1st time cider brew needs help...

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Maccas42

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Sydney, Australia
Hey all,

Im from Sydney Australia and have just started brewing a few batches of beer but want to branch out to make some simple cider. My set up is limited and would be aiming to make a simple cider with a carboy, fresh fruit, sugars and a yeast. Preferable flavours would be apple/cherry or apple/blackcurrent but thats pretty flexible.

Ive searched many of the threads on this site and others but many of the recipes seem to complicated for my equiptment and expertise.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated
 
go buy apple juice from your local market...enough to fill your carboy make sure its non-persurve and add yeast and you'll have cider in no time!

use a cider yeast. they tend to leave a sweet taste instead of a dry wine like flavor...

this will really work...seems to simple but it will come out really well

taste after about 7 days and if its to you likein just cold crash it (stop fermentation)

If its not sweet enough add some more apple juice or even some sprite(lemon-lime soda)
 
make SURE its not preserved juice (no benzoates or sorbates) vitamin C added should be just fine.
If you can get wyeast 1968 thats my favourite cider yeast - otherwise if you only have an ale yeast that should be OK.
 
You will need a fruit press - there is no easy way to get around this requirement.

I built my own in a few hours and cost £1 in total (as had most of the bits needed at home)

Basically the idea is putting pressure on the fruit so it is crushed and realises juice. My design just used a frame, a bottle jack, bags of fruit which let juice out but kept the pumice in and a collection tray and bucket. Took about 2 hours to make and only needed a few bits. If you are interested will show a more detailed design.
 
If you don't have the opportunity to build/buy a press, you can chop the apples and put in a juicer. If you don't have a juicer you need a food processor. This method will take a LOT of time and energy though.

Run no more than two apples through the food processor at a time. When finished pour/scrape the processed apples onto a cheesecloth over your brewing kettle (any sanitized recepticle will do, but I kill wild yeast with 175*F at 45 minutes so mine goes right to the kettle). once it is on the chessecloth take the edges and place them together above the mass of pulp. twist using various pressure to get the juice out. This is less effective than pressing, but in a pinch it will do.

Remember that you'll need more apples since you won't get quite as much juice from each. This is NOT a best practice, but if you aren't sure that you want to invest in an apple press yet, this will work.
 
Basically the idea is putting pressure on the fruit so it is crushed and realises juice. My design just used a frame, a bottle jack, bags of fruit which let juice out but kept the pumice in and a collection tray and bucket. Took about 2 hours to make and only needed a few bits. If you are interested will show a more detailed design.

I'd love to see the design too
 
Ok getting the pictures is proving difficult when the cammerea has been "borrowed" but I wiped up a design for you guys. Just click on it to make it bigger.

28ku054.jpg


Ok seems a thumbnail link does not want to work so you will just have to click the link :p
 
Thanks for the quick response. Just a quick question, what does the jack push down on? Plywood? Also, what is the frame made out of?
 
On mine it is a thick bit of plywood with a piece of metal underneath. That means the bolts go through the metal and into the frame meaning that the force of the press is all on the apples and those bolts rather than the plywood.

By frame is made of thick wood. The top piece of wood is screwed, glued and bracketed to the verticals. Hence it is going no where. Maybe in a perfect world you could have bolts going the whole way up through the vertical into the horizontal wood so it was more reinforced.


Here are some other examples from youtube

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzOWiocIrk]YouTube - Cider Making[/ame] (basically the same as mine just slightly bigger)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ufd3i0H37s]YouTube - How to make home made cider with BrayOak Cider[/ame]
 
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