My Cider Story

Welcome to my Cider Story

Since I was young I always had a love for beverages, whether it be a warm glass of milk or an ice cold Coke. This love of course didn't change when I grew older, if anything it intensified. My love of beverages transformed into a love of alcohol, not just tasting it and consuming it but how it is put together, the Genetics of Alcohol if you like.

I have always wanted to brew alcohol, always. The problem was that I was constantly moving around and not living in once place long enough to really get into manufacturing beer. Now it all changes.

I grew up in Great Britain where I was surrounded by great scotches, flooded with countless Ales and circled with great British Ciders. Ciders being my favorite (currently). So now living in Tuscon Az where I will be settled for three years I am now ready for to undertake a Home brewing challenge. The challenge I have chosen is to brew Cider.

My thoughts are that instead of diving straight into brewing I'm going to do as much research and take on as much advise as I can get. I have spent countless amount of hours searching through these forums and have gained so much information with everyone's experience and experiments.

The Plan

I plan on making two 2-gallon batches of Cider. Plain apple being 5-6% and the apple fruit medley about 5-6% as well.


Batch 1

This batch I would like to keep just plain Apple


Batch 2

This second batch I would like to keep the Apple flavour but add to it, possibly Raspberries or Blackberries preferably Elder Flower if I can locate it to which I would then add lime.


What I know so far.

So, this is the process I will be taking when making my batches.

1. Juice fresh apples after cleaning them. I will be using a selection of apples.
2. Crush and Add 2 Camden Tablets and wait 12 hours.
3. Add Pectic Enzyme and wait another 12 hours and then add a source of sugar, Probably Honey.
4. Add Yeast
5. Split 4 gallon batch into two 2-gallon Batches
6. First Batch I would leave to ferment in Primary
7. Second Batch I would add some more fruit, e.g raspberry, blackberry or elderflower and lime. Then leave to ferment.
8. I would then move both batches to 2 secondary Carboys for further fermenting.
9. Then I would backsweaten.
10. When Cider is clear and my Hydrometer is where I want it, I will then bottle buy using half a tea spoon of sugar per 330ml bottle.


So I know my method has a few holes in it so I do have a few questions if my fellow members could help me out with.

1. Do I take the cork out of the apples before I press them?
2. How much Pectic Enzyme should I add for 4 Gallons of Juice.
3. Do I add the Sugar (Honey) after the p enzyme ad before the yeast? Do I add the yeast Nutrients with the yeast?
4. At what point should I remove 1 gallon of juice to back sweaten?
5. How long do I know to leave the cider in the primary before moving to secondary?
6. Should I put extra fruit (raspberry, blackberry) in the secondary as well as the primary?
7.When do I back sweaten.
8. What can I use to sterilize my equipment that I can buy from somewhere like walmart?

Any advice and help would be more than welcome.
So far this is my equipment.

Current Batch Status​

Batch 1: straight Apple cider
Batch 2: Apple cider with blackberries and raspberries

Next Batch Status​

Carboy 1- this is Robwalkers recipe for toffee Apple
Carboy 2- this is my experimental recipe for raspberry and mint.
Carboy 3- this is sweet black cherry and is another experimental recipe.

What?

zaptop said:

What?

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Sorry, it was a working progress.

Padj said:

Sorry, it was a working progress.

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Ahh!

Looking good

I'm only getting started in cider making myself (I have about four 1 gallon batches going), but I don't think you need to wait 12 hours after adding the pectic enzyme.

To answer your questions from my newbish point of view:
1. ???
2. I was told to use 3/4 tsp per gallon of pectic enzyme.
3. I add everything to the carboy aside from the yeast and yeast nutrient. I take the OG and then add the yeast and nutrient.
4. ???
5. I've waited between 3-4 weeks before racking to secondary
6. Everything I've read says to put fruit into secondary. If you put it in primary, the yeast will eat all the sugars (and flavors) of the fruit and you won't even know it was there.
7. ???
8. i use StarSan for all my sanitizing. If you're in tuscon there's bound to be a homebrew shop nearby. Just go there and get it (or order it online). It's a rinse free sanitizer so you don't have to mess with bleach or iodine

TandemTails said:

I'm only getting started in cider making myself (I have about four 1 gallon batches going), but I don't think you need to wait 12 hours after adding the pectic enzyme.

