. I thought I'm supposed to wait until it's done bubbling to move it? What happens if I move it to the secondary and it's still bubbling every second?

[font=Arial,Helvetica][size=-1]From leeners (http://www.leeners.com/cider.html):

"Open the fermenter and check the specific gravity with a hydrometer. It should have dropped by at least 75%. If not, close the fermenter and allow to sit for a few more days. Do not leave the cider in the primary fermenter for more than 10 days. If the specific gravity has not dropped in that time, continue to the next step any way. "

Disclosure: I just bottled my first batch and am in no way shape or form very experienced (however my first batch didnt turn out bad).

I didnt have a hydrometer so I waited till bubbling slowed down to about 1 per minute which was only 5 or 6 days. I have read this somewhere, but I cant quite remember where (probably because I am burnt out on studying logic and computer design fundamentals, analysis and design of linear circuits, and differential equations... damn ECE major).

It was probably from one of these sites:
http://www.leeners.com/cider.html
http://brewery.org/brewery/library/cider0695.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scrumpy/cider/homepage.htm
http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea/

or from the book Cider: Making, Using, & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider

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mrzud said:

[font=Arial,Helvetica][size=-1]From leeners (http://www.leeners.com/cider.html):

"Open the fermenter and check the specific gravity with a hydrometer. It should have dropped by at least 75%. If not, close the fermenter and allow to sit for a few more days. Do not leave the cider in the primary fermenter for more than 10 days. If the specific gravity has not dropped in that time, continue to the next step any way. "
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Ok, by that logic then, I should target 1.017. I'll wait until Tuesday night. Thanks for the links!

No problem. Good luck.

corvus said:

Ok, by that logic then, I should target 1.017. I'll wait until Tuesday night. Thanks for the links!

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I'm still waiting to move to secondary...didn't have time to pick up another carboy, but might be able to tomorrow. Once I do I will be able to check the numbers which I imagine are significantly closer to 1.

Fermentation has slowed down alot, but it is still bubbling pretty regularly, 10 times a minute or so. Temps dropped dramatically in the last two days though, and I think that had more to do with it than the yeasts running out of fermentable sugar.

For the entire first 12 days or so of my primary fermentation, temps were a very consistent 70-72. Fall has finally come, and temps today are much lower. The thermometer on the carboy doesn't go lower than 66, and temps are likely below that in the pantry I'm brewing in by some small amount. So, since this massive slowdown in fermentation is so directly linked to temperature, it's obvious to me that keeping your beverage at a consistent temp is important. I may need one of those heating belts to keep the temp high enough once winter sets in.

Is the temp as critical once the brew is in the secondary?

Alright, it's been racked to the secondary and topped off with spring water. The SG was 0.098, so hypothetically around 9% ABV, and it tasted AWESOME. Enough of the apple flavor is still there, most of the noticable honey flavor is gone, and it's "just right" as far as sweetness goes. I'm psyched!

I'll leave it in the secondary for three weeks, and then I'll bottle it.

corvus said:

Is the temp as critical once the brew is in the secondary?

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I'm not sure, but if I had to, I would argue that it is because the yeast will not strive when out of temp. bounds per yeast manf.

corvus said:

Alright, it's been racked to the secondary and topped off with spring water.

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Wouldn't you be worried about bacteria and other nasties in the spring water or did you boil it?

corvus said:

The SG was 0.098

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I thought the gravity of a liquid with no sugar is 1.0 so how are you getting an SG of 0.098? Maybe you meant .98 w/o factoring in temperatures. Plus, most brewing hydrometers dont read that low.

mrzud said:

I thought the gravity of a liquid with no sugar is 1.0 so how are you getting an SG of 0.098? Maybe you meant .98 w/o factoring in temperatures. Plus, most brewing hydrometers dont read that low.

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The hydrometer measures the density of liquid. The Specific Gravity of water is 1.000. Since the density of alcohol is less than the density of water, dry meads, wines and ciders can, and often do, have a SG less than 1.000. Beers do not reach this low SG due to unfermentable sugers. My hydrometer measures as low as .990. Hope this clears things up.

mrzud said:

I
Wouldn't you be worried about bacteria and other nasties in the spring water or did you boil it?

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Not "real" spring water...spring water in a big carboy from the local store.

PFlint said:

The hydrometer measures the density of liquid. The Specific Gravity of water is 1.000. Since the density of alcohol is less than the density of water, dry meads, wines and ciders can, and often do, have a SG less than 1.000. Beers do not reach this low SG due to unfermentable sugers. My hydrometer measures as low as .990. Hope this clears things up.

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Makes sense, but still a reading of .098 is extremely low.

My ciders generally end up around 0.985. My current batch is 1/2 balackberry & 1/2 apple juice and that's where it stopped. The sugars in cider are sucrose, fructose and glucose. They tend to ferment out completely. Sometimes too completely.

I decided to try a different approach for my second batch, here's the recipe:

14 cans of "No Name" brand frozen concentrate apple juice (apple juice, water, ascorbic acid)
3 kg of dark brown sugar
2 packs of EC-1118 yeast

I brought everything together essentially the same as I did for the first batch except, wiser for the experience, I didn't top up the carboy. OG at 1.072.

So this time, the notion was: can I do this with what would be available to me most of the year, straight frozen concentrate. And hey, even better if it is "No Name" brand! I guess I was hoping for something more "clear" than the somewhat cloudy first batch by going for straight juice instead of pressed cider. But instead, once it was all mixed together, this batch was as dark as Coke or Pepsi...I guess due to all the molasses in the brown sugar. It started out so clear when it was just the juice from concentrate! We'll see what happens. It's got such a high OG it could turn out like paint thinner...

Should turn out just fine, will be a little on the dark side. I tried one batch using dark brown sugar, then went to light brown and am much happier with the end product. Now I just us plain old cane sugar and the end results are nice and clear. The frozen concentrate works real well, it's about all I use.

How'd this end up?

billybrew said:

How'd this end up?

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The original cider/mead with the true cider is sitting in the secondary. It's got a beautiful dark hue and tasted delicious when I moved it into the secondary. I can't wait to try this one again when I bottle in a week or two!

The second one made from concentrate only is still in the primary, still bubbling well but just beginning to taper off. Seems like the ferment is less active in general, despite the OG being higher; certainly it's less foamy than the other batch. It's also lighter in hue than the other batch was in the primary. Will move to secondary when the original batch is bottled.

Seems to be going well!

corvus said:

The second one made from concentrate only is still in the primary, still bubbling well but just beginning to taper off. Seems like the ferment is less active in general, despite the OG being higher; certainly it's less foamy than the other batch. It's also lighter in hue than the other batch was in the primary. Will move to secondary when the original batch is bottled.

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Just checked the second one...SG is now at 1.012. It's not quite as tasty as the other batch...but I think it's just a yeasty flavor that is bugging me, and that's easy enough to get rid of. Will bottle the first batch and rack this second batch soon.