Cider / Brewing virgin! please help!

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George7845

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I was working the other day, and my friend started talking about making hard cider, a very old fashioned dangerous way that could end up in vinegar. So i said what the hell, i would like to make a batch of hard cider! A possible new hobby. So the last two weeks Ive been trolling forums, found a local home brew store, and trying to find out best way to do it.

This is what i came up with; i have 2 airlocks, 2 five gallon bucket carbs (plastic, is a new hobby) , 5 grams of RedStar powdered yeast, and campden tablets. I plan on getting cider a from local orchard (ive worked there) who claims they use a blend of sour and sweet apples for their cider. So i plan on hopefully getting the cider raw and using 1 tablet per gallon (what bottle says). If i cant get it raw it will be flash preserved with no preservatives, then ill scratch the campden.

This is my plan of action! i plan on sterilizing everything with First Step cleaner, then going to orchard and filling my carb. Ill get it home and use campden, set up airlock, (may be premature, but have nothing else to cover hole) Then wait 24 hours, aerate with silver spoon of some sort, add my yeast, then sugar. Then put the cap back on with airlock and wait 2-3 weeks. Then i will siphon into secondary bucket (with a second airlock?) and i intended on using tubing and turkey baster, but local brew store laughed at me :( , something i had seen online. Wait another 2 weeks, prime with suger that makes it carbonated and bottle it with saved non twist off bottles, by using caps and bottle capper from brewery store. Then i intended on letting it sit on the shelf to age whether it be a week from then, or 5 months.

So i know this is a long thread and alot of info, but i just want to do it right (no vinegar). Please critic me cause ive just been going off of random forums. And one thing that i left out was im not sure how much sugar i should use for 5 gallons in 1st stage. Someone said to use like a pound of brown sugar.
In the end i would like a fair tasting , kinda sweet cider, 5% alc that me and the fiancee will enjoy.

Hope to hear from some people, George
 
I usually use a 50/50 split of white sugar and brown sugar. For me, it gives it a bit more flavor. Other than that, everything sounds good, just be as clean as possible! :mug:
 
I for one would love to hear more about the "very old fashioned dangerous way" to make cider. Could you elaborate?

Thanks
 
This is how my older friend does it (country boy). He, and his friends all chose a day to press raw cider. They all bring their own apples and press through out the day, nothing out of the norm. But then he takes his RAW cider and put it in a barrel, no campden, no yeast, but with some brown and white sugar. Then he says he makes sure to pick up a couple of extra gallons. He checks his cider once a day, takes off the cap (no airlock), and adds cider to it, so no air is in it. Then he proceeds to cap that, and do that for every day for a month or so, then i think he racks it in 2 liter coke bottles or something. I believe he is going for authenticity and good taste being a (country boy) but i just didnt want to end up with vinegar or ecoli. So that is how my friend makes old fashion dangerous cider.
 
I used 1 one step cleaner last night on my carboy im going to fill today with cider. The cleaner says to mix teaspoon into gallon, wash , dont rinse let air dry. I did that w/o the rinsing, but im worried that the one step residue i can see on the lid, (also in white bucket, just not visible) will stop my cider from fermenting? opinions please, about to go fill up very soon. :rockin:
 
So for 5 gallons of cider, half pound of white, half pound of brown?, or a pound of each? just want a happy medium taste 5% alc.
 
I wouldn't use ANY sugar! The sugar does ferment out, boosting the alcohol but it also gives the cider a more wine-like taste and less like cider. A "real" cider is just cider and yeast.

As far as the one-step, one-step is a cleaner and not a sanitizer. However, it CAN sanitize. You must not have dissolved it well, though. You don't want to sanitize the day before you make your cider- you do it a couple of minutes before. So, I'd rinse that film off, and mix up some fresh sanitizer. You can use one gallon of hot water and a tablespoon and one-step and stir well until it's completely dissolved. Swirl to cover all surfaces and your lid and airlock, then dump it out. I like to use star-san, iodophor, or even crushed campden tablets, since they are "no rinse" and wet contact sanitizers- that means you sanitize and then use while the items are still wet. Once they dry, they can be susceptible to being contaminated again.
 
