Ghetto hard apple cider. . .what to expect.

So, I'm totally new to the brewing world. I've been curious for a long time and have recently been gathering supplies to make my first beer.

In my excitement and impatience, I decided to throw together a prison style hard cider just to see what would happen.

So, 1 gallon of pure apple juice, 500 grams of white table sugar, and 1 pack of standard bread yeast. Mixed it all up in the apple juice container, built a ghetto airlock from a piece of pvc tubing shoved through a hole in the lid and then into a glass of water.

This has been happily bubbling away for about 2 weeks now. How long should I let this go on for? Should I rack to a secondary? Will it get clearer and will it be drinkable?

I expect it will be super dry. Any rough guess of alcohol content?

I don't have high hopes but if it doesn't totally suck, I would bottle it up.

Thoughts?

When I was a um... younger man (read; underaged) I did something pretty close to that, except with OJ. All I can tell you is... I hope apple juice works better than the OJ did. After about a month of fermenting, it was pretty well done. It did the job it was supposed to, that is, got me blithering drunk. However, the taste alone was enough to keep me from drinking again for oh, 6 years or so.

Having no idea what a gram is I couldn't say if the amount of sugar you added will make it more of a hard cider or a wine. Either way I would wait until it has cleared to bottle.

Edit...Cannot condone the use of bread yeast for anything but pizza.

500g is just over 1lb of sugar. The only issue you have from this being a perfectly good cider or wine is the bread yeast. I would just leave it to do its thing until it stops and make sure to let it clear fully and drop all the yeast before drinking or it may well just taste if yeast.

Two things you should look into on this forum. EdWorts Apfelwein and using gelatin to clear your "wine". I used bread yeast to make some mead and it tastes just fine.

Other than the above.... I bet that stuff is goingto be plenty capable of turning anyone into a blithering idiot if then over do it LOL.

KPSquared said:

So, I'm totally new to the brewing world. I've been curious for a long time and have recently been gathering supplies to make my first beer.

In my excitement and impatience, I decided to throw together a prison style hard cider just to see what would happen.

So, 1 gallon of pure apple juice, 500 grams of white table sugar, and 1 pack of standard bread yeast. Mixed it all up in the apple juice container, built a ghetto airlock from a piece of pvc tubing shoved through a hole in the lid and then into a glass of water.

This has been happily bubbling away for about 2 weeks now. How long should I let this go on for? Should I rack to a secondary? Will it get clearer and will it be drinkable?

I expect it will be super dry. Any rough guess of alcohol content?

I don't have high hopes but if it doesn't totally suck, I would bottle it up.

Thoughts?

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I made something similar cheap Apple juice, honey ,bread yeast.mine came out TART!I'm going to age for a bit and dump in a pot ,heat it add sugar and holiday spices.Don't expect any thing but sub par brew.

Whats wrong with bread yeast? It ferments pretty clean if you keep it under 10%.. Doesnt lend much flavor... I'd never use it again though. I'd rather use the proper tool and get a better flavor.

Answer the question with facts or be on your way.. Nobody cares about your unfounded opinions.

I've done it, but, I used additonal nutrients and oxygen which probably helped a LOT to keep down ester production.

The bread yeast is fine. The only problem with it is that it does not make a compact trub. The slightest disturbance will stir it up.

What are you in for?

astronomical said:

Whats wrong with bread yeast? It ferments pretty clean if you keep it under 10%.. Doesnt lend much flavor... I'd never use it again though. I'd rather use the proper tool and get a better flavor.

Answer the question with facts or be on your way.. Nobody cares about your unfounded opinions.

I've done it, but, I used additonal nutrients and oxygen which probably helped a LOT to keep down ester production.

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So you used it yet you wouldn't use it again because you wanted a proper tool and better flavor. Since bread yeast is made for bread there are better tools that will lead to better flavors when not making bread. There are many many available yeasts for wine or beer that would be better than using something from the GaP recipe book. Bread yeast works in a wide range of operating temps which makes them difficult to control and often take a long time to clear. There are people that use bread yeast everyday for cider, mead and whatever else. They must like it if they keep going back to it. I prefer to use it for pizza but that's opinion and I know how that's not wanted in an internet forum. Bread yeast makes some good beverages everyday but it probably makes an equal amount of crappy beverages everyday. Too much bread yeast hanging around next thing you notice is your money is missing and your daughter is knocked up, I've seen it a thousand times before.

See if you can get a friend to smuggle in some montrachet up their...

