Experimenting with making cider

Im thinking about trying an experiment this Friday. I have 3 partial grain beer batches under my belt so far and I thought I'd play around with cider making.

I have read up on it and here’s my idea so far.

1. Get 2 gallon jugs of natural apple juice, and a small jug of cranberry juice from the grocery store. (no preservatives)
2. Add like 1/8th cranberry juice to ONE of the jugs, leave the other one alone.
3. Add some sugar, maybe ½ pound to get the alcohol content up.
4. Pitch yeast(still researching which one)
5. Cut a hole in the cap of both of them and stick airlocks in them.
6. Stick them in a closet and taste/hydrometer once a week.
7. Bottle after desired taste / alchohol content.
8. Bottle condition for carbonation for a couple weeks.
9. Run the bottles through the dishwasher to kill the yeast and stableize the bottles. (this is the easiest way I have read)

I am trying to stay as simple as possible right now, first i'd like to get a taste for what does whatand I also I have a kid on the way and don't have much free time these days.

So what do yall think? I can keep experimenting and eventually I'll come up with one that tastes good enough to do an entire batch of it.

Questions...do you think adding cranberry juice is a good idea? I want to add tartness and I like cranberry juice flavor. The gallon of straight juice is going to be my control to compare the cranberry added batch.

Is 1/2 pound of sugar a good amount for a 1 gallon batch? I would be shooting at somethign north of 5 -6% alcohol, but want it to remain tart, not so sweet.

What type of yeast would be good with this batch??

#5 - You can buy plugs that go in the jugs of cider, and they are like a buck each. They would be more air tight than cutting holes. I recommend you do it.

I did a cranberry juice with cinnamon cider once, with it being 3/4 apple and 1/4 cranberry. Had some off flavors initially, though some thought it might have been from the cinnamon. I've been letting it age for about 2.5 months now, so I have no idea what it is doing now. Be aware that the cranberry will push your pH down, so be careful you don't add too much, and it will also increase your tannins, so don't add any extra.

I'm a purist who believes in not adding sugar when making a cider, but you did state clearly why you wanted to add it (increase the alcohol) and to meet a goal (5-6%). My guess is that the juice you will get will come in around 1.045-1.055, which would be in the 6.5-8% range as is, so you will need to check your juice(s) before adding sugar. You may honestly not need sugar. Admittedly, the cranberry juice is a wild card that I'm not sure what it will do to the SG, so mix it up first and figure out your SG.

If you don't want sweet, then let the little yeasts eat up the fructose, and you will have a dry cider. The cranberry tannin will help to keep it tart.

I tend to use Red Star Premier Cuvee (Prise de Mousse) a lot, but I wonder if a Lalvin DV10 (Epernay) might be better since the pH is going to be low from the cranberry juice.

Candlewineproject, thanks! Really good info. I'll be running by the homebrew shop friday morning.

That yeast you specified, are they easy to obtain locally?? I'm going to write that down and ask for it, but the homebrew shop that is close by didn't seem to be very helpful, they had a full stock of equipment, but they're a combo hardware / homebrew shop, I don't know if they will have anything more than the basic stuff.

Is there a more basic category of yeast that I can revert to if they don't have that? I woudln't trust the guy if I just asked him for 'some yeast for cider.' Should I look for some champagne yeast? I'm still learnign this whole yeast thing.

There is a much better homebrew shop that I usually buy my ingredients from but it's a good 45 minute one way drive out there. Here is their online catalogue.
http://www.homebrewhq.com/ProductList.aspx?CategoryID=150

Im sure they will have what im looking for. If it's critical I can go there to get it.

I like WhiteLabs WLP775 English Cider Yeast which is more for making a dry cider. I wouldn't recommend using a champagne yeast. Also, I suggest that you read some other threads where you can get a lot of information and personal opinions. On this forum at the very top is Results from juice, yeast and sugar experiments where Kevin put together a lot of good information from his personal experience. As always, taste is a personal thing so keep that in mind.

Honestly, nobody was responding to you, so I opened up Ben Watson's Cider: Hard and Sweet and looked to see what he said about yeasts. The first time I went to my HBS (which is run by twits because the owner has moved on to other green endevors and neglects the store), they set me up with Premier Cuvee, which I have since then found out that Cuvee means roughly a little bit of everything, and in this case, a little bit of all kinds of yeast. Watson says it is "low-foaming; good for barrel fermentation." I asked a local fruit wine maker, and he mentioned that Montrachet eats though concrete, and I tried it, but didn't much care for it, and I can't tell you why. I just don't.

I'm looking at midwestsupplies.com right now, and I don't see the DV10. Honestly, about any wine yeast will work. The Cotes Des Blanc is recommend for ciders because it leaves a fruit aroma, but is a slower ferment, but can be sweet if fermented too cold.

Ok reading that link that Teromous posted I think I'm going to grab either the Nottingham Ale or the Safale S-04. They seem to be cheap and easy to get being ale yeasts, plus a good chance of getting a fruity apple taste.

Ill skip the sugar for now since the alchohol will probably be where I want it. I don't need a wine, just didn't want to make a weaksauce 3 point cider.

I might keep some sugar or honey on hand if my SG isn't where I want it, but want this experiment as simple as possible to get a good feel for cider making.

With beer I have only followed recipies, this is why I'm expirementing with cider.

Cider tends to be pretty stout on its own because it is loaded with sugar, so you're right about not needing to add sugar. Again that's preference, some people make big ciders near 20% ABV. I think it would be fun to make a small batch but that's a bit strong for me. If you do end up adding honey (called a cyser) you might take a look at the mead section for some more info.