Looks good. FYI, 1 Lb of Sugar in 5 Gals of Apple Juice comes out to about 1.060 OG, which translates to about 7.5% abv.
Straight Apple Juice with no sugar would give you about a 6% cider.

I prefer to use Nottingham Ale Yeast with 1 Lb of Light Brown Sugar in my ciders. Nottingham is a cheap yeast, that wroks well and clears in about 3 weeks, quicker than Red Star IMHO.
 
This is how my older friend does it (country boy). He, and his friends all chose a day to press raw cider. They all bring their own apples and press through out the day, nothing out of the norm. But then he takes his RAW cider and put it in a barrel, no campden, no yeast, but with some brown and white sugar. Then he says he makes sure to pick up a couple of extra gallons. He checks his cider once a day, takes off the cap (no airlock), and adds cider to it, so no air is in it. Then he proceeds to cap that, and do that for every day for a month or so, then i think he racks it in 2 liter coke bottles or something. I believe he is going for authenticity and good taste being a (country boy) but i just didnt want to end up with vinegar or ecoli. So that is how my friend makes old fashion dangerous cider.

Thanks for the reply. I had read somewhere that another old fashioned way to make cider was to simply cut the apples up, place into a barrel and cover with water. Let the natural yeast do its thing and the result is supposed to be a light hard cider. I havn't tried it myself but it sounded interesting.

Mcduff
 
Natural fermentation is an old traditional method used in some French, English and US methods of cidermaking. The yeast comes from the apple itself.

The results can be variable so maybe control the yeast aspect for your first attempt. Even good commercial examples may not be to everybody's tastes (love them myself).

Personally I agree with yooper - sugar is unnecessary. It will dry the cider out and add to alcohol volume but cider will dry out naturally anyway (and you want sweetish) and the gravity will normally start somewhere around 1050 and give you a ~6ish % brew. If you need stronger just mix with brandy or somesuch and avoid ruining your brew.

I would also personally leave out the campden. I think sulphites are overused (both commercially and on an HB scale) and lower the quality of the finished product. it's up to you - loads of people use them. i find they contribute to squashed head drunkenness and horrible hangovers and require a long conditioning time before the cider is drinkable.

The reason you would use campden early is to kill the wild yeasts on the apple skins (which is what your friend's cider presumably relies on). You might use them late to stop ferment when the cider is at the sweetness level you want. They are also an anti-oxidant. No need to worry about e.coli with hard cider as long as your juice is fresh when you begin. For the same reason - no real need to pastuerise.

I have had success using fresh apple juice, letting it sit in a fermenter/carboy for 48 hours, racking to another carboy/fermenter and leaving behind the crusty foam. In the meantime I have used some fresh apple juice and wine yeast to make a starter. Once the soft cider is racked, I add the yeast starter and some lactose which has been boiled with a minimal amount of water and cooled. Lactose will hold the cider back from being completely dry. I use 500g in 20-23 litres. Sorry for the metric units.

ferment low (around 14-15 deg C - metric again), allow to sit on the yeast after ferment is finished then rack and cold condition for a week or more.

Needs much less time to mature than most ciders recommend, stops from being bone dry, has complexity and very little sulphur.
 
I posted something in lines with your question. Yooper gave great advice. I put way too much sugar in my cider and it ended up close to 15%. I let it go in the fermenter too long for my taste. Here's a problem that I find with cider, if you want sweet you need to stop fermentation before it's complete which can give you bottle bombs unless you cold crash the yeast. Otherwise your yeast will take the sugar down to gravities below 1.000.