Use Lalvin EC-1118 wine yeast, very clean, low sulfur. Once it's done you can add some Sorbistat K, K-meta, and somemore apple jiuce or sugar to back sweeten it...it ferments out very dry and the back sweetening helps. I back sweeten then force carbonate mine...makes it dangerously easy to drink too much though

I have always valued the opinion of the members of this forum. If someone says " i do this" its different than if 20 people all report that they " do this". Opinions have a place in an intellectual conversation. Thats my opinion.

My point wasnt so much that using bread yeast was bad, but that it was the only thing that stopped it being a top quality brew. It was being described as prison hooch, which it is no where near. The only real issue with bread yeast is how hard it is to get rid of at the end. But careful racking and patience should be enough to make this really tasty.

Ha my first brew was pretty much the same recipe, except I used a strawberry flavored rubber for a air lock. I racked it to a empty 1.5 L bottle after 3 weeks and put it in the fridge for a week. It turned out great!

Did a 4 gallon batch of red grape concentrate with 6 pounds of sugar and a pack of bread yeast. Fermented 3 weeks then bottled from primary to 9 1/2? 1.5L wine bottles. Put them all in the fridge for a week and everyone who has tried them loves it. They came out very clear too.

I have a batch going now with some real wine yeast and am looking forward to tasting the difference. It is much clearer fermenting than the bread yeast. Also got a 4 1/2 gal batch of apples going too

thirstymug said:

Ha my first brew was pretty much the same recipe, except I used a strawberry flavored rubber for a air lock. :

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Maybe the first time I've heard of a rubber for an airlock, first for strawberry at least.

.

brewingmeister said:

Maybe the first time I've heard of a rubber for an airlock, first for strawberry at least.

.

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you gotta do a hooch search on youtube lol i must have poked 5 holes a day in the tip of that thing to keep it from popping.

I'm well aware that this is "no where near a prison hootch" but lots of videos and stuff I've read use that description just because you don't need anything from a brewing shop to make it.

I don't care how to make it better. . . I'm just wondering what I've got and what the best way to deal with it is. This was just a novelty for me. I don't care if bread yeast sucks, I don't care if table sugar sucks . . .

So, back to my original question. . .

Rough guess on alcohol content, will it clear eventually, should I rack to some sort of a secondary (will this help anything), and can I back sweeten this at all and with what?

This is seriously just for kicks. . . I was bored one night, threw a few things in a container, and now I'm curious if it will actually work. . .

Geez. . .some of you guys are just to freakin uptight.

Table sugar doesn't suck, people use it for wine type drinks all the time.
Bread yeast doesn't suck, people do use it for some recipes, it just makes it a bit more difficult towards the end.

1. That much apple and sugar has a potential ABV of about 15% - bread yeast is a complete unknown on tolerence though so it may take it dry, or it may give up at 8%. If it stops that early you at least wont need to backsweeten.

2. It will clear, but bread yeast will jump up and cloud everything really easily at the slightest vibration. You will want to rack multiple times until you've got rid of it. Drinking the yeast doesn't just taste nasty, it can give you the squits so I would go with the not caring route on that. Once it has finished fermenting fully, put it in the fridge for a few days then rack to a new container and repeat untill no more yeast drops out.

3. Once it is finished and has been racked enough to get it clear, give it a little taste, if it's sweet then stick it in some bottles or get your mates over. Leaving it longer will improve the taste without removing it's potency, but if you just want to get drunk at this point it will work. If it's not sweet you will want to back sweeten.

4. To backsweeten you need Potasium Sorbate and Potasium Metabisulphate (Camden tablet), they have instructions for dosage on the side. You take a small amount of your cider and disolve the correct amount of both chemicals in it. Put it in the bottom of your fermentor and rack on top of it. The next day you can sweeten it to taste. This can only be done once it if fully cleared as above though.

Hopefully that answers most of your questions, gotta run to work now though.

Mikethepoolguy said:

The bread yeast is fine. The only problem with it is that it does not make a compact trub. The slightest disturbance will stir it up.

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this. I made a mead with bread yeast and it's pretty good after 6 months

I think that is going to he close to 10% if not more. My cider is 6 gallons Apple juice and 2 lbs sugar. I use nottingham yeast which will ferment down to about 1.010 and I get 7% consistently. Your will probably ferment further and also you added much more sugar. Have fun!

I tried something similar a year or so ago. Used red star bread yeast to ferment 4 gals of local cider with a half pound of table sugar and a couple of cups of brown sugar. The whole batch cost me about $12 or so.

The result was very dry. Mouth puckeringly dry. My advice is to back sweeten it.

After about 4 months aging in bottles it wasnt too bad.

Well, I bottled it a week or so ago. Tried it last night. Tastes really good. Feels very alcoholy though. Face feels warm after ever sip. Not dry like I expected.