To answer your questions from my newbish point of view:
1. ???
2. I was told to use 3/4 tsp per gallon of pectic enzyme.
3. I add everything to the carboy aside from the yeast and yeast nutrient. I take the OG and then add the yeast and nutrient.
4. ???
5. I've waited between 3-4 weeks before racking to secondary
6. Everything I've read says to put fruit into secondary. If you put it in primary, the yeast will eat all the sugars (and flavors) of the fruit and you won't even know it was there.
7. ???
8. i use StarSan for all my sanitizing. If you're in tuscon there's bound to be a homebrew shop nearby. Just go there and get it (or order it online). It's a rinse free sanitizer so you don't have to mess with bleach or iodine

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Thank you very much for the advice. I bought star San. Do I need to rinse after using star San?

Bought a bottle so I can dilute it and it'll be easy access. Also bought three primary containers from Wal-Mart. Cost me only $5 each.

You missed the most important part, what kind of apples are you going to be using? If its just store bought dessert apples you might just save yourself the cleanup and buy some cider at the store without preservatives. WVMJ

Padj said:

Thank you very much for the advice. I bought star San. Do I need to rinse after using star San?

Bought a bottle so I can dilute it and it'll be easy access. Also bought three primary containers from Wal-Mart. Cost me only $5 each.

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StarSan is 'no rinse' so you don't need to rinse it out after you sanitize. The small amounts left in the containers won't have any noticeable effects on the cider.

Per the package, it's 1oz of starsan per 5 gallons of water, so i just adjust how much i'm using based on what I'm sanitizing. It's also nice to have a stock pot or bowl full of starsan+water for putting things like airlocks, stoppers, caps, tubes, etc in.

The 2 gallon vessels you bought will probably work but getting the inside of the handle cleaned out might be a pain in the butt. Also, there has been some debate about PET bottles vs non PET bottles. PET provides a barrier so oxygen can't breach the plastic. I'm not sure if the ones you bought are PET or not.

TandemTails said:

StarSan is 'no rinse' so you don't need to rinse it out after you sanitize. The small amounts left in the containers won't have any noticeable effects on the cider.

Per the package, it's 1oz of starsan per 5 gallons of water, so i just adjust how much i'm using based on what I'm sanitizing. It's also nice to have a stock pot or bowl full of starsan+water for putting things like airlocks, stoppers, caps, tubes, etc in.

The 2 gallon vessels you bought will probably work but getting the inside of the handle cleaned out might be a pain in the butt. Also, there has been some debate about PET bottles vs non PET bottles. PET provides a barrier so oxygen can't breach the plastic. I'm not sure if the ones you bought are PET or not.

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Bottom should have a recycling sign with the number "1" and/ or say PET on the bottom.

MetalMatt408 said:

Bottom should have a recycling sign with the number "1" and/ or say PET on the bottom.

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Ok it tells me it's PET which is good news. As for the handle I have a few interesting cleaning instruments that will be able to tackle that problem.

WVMJ said:

You missed the most important part, what kind of apples are you going to be using? If its just store bought dessert apples you might just save yourself the cleanup and buy some cider at the store without preservatives. WVMJ

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I am going to a farm. Spoke to the gentleman there and he informs me he had a selection of Apple's I can chose from. To be honest I would prefer to make my own juice as I can record exactly what I'm using. So I can be exact in my logs for what I have used.

I would wait until the end of the lag period and the yeast has started to ferment the sugars before I would add any nutrient. Nutrient on yeast that has not fully been reconstituted is like pitching the yeast into a super saturated sugar solution. You are likely to damage and stress the yeast - if not in fact kill many of them - rather than have them take up any benefit from the nitrogen and minerals.