You don't need to add sugar. When reading other posts here about cider, it is traditional that German ciders have no additional sugars. It sounds like yours will turn out fine. Next batch try adding a few cloves and a cinnamon stick or two.
 
well good thing is i havnt got cider yet, getting it this upcoming tuesday, took a while but they dont squeeze as often this time of year, so Cinnamon and other stuff is going in!
 
added yeast, cinnamon sticks and cinnamon! fermentation started!
 
cider is coming along, siphoned to secondary, tried not to aerate but first time was kinda rough, i guess ill improve in time. :rockin:
 
Just chiming in in regards to the sugar. If the sugar is being added to raise the gravity, you can instead substitute that with 100% frozen apple concentrate. Check the ingredient list, though, in case it wouldn't ferment.
 
Then i will....prime with suger that makes it carbonated and bottle it with saved non twist off bottles. Then i intended on letting it sit on the shelf to age whether it be a week from then, or 5 months.

In the end i would like a fair tasting , kinda sweet cider, 5% alc that me and the fiancee will enjoy.

George [OP]

I don't recall reading where you mentioned how you were going to bottle carbonate this kinda sweet cider without creating bottle grenades. So just wanted to check if you got that covered. :)

I like manticle's method of using lactose, which got me wondering...

Does anybody know if there will be any difference from adding non-fermentables after fermentation vs before? Will their presence affect the attenuation of the yeast, say, causing it to eat up more or less of the fermentables than if they weren't there til after?
 
Just chiming in in regards to the sugar. If the sugar is being added to raise the gravity, you can instead substitute that with 100% frozen apple concentrate. Check the ingredient list, though, in case it wouldn't ferment.

That's pretty much what I do to sweeten hard cider, except I add the frozen concentrate *after* stabilizing, so it doesn't matter so much if the juice has preservatives. This also means I don't have to catch it at a any particular gravity, just leave it in the secondary until it goes clear.

As for bottle grenades, I used to use plastic 2-liter pop bottles, and some of those would get very, very hard. Then I switched to kegging the cider so I have much better control over the gas pressure... :)
 
yeah, im not carbonating, just want to back sweeten after sorbate and bottle, then that will be a wrap to hopefully a good cider, still have some time yet though, starting a batch of beer on like wednesday. I think it will be easier besides brewing, just because i dont have to rack if i dont want to, besides to bottle.
 
cider stilll active after 10 days, airlock is still going so i assume fermentation is fine , not stopped or stuck so now i think im just going to forget about it for a month, do you ever have to add more vodka to airlock? will it evaporate over a month?
 
I don't recall reading where you mentioned how you were going to bottle carbonate this kinda sweet cider without creating bottle grenades. So just wanted to check if you got that covered. :)

I like manticle's method of using lactose, which got me wondering...

Does anybody know if there will be any difference from adding non-fermentables after fermentation vs before? Will their presence affect the attenuation of the yeast, say, causing it to eat up more or less of the fermentables than if they weren't there til after?

I've never tried backsweetening - I always add the lactose in at the start - the theory being it will get more time to integrate. I certainly can't taste it in the finished product.

No idea if it affects the yeast's ability to attenuate on a micro level but it certainly has no major effect - my cider still goes down to 1000 - 998. I don't mind a dry cider.

Next one I do, I'll be using 4766 and no lactose to see how it turns out.
 
well, after 10 days took gravity reading, was 1.000, i figured i would try sample, it was unbearable, but i drank it anyways.... should it taste this bad? i figured it was because it wasnt done fermenting and still alot of yeast floating about. I hope it didnt turn bad because i topped off with a very small amount of unboiled well water after transferring to secondary, which taste good and is the same water for the tavern next door. But anyways some ideas from everyone will hopefullly soothe my psychotic cider anxiety.

Thanks George :cross:
 
What sort of bad flavor are you getting?

What was your final recipe? If you added sugar, then the alcohol flavor might be overwhelming everything else and will take time to mellow out.

If it's not that, you can check this page, http://www.homebrewzone.com/off-flavors.htm for some common off flavors.

Using unboiled tap water and untreated cider to top off can be risky, sometimes you can get away with it, sometimes it will bite you in the ass.
Was the cider you added from a new sealed container?


well, after 10 days took gravity reading, was 1.000, i figured i would try sample, it was unbearable, but i drank it anyways.... should it taste this bad? i figured it was because it wasnt done fermenting and still alot of yeast floating about. I hope it didnt turn bad because i topped off with a very small amount of unboiled well water after transferring to secondary, which taste good and is the same water for the tavern next door. But anyways some ideas from everyone will hopefullly soothe my psychotic cider anxiety.

