Using real apples

Ok so I'm about to undertake my first ever home brew experience and figured I'd start out with cider as it is relatively easy and cheap. I was planning to use apple juice from the shop but when I got to the shop I saw they had a discount on real apples so I went over and grabbed 4kg of em! Now am thinking a little bit and not sure how to do this.

My plan was to cut em up into quarters and boil them in an inch of water till they are soft. Leave it over night to cool and then squeeze em through one of my girlfriends tights. Then boil the juice one more time to kill out any bacteria that could have joined the mix from equipment or sitting out over night and then pour it to my 5L bottle to cool in a clean place before I add yeast. Would this work well?

Also, should I add any water to the juice before making my cider? The apples are small 80% red ones, sorry I dont know the name of em though.

Check out some recipes on apple wine, which at least give you an idea of some options on apple prep@ http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp
And you will likely want a blend of tart + sweet apples, if available.

*Sara*

saramc said:

Check out some recipes on apple wine, which at least give you an idea of some options on apple prep@ http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp
And you will likely want a blend of tart + sweet apples, if available.

*Sara*

Click to expand...

Unfortunately there's not much choice in apples here but maybe next time I can try something like you said. The ones I have a sweet but a little bland tasting to be honest. typical for small red apples i guess. Right now they are boiled up and cooled ready to squeeze.

One more question, how much sugar would be good to add per litre? also how much bread yeast per litre?

Boiling apples is a bad idea. It will set the pectin and make jelly or at least make it real cloudy. If you boil them, then add pectic enzyme. An alternative is to freeze them put them in a bucket and then mash them. After that it would be best to put them through a press. Instead of boiling you can add camden.
Be carefull of your apple choice. Good cider usually comes from a blend of apples. Generally eating apples produce OK cider but not great.
Don't add water. Your specific grafity with apple alone should produce around 5 percent alcohal. Wine makers add water to cut the acidity. Apple have no such issue. Sugar is up to you. I personally don't add sugar at all.
Warning!!! If this works out for you then you will want a grinder and press. And there is no going back at that point in time.

Yes you are very right... unfortunately I had already boiled them at the time of reading this and yes, it made them into a very thick pulp which was almost impossible to drain the juice from After about an hour of squeezing them through a pair of tights i managed to get 2 litres out of 4kg apples but as you said it was quite thick so i decided to add water as my only option.... also a cup of sugar to bring the gravity back up. I like strong drinks so hoping it will be at least 6-7% i guess it wont make a very good cider but oh well, for me this is more an experiment of the science than anything, next time im sure i will do better.

My biggest concern right now is that it doesnt seem to be doing much apart from a very thin layer of foam on top. maybe because i stupidly started it at the beginning of the night time so the juice might have been too cold to start fermenting. It was around 30*C when I put the yeast in, then for the next 12 hours I can guess the temp was around 10*C. How can I know if it is actually working or not? Maybe I should add more yeast at the start of a day where I will be at home all day with the heating on.