Adding blended up Apples to the primary fermentation

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

spacemanzero

Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2012
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Location
Pasadena
Okay after spending most of the day trying to see if this topic had already been discussed, I am having no luck. So I am going to start a new thread to address it. If you are aware of a thread that has already discussed this, then please point me to it.

I made a recipe of cider this weekend that called for a can of pears to be blended up to go into the primary fermentation along with the apple juice. This got me to thinking about my regular batches of cider I make. The amount of readily available freshly pressed cider is next to non-existent here where I am, or it is just too expensive to have it sent to me. That is why I am more than content to going down to the local store and getting Apple juice. I have made many batches using store juice and they have all come out great. However, there is always room for improvement.

Here is where I get to the point, going back to what I made this past weekend with the blended up pears along with pectic enzyme, this got me thinking about doing the same thing with regular apples. I would still be using regular apple juice, but also adding in blended up apples. Maybe getting a few granny smith apples and blending them up along with some pectic enzyme. My thinking is that it would give the cider some tartness. Something you normally don't find with store bought juices (at least in my opinion). I would like to think that this might help add a little something extra to the flavor. I know it would boost the sugar level and give me a higher gravity, but what I am really interested in getting is more of the apple characteristics in the cider. Just looking for any one who has done this and what they have experienced.
 
I blended some local apples (no pectic enzyme, because I don't know any better right now) into my latest batch. Looks good, smells good, but let me tell you the sediment is unreal...so was the starting gravity. This is either going to be awesome or an epic fail.
 
Good idea, although it probably won't make much difference in the ABV. Get the tartest apples you can find, Granny Smiths are a bad choice.
 
I had a sediment issue with my batch of cider (made from local apples that I juiced myself with a juicing machine.)
I ended up losing about half the volume of the initial cider... I probably should have filtered/strained it, but I just siphoned off what I could without sucking up too much pulp and topped it off with fresh juice.

So there's my advice- filter/strain the juice to get the pulp out, or you're going to lose A LOT of cider.
 
This might be a lengthy explanation so just bear with me....

My first batch of cider is to be upstatemikes Carmel apple. When I racked to my secondary, there was a lot of cider left behind, given my shoddy siphon hose. Not willing to waste any of the precious liquid, I transferred the remainder to my empty one gallon carboy. I ended up with about a half gallon of what I call "bonus" cider. After this sat for about a week I thought I could experiment with this little bit, as it was salvaged anyway. So I went to the store bought one each of Granny Smith, golden delicious and honey crisp. Brought these home, chopped them up, not too small, not too big, sanitized them and dropped them in. It sounds weird, but about 8 hours later it started in with the cutest little fermentation! That lasted for about 3 days. A this time the peels that I had left on the apples had all turned white. I topped it off with straight juice, added some Carmel sauce, a can of apple concentrate and bottled. Given the amount of sugar I used, it carbbed up in about 30 hours. Oven pasteurized and ended up with a wood chuck "granny smith" clone. In short I say go for it!!
 
Granny Smith is a bad choice if you want to drink your cider this any time soon. The tartness comes on as almost a burned plastic taste. It needs to mellow a long time to be drinkable....
 
instead of blending them you could hand 'press' them; i've done this a few times and it works. once did a whole 5L batch like this. it's a pain. it's a workout. but for a liter or 2 ok.
grate the apples on a coarse cheese grater, i used the cheese grater wheel on a food processor. you will already get some nice clear juice, pour that into your carboy. take a handful of the gratings, not too much or you'll just have to take some back out, and put it in 2 or 3 layers of cheesecloth, or a good quality clean kitchen towel, then wrap it up like a sausage / smarties package from both ends. twist / squeeze the ever loving bacon out of it, over a bowl. you will get lovely clear juice, and sore arms
 
What about floating chopped/frozen/then thawed apples in cheese cloth bag and then removing after fermentation done, you could then squeeze out the bag after and get some extra liquid out.
 
Back
Top