Ok so I bought some Apple's today and will probably be going back for more tomorrow or the day after. Any suggestions on what I should get? Here is what I have in my arsenal at the moment.

As you can see I have quite the variety but I'm not sure what is the best blend. That being said the best part of homebrewing is trail and error.

This is great idea. Farm grown and true "cider-y" will make a great drink.

You may also want to (and I highly recommend) making a couple of trial runs of apple juice and yeast, with or without sugar to boost them up in gravity.

I know it's not super-authentic english dry cider or whatever, but it WILL give you a $4 in materials chance to get your favorite process dialed in.

And heck, if you like it, you've got a cheap date drink you can always make and an easy way to "ease in" to more complex stuff like grinding pomace, pressing, pectic soak times, etc.

All of those are dessert apples. Is it possible to get a list of what they grow? Ask if they have any crabapples for pollinators and see if they would let you go out and pick some of them to add some tannins to your cider to greatly improve it. If you do a search for American cider apples you might get an idea of what kinds to look for that are better for making cider. All the note taking in the world is not going to make a good cider if you start off with just any apples you can find at the market or orchard. You dont sound like a bland kind of guy as far as drinks go, try to ask the orchardist what kinds he grows. Sometimes they have like 2 trees of something that most people dont know about, say like Smokehouse, that they just planted for fun to see how the apples would turn out, they probably dont pick them for their market but if they find out they have a cidermaker as a customer they might be willing to set some aside for you. GOOD LUCK! WVMJ

To answer your other questions:

You don't have to remove the core, but if you're using a small juicer, it might make it easier.

Save the juice from the beginning to use to backsweeten. I would use campden on it and then freeze it. You won't need it for a while.

You backsweeten after all fermentation is done and you have disabled or removed the yeast. Depending on your process, this would be after aging and racking.

I would start off with cheap AJ and see how it turns out. Then you have some lessons learned to improve the next batch.

Unless you're getting real cider apples, you'll probably need tannin.

In your picture, those are all eating apples. Are those numbers the number of apples you have? Or pounds?

With those, you'll need tannin to round it out. Unless you can find some crabapples.

You're going to need a crap load of apples to get 4 gallons of juice. Something like 40-50 pounds.

Padj said:

I am going to a farm. Spoke to the gentleman there and he informs me he had a selection of Apple's I can chose from. To be honest I would prefer to make my own juice as I can record exactly what I'm using. So I can be exact in my logs for what I have used.

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How are you going to get the juice out of the apples?
I average about 3-4 gallons a bushel. So I guess You'll need about half a bushel. For 2 gallons. I let the apples sweat a month or more. I put them in grain bags or onion sacks and keep them in the shade and they'll soften and dry out a little. But that would be in October temperatures around here, 60-70F during the day, 30's-40's at night. In Arizona you'd have to keep them in the house this time of year because of the heat. I would suggest calling the apple grower again and asking if you can pick up apples off the ground that drop from the trees. Just wash them good and cut out any bad spots, you don't need or want perfect apples for cider.
A few months back Food Lion had 1 gallon glass jugs of unpasteurized cider (juice) for $6.99, which is a good deal since a new jug will cost you $4.50-$5.
I don't buy ready made cider, but if you don't have good equipment for grinding and pressing the apples its going to be a lot of work for a little bit of juice.
You don't need campden tablets, the wild yeast can add some complexity to your cider. You might want to try 1 gallon with just your wild yeast and the other gallon add cider yeast you have.
You don't need added sugar, yeast nutrient or any other chemicals.
A slow ferment is better for cider so there's no point is speeding things up with yeast nutrient. Use a large cooler and frozen 1 liter bottles of water to make a mini cooling chamber for your 1 gallon jug. The low 60's is a good temperature for cider, 50's is better. I like my cider better after 4-6 months of aging.
I was curious about apple growers in Arizona, seems to hot there for that, but I found a group of orchards in Wilcox, AZ. One has 10,000 trees and 18 varieties and sells cider. Here's a link: http://www.orangepippin.com/orchards/united-states/arizona

madscientist451 said:

