cider time

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Joe028

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I have several ales under my belt and now I'd like to try to make a decent cider. I purchased 6 gallons of unpasturized, no preservative apple juice from my local wine/homebrew store. I was planning to just pitch the yeast in my primary fermenter and rack to secondary whenever that was done and see where this takes me.

I have seen many recipe's and it seems that you can't go wrong with this. I have seen recipes of juice with bread yeast and seen recipe's with everything but the kitchen sink. I plan to make a sparkling cider and want it to taste good. Am I too far off with pitching the yeast to the juice alone, and letting it take over? What taste does the brown sugar lead to? honey?

The yeast that was recommended to me by the LHBS was Superior lager yeast. Haven't seen this in any recipe's but they haven't led me astray yet and say that they have regulars who use this often.

Any advice appreciated, otherwise the process starts tomorrow.

Cheers
Joe
 
First off, stay away from bread yeast. Your stuff will wind up tasting like crap. Also, if it's unpasteurized, before you pitch your yeast, toss in at least one crushed Campden tablet per gallon that you are using. This is a must: it will kill off/cut down on the wild yeasties and bacteria that may be lurking in the juice long enough for your yeast to take over and increase the alcohol levels to the point where it's fatal for anything but an honest, redblooded American/Canadian/British guy/wherever the hell it is you're from person like yourself.

If you're going to add sugar, do so after the primary fermentation is finished and it's going into the secondary fermentation. The cider won't be as foamy or violent, and things will just be slower and quieter. Your stuff will be sweeter- I'm not sure how, though: I myself am waiting for a five gallon batch that I added two pounds of sugar AND two pounds of honey to.
It's been going since June.
 
On top of Odin's advice I'd also suggest adding some yeast nutrient if you have any to hand, don't worry if you don't have any however. I am suprised that your LHBS suggested a lager yeast though - I've never heard of anyone using it in cider. I have no idea how that'll ferment (and I'm not too sure I'd want to give it a try personally) given this type of yeast's need for lower temps during fermentation and secondary when used in lager.
 
Thanks for getting me to this site. Will keep looking at the post, I too will be going the cider route soon and any advice will be welcomed.

o2
 
well I was confused about the lager yeast, but when I checked it out on the web it seemed as though it is a lager yeast that works well at ale temps. It's been fermenting like crazy though since I pitched the yeast. It's currently at about 66-68F. I hope I didn't mess it up too much though because I did not add any camden tablets before I pitched the yeast, so i do realize that there may be some off flavors, but I'll hope for the best at least.
 
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