Help please, on my first attempt!!!!

Hi

Have picked 20 ibs of apples for my first attempt, I do have a shredder and large press but for my debut I thought I would just use a clever device I have for de-skinning and de-coring the apple, and a juicer.

Couple of questions

Even with no core and no skin and having been put through the juicer there is quite a lot of fairly thick froth on top, is it ok to include that or should I filter it off?

And, heards lots of diffrent opinions on to add or not to add yeast and sugar, diffrent fermenting times, diffrent maturing times ETC so what works best?

Sure there are a million threads on here covering all this but wasn't sure what to search.

Many thanks

Al

Well, if you want alcohol in your cider....you'll have to add yeast.

As for adding sugar... I suppose it depends on how big of a batch you're making with that 20 lbs. of apples.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Well, if you want alcohol in your cider....you'll have to add yeast.

As for adding sugar... I suppose it depends on how big of a batch you're making with that 20 lbs. of apples.

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Ok, I was told that apples contained natural yeast??? And I will make as much of a batch as I can, should I put sugar in?

Also the froth I have on top of the juice, should I leave that or get rid of it?

One more thing, do I need to leave much space at the top of the demi for expansion???

Cheers

I am new but have been doing a lot of reading

The apples do contain a small amount of natural yeast. Unless your apples are from a cider farm or you know how to maintain the correct levels of yeast (and no other nastys) in your apples I suggest you kill the yeast and other bacteria in your apple juice by either warming it to 80 Celsius or by adding a crushed Camden tablet. After a day you will just have pure apple juice and then you can add some cider or ale yeast (is very cheap stuff) By using this method it will mean you will have cider in a month rather than about 6-10 and for us newbies it is a lot safer to get it close to right.

You will need to get rid of the origal froth to get in the demi after that the froth should die down I amuse.

The more space you leave the more chance of getting vinigar I have heard so a small amount of space for that but not a great deal.

Yeah, if you're worried about wild yeast, just press the apples and add a Camden tablet to it overnight. You can then pitch your bought yeast into your apple juice after about 24 hours of adding the Camden tablet.

Regarding adding sugar, that's totally up to you. What you'll want to do is take a gravity reading of your juice first. See what the potential alcohol is and then you can decide to up it if needed by adding sugar.

First off, how much juice did you get from the 20lbs of apples? assuming you are making hard apple cider, this is the first step id think to figuring out what to do next

bfbf said:

warming it to 80 Celsius or by adding a crushed Camden tablet.

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be careful of heating your juice. if you heat pasteurize your juice, you will set the natural pectins and your cider will be forever cloudy. for killing unwanted nastys, its 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon of juice. and you should let this sit for about 24 hours. if you are looking for a clear cider, and since you are using fresh pressed juice, you may want to grab a bit of Pectic Enzyme.. add this to the campden/juice mix after the first 12 hours...

So what kind of cider do you want to make? do you want something very dry and whitewine-ish? do you want something sweet? this all comes down to what type of yeast you use. Natural yeast are.. unpredictable.. so i would go the campden route and add your own.

-for a dry cider that may take a few months to age out, check out the Apfelwein post in winemaking.
-for something sweeter you might want to try a yeast like Nottingham or Safale s-04
-and then theres the hybrid apple beer Brandon created which has been dubbed Graff.
-You might also one day want to try an apple mead, which is called a Cyser.

theres a lot of choices.. all of them with merit.. trouble is picking one out of the many ^_^

Thanks guys,

Well I seemed to barely get a gallon of juice out of the 20ibs so i went scrumping and got some more, will again in the morning and hopefully get it up to about 5 gallons to fill the preasure barrel.

Have added some wine yeast and a bit of sugar and let it get on with fermenting

All a bit hit and miss I know, but what the hell!

I suppose it will be obvious when the fermenting has finished, will I need to mature it aswell or will it be ready to go?

Cheers

Al

If you are using ale yeast (such as Nottingham), fermentation should be complete in about two weeks or so.

To be sure, I would suggest you get a hydrometer to take gravity readings. This is the only way to tell. Once the gravity readings are stable (as in you take a measurement and 3 days later it is the same), your cider is ready for bottling!

More importantly, I wanted to reiterate to NOT heat up your juice. If you want to sanitize it, you should throw some Campden tablets in there (1 crushed tablet/gallon) and let it sit for 24 hours before pitching your yeast.

EDIT: Graff is really good. I made some about two months or so ago. The stuff now has some amazing apple flavour to it!

Ok, got the first lot on the go last night but decided it was not enough, so went out and 'got' some more apples this morning, is it ok to add the juice to what I already have? Was thinking of just adding a bit at a time so as not to upset the temp.

Right

Got about 4 gallons on the go now, all bubbling away nicely :0) Have popped a bit of yeast and sugar in, what should be my next step??

Cheers

Al

CalamityAl said:

Ok, got the first lot on the go last night but decided it was not enough, so went out and 'got' some more apples this morning, is it ok to add the juice to what I already have? Was thinking of just adding a bit at a time so as not to upset the temp.

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Good idea. It's not a problem adding it, as long as they're clean and around the same temp.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Good idea. It's not a problem adding it, as long as they're clean and around the same temp.

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Cheers, thats a releif! Got about 4 gallons bubbling away, just added 2 pints at a time

Now all you do is wait for a bit.
Once fermentation stops, you can bottle it!
Then it is more waiting then BEVERAGE TIME!

SpaceInvadingMonkeys said:

Now all you do is wait for a bit.
Once fermentation stops, you can bottle it!
Then it is more waiting then BEVERAGE TIME!

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Hi

How much time after bottling, have herd you can drink it straight away

Cheers

Patience is a virtue. Waiting 6 or more weeks will probably yield a better cider.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Patience is a virtue. Waiting 6 or more weeks will probably yield a better cider.

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Before bottling or 6 weeks when bottled, after fermentation?

cheers

Al

Whenever I've made ciders, I've fermented for 4-6 weeks. I sometimes let it sit in the fermenter for longer than that...maybe an extra month. After bottling, I usually wait about 6 weeks before cracking the first bottle.

Ok, it now appears to have stopped bubbling. Is it time to bottle it?

I hope that this is not teaching you to suck eggs.

I have made cider with a combination of pressed apples topped up with non pasturized cloudy apple juice.

I added some pectolase to the Fv. It fermented in 2 weeks, i left it stand for another 3 days after it stopped bubbling less than once a minute.

I primed each 500 ml bottle with a tsp sugar bottled then let it stand in the same temp for a week before removing to the fridge.

At this stage it tasted vinegar, with an apple taste ( cider vinegar actually) and was really cloudy. I left it stand for about 6 weeks and now it is much smoother and very nice.

I wonder did you put any tannin in the juice?

I used a very strong cup of tea in order to provide the tannins. worked for me.

Good luck!

Oh you can also just drink it but it tastes better after about about 4 weeks.!