How are you going to get the juice out of the apples?
I average about 3-4 gallons a bushel. So I guess You'll need about half a bushel. For 2 gallons. I let the apples sweat a month or more. I put them in grain bags or onion sacks and keep them in the shade and they'll soften and dry out a little. But that would be in October temperatures around here, 60-70F during the day, 30's-40's at night. In Arizona you'd have to keep them in the house this time of year because of the heat. I would suggest calling the apple grower again and asking if you can pick up apples off the ground that drop from the trees. Just wash them good and cut out any bad spots, you don't need or want perfect apples for cider.
A few months back Food Lion had 1 gallon glass jugs of unpasteurized cider (juice) for $6.99, which is a good deal since a new jug will cost you $4.50-$5.
I don't buy ready made cider, but if you don't have good equipment for grinding and pressing the apples its going to be a lot of work for a little bit of juice.
You don't need campden tablets, the wild yeast can add some complexity to your cider. You might want to try 1 gallon with just your wild yeast and the other gallon add cider yeast you have.
You don't need added sugar, yeast nutrient or any other chemicals.
A slow ferment is better for cider so there's no point is speeding things up with yeast nutrient. Use a large cooler and frozen 1 liter bottles of water to make a mini cooling chamber for your 1 gallon jug. The low 60's is a good temperature for cider, 50's is better. I like my cider better after 4-6 months of aging.
I was curious about apple growers in Arizona, seems to hot there for that, but I found a group of orchards in Wilcox, AZ. One has 10,000 trees and 18 varieties and sells cider. Here's a link: http://www.orangepippin.com/orchards/united-states/arizona

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Thank you for your suggestions I'm going to take a lot of you advice on board. I am using a good processor but it is very efficient as I've already tested it. As for the orchards In Wilcox they have a lot of trees there as you said it's just a two hour drive. When I get time off I'll probably head down there. Thanks for the link! Any idea how much cider I should freeze to back sweeten?

Padj said:

Thank you for your suggestions I'm going to take a lot of you advice on board. I am using a good processor but it is very efficient as I've already tested it. As for the orchards In Wilcox they have a lot of trees there as you said it's just a two hour drive. When I get time off I'll probably head down there. Thanks for the link! Any idea how much cider I should freeze to back sweeten?

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Depends on how sweet you like it. I like 2/3 fermented and 1/3 backsweetened. If you like West Country styles, maybe 3/4 and 1/4, or even less.

If you have a closer local source, I'd go with that, but a road trip to a large orchard can be worth it if you can get "seconds" cheap. The larger orchards have trouble selling apples with blemishes and they usually go to waste so you can get a good price if you ask. The tree ripened fruit that falls off the tree makes better cider, in my opinion. Most apples in the store are not ripe when picked so they hold up better in handling and storage.
I usually add frozen concentrate from the store if I want to back sweeten, but I prefer my cider dry or off dry. Another trick is to use 1/2 gallon milk jugs, fill about 3/4 full with cider, freeze solid, then let thaw slightly in the refrigerator and pour off the concentrated juice as it thaws, leaving ice behind in the jug. You'll have to go through a few cycles of this but you can get a concentrated juice you can then ferment to get higher ABV cider without adding any sugar.

madscientist451 said:

If you have a closer local source, I'd go with that, but a road trip to a large orchard can be worth it if you can get "seconds" cheap. The larger orchards have trouble selling apples with blemishes and they usually go to waste so you can get a good price if you ask. The tree ripened fruit that falls off the tree makes better cider, in my opinion. Most apples in the store are not ripe when picked so they hold up better in handling and storage.
I usually add frozen concentrate from the store if I want to back sweeten, but I prefer my cider dry or off dry. Another trick is to use 1/2 gallon milk jugs, fill about 3/4 full with cider, freeze solid, then let thaw slightly in the refrigerator and pour off the concentrated juice as it thaws, leaving ice behind in the jug. You'll have to go through a few cycles of this but you can get a concentrated juice you can then ferment to get higher ABV cider without adding any sugar.