That being said, experiment away!

CandleWineProject said:

#5 - You can buy plugs that go in the jugs of cider, and they are like a buck each. They would be more air tight than cutting holes. I recommend you do it.

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I learned a trick from my LHBS guy that's even cheaper and easier. Go to Home Depot/LHBS/Lowes/WHERVER and buy like a foot of 3/8" nylon hose. Just the standard clear stuff that's like less than a dollar a foot. Heat the end of it up in some hot water, stuff the end of the airlock in this until you have about 1/4"-1/2" up on the shaft of the airlock. Cut the hose leaving about 1/4" BELOW the end of the airlock at it's normal diameter. When the hose cools it will fit tightly to the airlock and form a nice sloped gasket. Then you just drill a hole in the lid that's equal to the OD of the hose, and stick it in tight. This elminates the need for grommets or stoppers on jug lids, and can also be done on plastic bucket lids for fermenters so you don't have to buy pre-drilled/gasketed lids. Best part is you can get like 10+ airlock gaskets outta a foot of hose.

^ that's a good idea. I'm thinking ill rig up a blow off tube. I hear cider likes to foam up through the airlocks. Whatever I do ill make sure to get a good seal. Don't want foam all over the closet.

I use it for my all my airlock(s) that aren't dedicated to carboy caps for my better bottle(s).

Ok so here's how it went:

2 1gallon jugs of Tree Top brand applejuice from walmart, half concentrate, half real juice(best I could find) no preservatives except ascorbic acid, Nottingham ale yeast.

Dumped out exactly 1 cup of juice from both jugs for some room on top to prevent a blow off.

One of them I left 100% apple juice, the other I dumped 12 ounces of apple juice and put back in 12 ounces of cranberry juice (blend of about 10% cranberry).

Recorded hydrometer readings and pitched the hydrated yeast.

The plugs I bought were too big for the jugs so out came the dremel. I drilled holes in the existing screw tops, I did the rubber hose trick for plugs, made sure no air leaks and fitted my airlocks.

This morning there was foam on top of both jugs...im hoping there's no blow off while im at work, I haven't rigged a blow off tube yet. I'll see how it's going tonight.

We'll see what happens. I'll taste it in about 2 weeks, then again every 3 days or so to see if I should bottle it.

One question:

My original thinking was that you had to ferment to taste, meaing stoppign fermenting before it ferments out all the apple taste, but since I added no extra sugar, and used ale yeast instead of champaigne yeast does this change? Should I just let it complete fermenting just like beer?

I still plan to pasteurize in the dishwasher after bottle conditioning so im not worried about bottle bombs, more concerned with flavor at this point. I originally stated I wanted tart, but let me clarify. I want a sweet, but tart apple flavor...similar to Woodchuck Pear cider, and less like Hornsby's red apple cider, which is sweet but not very tart.

I thought i'd comment on the finished product, and ask a question.

Both 1 gal batches turned out exactly the same...and surprisingly very tasty, i'm hooked now. I let them ferment out until dry and age for a few months to get the best result.

They were dry, but nice and tart like an english pub cider, only problem was it was a little thin on taste, not much body.

Here's my question:

On this batch according to my math fermented out to exactly 10% alcohol that's with no added sugar.

I thought something was off with my numbers, but I just bottled a 5 gallon batch of 'Grahams English Cider' using the same Tree Top applejuice and no extra sweeteners, and that one ferminted out to an exact 10% ABV again! This is on the same hydrometer that I used to brew a batch of accidentally big hefeweisen at 5.5% and tested an all grain red ale currently fermenting pretty close our target SG to so I know the hydrometer isn't off.

Any input here? Is it normal to get 10% ABV after fermenting apple juice till dry? Most of the threads here report around 4.5% for cider and 8% - 10% for apfelwein w/ added sugar. What's the deal here?

Is that Tree Top juice liquid when you got it, or concentrate? If it was concentrate, was it diluted down enough? If it wasn't, did they add something to it?

You are right that it shouldn't have come out that high as a general rule of apple juice. Should have been 8% max.

It was your average 'no preservatives' applejuice in 1gal jugs. It may have been 100% natural or 50% from concentrate I don't remember, but it was liquid applejuice. It was sweeter than I remember applejuice, but honestly I rarely drink applejuice so it might just be me.

I found my notebook so ill re run the numbers when I get home.

I did let both batches ferment out for months though, that might have something to do with it, they are quite dry and thin tasting, I can tell that yeast sucked the life out of it, there isn't any sugar left at all. Good apple taste though...mmmm.

jiggerachi said:

I did let both batches ferment out for months though, that might have something to do with it, they are quite dry and thin tasting, I can tell that yeast sucked the life out of it, there isn't any sugar left at all. Good apple taste though...mmmm.

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No, that's not it. Cider will always go dry if you let it, but it should have only been enough sugar for 8% max.

Nevermind, this was my mistake. I read somewhere that you could subtract the % numbers on the hydrometer. I was lazy and tried that with these cider brews. I had lost my notebook and my hydrometer broke after my last beer brew.

I finally found my notebook with the OG FG numbers and ran them the correct way (FG - OG * 131), came out to 6.2% ABV. Makes much more sense now.

I have brewed many beers using the correct medhod before, thought the % lines were easier. At least I had enough sense to record the gravity readings before not using them. Lesson learned, ignore the % numbers on your hydrometer.