Beer Brewer who wants to try a batch of hard cider

The title pretty much says it all.

I have been brewing beer for a little less than a year and am feeling the need to experiment and broaden my horizons a little.

Buddy at work asked if I would be interested in making a batch of hard cider.
He provides the freshly pressed apples and I provide some equipment and basic knowledge.

Here lies the problem. I have no idea how to make a cider.
I perused the forum and find several different options, some naturally fermented, some with pectic enzyme added (or other "stuff"), some with wine yeast, others with Notty, etc....

Can someone steer me in the right direction?

He is going to have the apple juice by tomorrow (Thurs) or Friday at the latest.

I have carboys, airlocks, and all essential racking and bottling stuff, but I just need a set in stone instructions.

Please and thank you.

There is a lot of information on this site. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. Sorting the two when you don't have a lot of experience isn't easy. That being said, I brewed my first cider in 5 years two months ago after watching this video:

http://brewingtv.com/episodes/2012/9/7/brewing-tv-episode-67-how-to-make-hard-cider.html

The cider I made was simple - 5 gallon of store bought juice, wyeast 4766 (fermented in the recommended temp range), pectic enzyme, and campden tablets following fermentation to allow for back sweeting. It turned out phenomenal and was far easier than brewing beer.

If you can keg, this is my own very simple recipe/method:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/simple-cider-recipe-346373/

MC

Misplaced_Canuck said:

If you can keg, this is my own very simple recipe/method:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/simple-cider-recipe-346373/

MC

Click to expand...

So, I have browsed around and found other resources and I now have this question for ya MC.
Other resources recommend adding Campden tablets or Potassium Metabilsulfite prior to fermentation to kill off any natural yeast or bacteria.

So with your method, it would seem that the wild stuff is still in there?
Any problems with natural stuff interfering with the ferment?

brewkinger said:

So, I have browsed around and found other resources and I now have this question for ya MC.
Other resources recommend adding Campden tablets or Potassium Metabilsulfite prior to fermentation to kill off any natural yeast or bacteria.

So with your method, it would seem that the wild stuff is still in there?
Any problems with natural stuff interfering with the ferment?

Click to expand...

I haven't used fresh cider with my recipe. I think adding campden would be fine, provided that you let it sit the recommended amount of time.

MC

Here are a couple good threads to check out which may give you some good ideas:

Man, I Love Apfelwein
Better Than Apfelwein
Brandon O's Graf <--- (my personal favorite)

I've had good luck using Hefe yeast or neutral ale yeasts like Nottingham... never cared as much for my ciders that used wine or champagne yeast. I've used both pressed ciders and grocery-store Tree Top juice, both are good, but definitely produce different flavors in the end.

How much Campden per gallon?

How much pectic enzyme (if we use it)?

UPDATE:

5 gallons of apple-pear cider (treated with potassium metabisulfite) in carboy 8/24.

Pectic enzyme added 12 hours later

US-05 pitched on top 24 hours later.

VERY LITTLE visible evidence of fermentation, other than a 1" ring of white foam that is situated about 2 inches in from the edge of the carboy.

65 degrees in a swamp cooler

Things that I think might have been done differently:
Brain farted and did not aerate the must before adding yeast. I am thinking that since it had been sitting for roughly 36 hours in the carboy, so oxygen level was most likely low.

First time using US-05, so I am thinking that it might be a slower, less vigorous ferment (I am used to Notty)

Just gonna let it ride for a couple of weeks and then check gravity.

Thoughts??

All of my ciders have had fairly mild fermentations, except for when I used Hefe yeast (that one was rather violent). I seem to remember my US-05 batch being tame.

I don't know if what you're seeing is due to the lack of oxygenation or just characteristic to the cider. Likely a bit of both. I would ride it out and check back in a few weeks, as you said. Let us know the results.

I do not think that it is a characteristic of the cider, only because the other 10 gallons that we made are at his house.
He pitched Red Star wine yeast in one and Lalvin EC-1118 in the other and both of them erupted right out into the 1" blowoff hose.
Granted, both were 5 gal batches IN a 5 gal carboy, which I told him he needed the blowoff for that exact reason.
Are wine yeasts generally more vigorous than ale yeasts?

brewkinger said:

Are wine yeasts generally more vigorous than ale yeasts?

Click to expand...

Definitely depends on the yeast strain. Montrachet wine yeast, for example, is very tame in cider. You can fill the carboy damn-near to the top without any blowoff. As I mentioned before, the hefe strain I used was explosive, even with lots of headspace.

OK.... Just wanted to check back in and report on this crazy a$$ batch of cider.
Made on 8/24 and like I said, it has barely been doing anything until 2 days ago.

At almost 2 weeks, a 1"layer of foamy krausen is appearing and the airlock is occasionally bubbling.

I have done nothing to it to allow infection in. Covered with a blanket in a swamp cooler at 63 degrees.

Checked it again just now and essentially fermentation has begun at roughly 2 weeks. What the H377 is going on with this?

This cannot be normal???!!!!!

Normal? No.

It sounds like infection, but maybe your yeast just had one hell of a lag getting started.

Let it ride and see how it turns out.

hunter_la5 said:

Normal? No.

It sounds like infection, but maybe your yeast just had one hell of a lag getting started.

Let it ride and see how it turns out.

Click to expand...

I agree that it is not normal.

What kind of infection can make a thick and creamy layer that looks almost identical to any beer batch that I have ever made?

A 2 week lag time?? Has to be a first, I have read a lot of threads and cannot recall someone mentioning a lag time that long.

brewkinger said:

Are wine yeasts generally more vigorous than ale yeasts?

Click to expand...

I started a few batches of cider on Friday, one of them a 5 gallon batch using US-05 (first time I ever tried ale yeast in a cider) and store bought AJ. Temperature in the downstairs of my house is 68F steady.

This was the first time I used ale yeast, and since this yeast says to pitch directly without hydrating I thought that if I toss it straight into high gravity juice then it might get overwhelmed by too much sugar. So, I pitched it into straight apple juice and waited for about 20 minutes then added the rest of the apple juice and the sugar into the carboy. I funnel my juice in, so there is plenty of oxygenation.

It was growing a pretty good sized yeast colony on top of the juice after about 24 hours and a really thick and creamy amount of stuff on top after 48 hours or so. I left enough headspace that I wouldn't need a blowoff tube, then top up with juice probably today.

Safale is fairly expensive yeast here, so I hope I can reuse it a few times. Other than that, nothing special to report - seems to be working fine.

Update:
Added K-sorbate and 5 frozen apple pear concentrate and then bottled.

A failed hard cider that ended up being an ale yeast fermented fruit wine that was backsweetened into a wine cooler. Success because I have a good alcohol beverage that wife and her gal pal like a lot.

brewkinger said:

Update:
Added K-sorbate and 5 frozen apple pear concentrate and then bottled.

A failed hard cider that ended up being an ale yeast fermented fruit wine that was backsweetened into a wine cooler. Success because I have a good alcohol beverage that wife and her gal pal like a lot.

Click to expand...

That's a success. Even with ale yeast, you're going to get a pretty dry apple wine type result.

When people tell you that ale yeast leaves some residual sweetness, I'll bet they are wine drinkers who prefer dry. I really doubt they love Strongbow or Woodchuck.