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That's a very clever idea with the concentrated juice. I may use that in the future if needed. I have saved 1/4 to 1/3 of cider and I plan on freezing it ready to back sweeten.

Update on proceedings. After juicing many Apple's my juicer kind of broke and before someone says anything I know I know. So I had to top my carboys off with some store bought goodness pictured below. Got all the juice in the primarys and filled the airlocks with tequila. Problem is they keep slipping out and the plugs nearly got lost inside at one point ( does anyone know a secret how to get them out? It took me ages but luckily it did not go all the way in).

At this stage I added campden tablets waited 12 hours then pectic enzyme another 12 hours then yeast+nutrients racked into carboys.

Starting gravity 1060.

How many apples did you juice and how much juice?

Juiced about 4 gallons and mixed it in with 1 gallon of bought juice. Extracted 1 and a 1/2 gallons to back sweeten.

ericbw said:

How many apples did you juice and how much juice?

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Can't remember the Apple count though sorry.

Started two new batches today. 1 was toffee Apple the other raspberry and mint. Hope all is going to go well.

Racked my batches into secondary and added blackberries and raspberries. The berry one is still fermenting but the Apple straight one seems to have stopped. Starting gravity was 10.60 checked it before I placed in secondary and both were at 10.05

Your gravity reading doesn't sound quite right. If you meant that your starting gravity was something to the effect of 1.060 and your current specific gravity is 1.050, you either have a long way to go yet with your fermentation or your fermentation stalled for some unknown reason. Check it again in a couple days to see if it changed at all. That will give you a better understanding of where you are in the fermentation process.

Icarus9414 said:

Your gravity reading doesn't sound quite right. If you meant that your starting gravity was something to the effect of 1.060 and your current specific gravity is 1.050, you either have a long way to go yet with your fermentation or your fermentation stalled for some unknown reason. Check it again in a couple days to see if it changed at all. That will give you a better understanding of where you are in the fermentation process.

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he means 1.060 and 1.005

Bottled my first two 1 gallon batches today. I will post some pictures soon. They are currently sitting in my bath carbonating as I'm sure I will get some bombs. Be looking to pasteurize some time next week.

Padj said:

Bottled my first two 1 gallon batches today. I will post some pictures soon. They are currently sitting in my bath carbonating as I'm sure I will get some bombs. Be looking to pasteurize some time next week.

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Did you bottle one in a plastic bottle so you can monitor the carbonation level? If you do that, you can then pasteurize right when it's ready and avoid bottle bombs. Be careful!!!

ericbw said:

Did you bottle one in a plastic bottle so you can monitor the carbonation level? If you do that, you can then pasteurize right when it's ready and avoid bottle bombs. Be careful!!!

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how do you pasteurize after you bottle?

This makes so much sense though, if you can tell me how!

Never mind I see the sticky! Cool. My last batch has to be a still cider, but I'll try this next time.

Read that sticky 12 times.

I thought you were carbonating these? Did you add sugar when you bottled?

Finished my first batches. Raspberry and blackberry Apple cider and straight Apple cider. Bottled, labelled and carbonated. I had the label from a label generator from the labbelling part of this site so I can't take credit for that but it's all my writing I used a template.

I added half a tea spoon of sugar to each bottle for carbonation but I also back sweetened say 2/6 of regular Apple juice which I took out of the batch before I pitched the yeast. See earlier in this thread for that.

ericbw said:

Read that sticky 12 times.

I thought you were carbonating these? Did you add sugar when you bottled?

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See above post