Canadian Sources for inexpensive apple juice for making hard cider?

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Want to make a batch of hard cider. My variation on Edworts Apfelwien using corriander, cardamon and orange peel zest.

Anyway... where and what are you fellow Canadians buying for juice for making cider?

I've found some good "apple cider" at superstore but I was wondering if there is anything cheaper? I think this stuf was almost 4 bucks for 1.89L.
 
I've been buying Allen's at Extra Foods for $1.79 for a 1.36L carton, so it's $1.32 per liter. cheapest I've found for pure juice so far, except when it comes on sale at the IGA for $1.25 / liter and that's not very regular. I have two 3 gallon batches of cider going now, the first is down to 1.002 and tastes good already, I just finished starting the other tonight.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:
Want to make a batch of hard cider. My variation on Edworts Apfelwien using corriander, cardamon and orange peel zest.

Anyway... where and what are you fellow Canadians buying for juice for making cider?

I've found some good "apple cider" at superstore but I was wondering if there is anything cheaper? I think this stuf was almost 4 bucks for 1.89L.
 
Thanks. Yeah the allens seems a pretty good price. I like the natural apple juice (cider) extar foods/superstore sells but it's pricey. Adding a couple though with the allens may give it more depth.

Curious, what yeasts have you guys been using? I just pitched lavlin kv1-1116. I use that for strawaberry wine and find it brings out the strawberrys realy well.
 
I used that WYeast cider yeast once and it was pretty good. I've just used Nottingham the last couple times and it's worked out great. I've got some Lalvin 71B-112 I'm going to try next time, but I'm not even sure what kind of wine yeast it is, it's just the only one the LHBS had.
 
If you have some No Name Apple juice available in the supermarkets. Here it's $0.95 a liter.

Edit: Bradsul, what was your FG with Nottingham?
 
Denny's Evil Concoctions said:
How dry were you getting with the Nottingham? I like dry ciders but I was thinking of making a batch for my parents and my Mom is definitely not a dry cider fan. lol
I had one finish at 0.998 and the other was about 1.002, a less attenuative yeast like windsor might be a better choice for a sweeter finish. After I try the Lalvin yeast I have I plan to try windsor.
 
I'm using Lalvin E1118, just cause it's what was available to me. seems to be working well and tastes fine, just waiting for my first batch to peter out, fermentation slowed considerably when it passed 1.005 but still going. threw some cinnamon in batch #2, so we'll see how it handles it. it's bubbling briskly and developed enough krausen I needed to knock it down before having an "escape". :(

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:
Thanks. Yeah the allens seems a pretty good price. I like the natural apple juice (cider) extar foods/superstore sells but it's pricey. Adding a couple though with the allens may give it more depth.

Curious, what yeasts have you guys been using? I just pitched lavlin kv1-1116. I use that for strawaberry wine and find it brings out the strawberrys realy well.
 
I've made cider now with the following Canadian juices:

* 20 L Mix of Sunrype and Mott's (both clear juices, from Superstore and London Drugs IIRC) with EC1118 champagne yeast, no added sugar. Primed and bottled - super dry, pale yellow colour, yummy. Available in the fall for about $1 / L. OG 1.045ish ends at 0.998. Bubbly like champagne. A fine guzzling cider.

* 20 L Mix of Superstore 'President's Choice' unfiltered apple juice and Mott's filtered juice with EC1118. Just about like batch above. A little more expensive at about $1.50 / L. Just as clear even though I used unfiltered juice - the pulp all settles out. The same SG as first one.

* 5 L of Beatrice apple juice with 1/4cup of lactose and about a cup of table sugar. Munton's beer yeast. OG 1.060 EG 0.998. Much fruitier, more alcoholic, not as bubbly. I only want about one of these at a time.

* 20 L of D'Angelo's pure Ontario apple juice, on sale at Pharma Plus for .99/1.36L. - doesn't even have Vitamin C added. I added about a cup of lactose and used Munton's beer yeast. Still bubbling every 45 seconds after about 6 weeks. The EC1118 is much faster.
 
your 20L batch is identical to my first and gives me an idea where things should end. how long did you age it?

Corvairboy said:
I've made cider now with the following Canadian juices:

* 20 L Mix of Sunrype and Mott's (both clear juices, from Superstore and London Drugs IIRC) with EC1118 champagne yeast, no added sugar. Primed and bottled - super dry, pale yellow colour, yummy. Available in the fall for about $1 / L. OG 1.045ish ends at 0.998. Bubbly like champagne. A fine guzzling cider.

* 20 L Mix of Superstore 'President's Choice' unfiltered apple juice and Mott's filtered juice with EC1118. Just about like batch above. A little more expensive at about $1.50 / L. Just as clear even though I used unfiltered juice - the pulp all settles out. The same SG as first one.

* 5 L of Beatrice apple juice with 1/4cup of lactose and about a cup of table sugar. Munton's beer yeast. OG 1.060 EG 0.998. Much fruitier, more alcoholic, not as bubbly. I only want about one of these at a time.

* 20 L of D'Angelo's pure Ontario apple juice, on sale at Pharma Plus for .99/1.36L. - doesn't even have Vitamin C added. I added about a cup of lactose and used Munton's beer yeast. Still bubbling every 45 seconds after about 6 weeks. The EC1118 is much faster.
 
I think the Lalvin yeast is pretty fast. It doesn't ever give any sulfurous smell. I use only a primary - no secondary - fermented a month in Better Bottle clear carboy at about 68 F is long enough to completely clear, then about two weeks in primed Grolsch or PET bottles to carbonate. A month or so more in the bottles makes it very drinkable.

The batches I'm trying with Munton's beer yeast are WAY slower. After nearly 6 weeks in primary my current batch is still bubbling every 45 seconds in the airlock and hasn't started to clear yet.
 
I have a small pick-your-own orchard near Milton in Ontario and have an excess of apples this year. I can supply apples or juice at a reasonable cost. I still have a number of different varieties so we can custom blend the juice (within reason). I have been making fresh cider for about 20 years in small batches but this year, because of the bumper crop, I want to try larger amounts. I just hate to see all those apples go to waste.
 
Superstore has unfiltered apple juice on 3L containers for $4.95. They also have a mulled version. Probably winter only for the mulled. (If I used that it would probably be for back sweetening but I might give a batch a go using all mulled one day).
 
I bought mine in cans for something like 80c per litre from the Superstore.

Things I hate about superstore, is now that they have remodelled all there stores (at least in BC) they have split stuff up into a bunch of sections. I think you can find juice in 3 seperate areas of the store! COld section, Juice section and organic goods section. (Unfiultered is in the organic section for some reason).

(Same for vitamins, they have a section near pharmacey and a section at the other end of the store in "natural goods").

So what section was the 80 cent cans of apple juice and what quality is it? How was the resultant cider?

What kills me is that I live in the Okanagan, where they have to many apples and have issues selling them and yet I can not find a source of cheap local apple juice. Need a apple press I guess. :)
 
have any of you guys tried using the Lalvin K1-1118? I tried it this last batch I made and it came out very dry, and skunky?
 

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