Nooby to brewing...

Hi. I am a nob to brewing. I am planing to start making me own beer and wine.

I was looking on many of the post her many of the where helpful. but i still not sure what i have to do to make the beer.

I was thinking to make a blend from 88% apple cider (from a local cider mill ) and rest to be raspberry juice probable from a local store. From what i read i should use a Safale S-04 yeast to make it work.. but i don't really now how to put it all together...

Any advice would be appreciated.

Well that is not beer. It's cider of a type. If the apple juice is not pasteurized then all you really need to do is add the raspberry juice, that is preservative free, and let it sit in a warm place with a fermentation lock.

Allow me to point you to a concise overview of cider making:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Brew-Hard-Cider-from-Scratch/

If you're over 21, you can figure out the rest from there, including an excellent Recipes section on this here forum. It's a bit of an investment, and it certainly takes quite a lot of time and patience in the beginning, but that's why it's termed "craft" brewing. What I'm saying is, if you're under 21 and just looking for hooch, illegally making cider at home is way more hassle (and more expensive until you have all the equipment) than other ways of supplying an underage drinking need. (this message has been approved by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control)

noiz2 said:

Well that is not beer. It's cider of a type. If the apple juice is not pasteurized then all you really need to do is add the raspberry juice, that is preservative free, and let it sit in a warm place with a fermentation lock.

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From what i now even in the mill the have to pasteurized the cider becouse of a state law in NJ. But i was thinking is still going to be a better product then buying it from the local store.

Keep in mind you can make perfectly fine hard cider from regular old Tree Top apple juice. Really. It works fine. Just make sure it doesn't have preservatives in it.

If this is your first time brewing, going that route may make it easier. And it will eliminate a broad category of things that can be a problem.

y6y6y6 said:

Keep in mind you can make perfectly fine hard cider from regular old Tree Top apple juice. Really. It works fine. Just make sure it doesn't have preservatives in it.

If this is your first time brewing, going that route may make it easier. And it will eliminate a broad category of things that can be a problem.

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I was thinking the mill is going to be less expensive option with fewer additives in the actual product. Yes it me first time making cider or any type of beer. I imagine cider would be easier to make then normal beer for beginner because personally I don’t have a 5 gallon pot to boil the beer yet. From what I read I can skip the pot with cider.

You should probably look up John Palmers "How To Brew". The link is to his web site and you can read an earlier version of his book on line for free. The second thing I would HIGHLY recommend is to go and listen (and watch in later years) Basic Brewing Radio. You can subscribe to the podcast or listen/ view on the site and or on a smart phone.

They are fun and aimed at beginner to more advanced and at one point or another talk about just about anything that can be brewed.

Cider, IMHO, is a lot easier to brew than beer. Like anything though there is a significant difference between "brewing XYZ" and brewing good XYZ".

But still Cider really only takes a bucket some suranwrap and a big rubberband (to seal the top of the bucket. You are going to need some way to get into a "serving container". But for still dry cider that can be just about anything that can seal.

With pasteurized you will need yeast and you may want to add sugar, but at a basic level that's it.

Frozen juice generally lacks "character". I did two batches with it and people liked it but when I switched to non concentrated juice it improved a LOT.

Preservatives will kill the yeast so make sure there are none in whatever you put in.

Brewing beer is a bunch more complicated. It's still not rocket science at a basic level, and you can make some great beer at a basic level so...
Or you can go crazy with computer automated whiz-bangs and spend a fortune.

As a way to get cheap hootch, neither are very cost effective. Though cider might be at least competitive with cheap wine. Actually that isn't true. If you aim really low you can make stuff a lot cheaper than you can buy. But you may not want to drink it. Making good quality of either will be cost effective compared to high quality commercial products but is not cheaper than rotgut commercial products.

ajoha2003 said:

I imagine cider would be easier to make then normal beer for beginner because personally I don’t have a 5 gallon pot to boil the beer yet. From what I read I can skip the pot with cider.

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It's easier in a lot of ways. Since it's not carbonated you can even go without formal bottling or kegging. Just rack the finished cider into glass jugs.

I'm talking about super easy cider here, not best practices. But honestly even super easy cider tastes darn good.

Personally I like craft beer so that why I was thinking to start making some. Because I can’t find anything that would give me the taste that I am looking for. I am a fan of cider and raspberry beers. Basically from I understand the cider is the easy beer to make. But I would love to get in the future to brew something similar to Blue Moon Raspberry. After experimenting with cider and buying more equipment for me small brewery. Everybody has to have a hobby.

how long it would take on average to get it to the point its drinkable, and it’s there any control how strong the beer gets? Because from what I understand the gravity controls the taste but what controls the power ( ABV)

noiz2 said:

The second thing I would HIGHLY recommend is to go and listen (and watch in later years) Basic Brewing Radio.

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Yes. Highly highly recommended. Some shows will be more useful than others, but this show is an extremely good learning resource.

ajoha2003 said:

how long it would take on average to get it to the point its drinkable, and it’s there any control how strong the beer gets?

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1) Please stop talking about beer and cider as the same thing. They are completely different in nearly every way. What we're talking about here has very little to do with modern beer.

2) The ABV is controlled by adding more or less sugar. That doesn't effect taste to a huge degree. The type of sugar will effect flavor, as will other additives like hops, tannin, fruit, spices, etc.

3) Cider will be drinkable in weeks. It depends. Aging a few months can make it taste better in most cases.