Thanks George :cross:
 
yes was pasturized cider in new container i topped off with. I think its just too early, i think it was a yeasty taste which would be expected after only 10 days.
 
Cider can get pretty funky while it's fermenting (sulphur is one common thing) and if the yeast hasn't had a chance to drop out then fermenting apples and yeast won't taste so great. Soothe the anxiety by realising a lot of things don't taste great before they're ready.

Ever taken a pie out of the oven mid way through and tried a slice? Cold filling and uncooked pastry.

Tasting brews throughout is a good habit to get to know how things work but don't rely on it as a final indicator of flavour.
 
well added sorbate/campden, still taste and smells very yeasty idk how to describe it, wish i did, maybe its not yeasty, maybe its something else, def dont want to drink any yet.
 
cider stilll active after 10 days, airlock is still going so i assume fermentation is fine , not stopped or stuck so now i think im just going to forget about it for a month, do you ever have to add more vodka to airlock? will it evaporate over a month?


ive got a question about the airlock itself ( i too am a COMPLETE novice at homebrew at all so play nice!)
I just have a simple 5 gallon bucket with a snap on lid (the usual cheap and chearful type you get with homebrew starter kits. I dont have an airlock on the bucket though as the VERY basic instructions didnt mention them. I have several which i got with the kit along wih some demijon sized bungs (why it had 5 or six i have no idea) but im unsure how they should be used.
Should i drill a hole in the top of my bucket and put a bungand airlock into it like ive seen elsewhere?
If so, 1. should the bottom of the airlock thingy actually be in the cider, in which case it'll never reach from the top of the bucket. 2. what should i put INTO the airlock.
Im assuming that it is just to see if the liquid is giving off any gas right?
Like i said... A total newbie, sorry!

-Presto
 
so you have a ale pail, it came with an airlock? and is there a hole with a rubber grommet in the lid? As far as the airlock you want to fill it to "fill line" with water, sanitized water, or cheap vodka for best results. You dont want your airlock in your brew or cider. You should have 2 inches of head space (AIR), which is the space between your pail lid and your brew or cider. Two inches at lease, so it does blow foam through your airlock and clog it with crap IF FERMENTATION GETS CRAZY. I would get lit with airlock hole, or go to local brew store, find rubber grommet size then drill. For everything needs to be air tight and sanitized. It also cant be a plain 5 gallon bucket, it needs to be a ale pail with lid with or ring in it. If none of this answers your questions shoot again.

George
 
I don't recall reading where you mentioned how you were going to bottle carbonate this kinda sweet cider without creating bottle grenades. So just wanted to check if you got that covered. :)

I'm also a first time cider brewer, and I've got everything settled, my brew is brewing away in the next room. Everything was easy enough but I'm a bit scared of getting some grenades happening. Does anyone have any tips for carbonating? What were the results from this brew?
 
I don't think he will be able to carbonate as he recently added campden and sorbate. I have a few batches of cider brewing from a week up to two months old that haven't been touched when is the ideal time to carbonate a beverage? I have always made them still and plan to try some in a plastic soda bottle soon
 
add so much sugar to the gallon right before you bottle for carbonation, depending on what kinda of sugar you are using the amount needed per gallon changes. You add sugar, bottle that day, yeast eats sugar and farts out gas. Then gas goes towards top of the bottle, has no place else to go, so goes back into your cider, but maker sure your ferment is done first, and i would say after a month, most likely. There are a bunch of people on this site that are awesome, ive bombed Yooperbrew with so many questions i thought she would disown me. So dont be afraid to ask around before you do something stupid and potentially ruin a month of your time you just waited.
 
and no, i decided not to carbonate, cause if you want a sweet cider it is pretty hard to cabonate unless you have kegging capabilities.
 
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