At risk of embarassment...

[eb314]

Typical newbie here. I got a Mr. Beer as a gift and have it fermenting right now with Grand Bohemian Czech Pilsner. That's basically the extent of my brewing experience.

I began reading some things online to get a better idea of what I was doing / can do, and would like to try a hard cider recipe for a few reasons, the most important of which being that my wife doesn't like beer but does like cider. The other reasons are simplicity and almost zero need for equipment/ingredients.

So here's my problem and idea: I have my beer going in the Mr Beer right now and it won't be done for 2 weeks (or more). I don't really want to wait that long to start the cider, but I don't want to go out and buy a bunch of brewing equipment (I'll save that for a few months from now). So my idea was to basically scale a 5 gallon cider recipe WAY down and brew it in the actual apple juice container. My idea was to simply punch a hole in the lid to allow gasses to escape, and cover the entire lid with a sanitized balloon to keep the system closed. The balloon would theoretically expand as the gasses escape and take the place of a water seal (unsure of the term). This way I could easily have a few batches going and experiment with different mixes, without the need for new containers and not much loss if I mess it up or it tastes like crap.

This seems like a flawless plan in my head - am I an idiot? Other ideas for the seal if my balloon idea won't work?

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

The balloon trick works! Poke a small hole in it so it can let gasses escape once they reach a certain pressure.

 

[Revvy]

If you find a gallon container, and drink maybe a half quart or so it will be fine. Or you could go get a 5 gallon water bottle from any big box store and make your cider in that, or a 2 or 3 gallon hurricane jar, or a glass wine jug.....
But I would still go by a bung and rig up an airlock or a blowoff tube, rather than a balloon.

 

[eb314]

The balloon trick works! Poke a small hole in it so it can let gasses escape once they reach a certain pressure.

Would that not risk killing the yeast?

If you find a gallon container, and drink maybe a half quart or so it will be fine. Or you could go get a 5 gallon water bottle from any big box store and make your cider in that, or a 2 or 3 gallon hurricane jar, or a glass wine jug.....
But I would still go by a bung and rig up an airlock or a blowoff tube, rather than a balloon.

Some of the appeal of the apple juice container was a very small batch - does going too small not allow it to ferment correctly? If so, what's the minimum volume you'd recommend?

 

[Beezy]

If you find a gallon container, and drink maybe a half quart or so it will be fine. Or you could go get a 5 gallon water bottle from any big box store and make your cider in that, or a 2 or 3 gallon hurricane jar, or a glass wine jug.....
But I would still go by a bung and rig up an airlock or a blowoff tube, rather than a balloon.

Yeah you would be in for all of 3 / 4 bucks for an airlock and bung. I have a 4L wine bottle been thinking about experimenting with some very small batches myself. But if its good that would suck to have it gone in one evening but I digress.

 

[Revvy]

Would that not risk killing the yeast?



Some of the appeal of the apple juice container was a very small batch - does going too small not allow it to ferment correctly? If so, what's the minimum volume you'd recommend?

3/4 of a gallon is only going to net you a few bottles. (I thing 4 wine bottles) Or a 6pack of 12 ounce beer bottles.

It's really not worth brewing less than that, you just won't have all that much to enjoy.

 

[MmmmBeer]

I concur with Revvy plus the bung and airlock you can use when you have a full size batch to make so it is not like you would be throwing money away as long as you get the proper sized bung & jug.

 

[eb314]

Alright, your logic wins.

I was picturing a line of containers with different recipes all lined up along the wall. But if the balloons are out and I'm going to get airlocks, I obviously don't want to go buy 10 of them.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

Would that not risk killing the yeast??

What would risk killing the yeast?

 

[Maxkling]

If you put a balloon on it with out a way for that balloon to vent during fermentation it prolly wouldnt last a minute.

Also the cider you make wont be sweet, it will be more like an apfelwine. All the sugars will ferment almost completely, leaving you with a fairly high abv tart wine. Since Im sure you don't have a keg you have 2 options I would suggest (and 1 that you can but I wouldnt suggest). You can either bottle carb the apfelwine(leaving it tart but carbed), or kill the yeast and then sweeten with sugar(but you cant carb because the yeast will be dead). The one that you can do but I dont suggest is purposely over prime the bottles then once they reach the proper carb levels heat the bottle in hot water (there is a write up on here). But either way you cant really make a cider with apple juice, sugar, and yeast it will be an apfelwine(without a way to backsweeten and carb).

 

[passedpawn]

I've tried the balloon with no holes... didn't explode (like I was hoping for). Didn't even inflate that much. Under any pressure, the evolving CO2 just went into solution in the beer (I guess, don't exactly know what happened here).

For cider, you might try the Apfelwein that is all the rage on this site. Shouldn't be hard to find the ingredients / process, which is painfully simple.

I've made a pretty nifty small fermenter out of a jar I found at target. Might not be much cheaper that a carboy, but it's smallish and worked great. Here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/2-1-2-gallon-montana-jar-fermenter-200328/

 

[johnnyspade]

Yep, bottle primed cider is difficult to sweeten. You can experiment with unfermentable sugars but I think they all add an artificial taste... Just a personal preference. I like my cider pretty dry but my wife doesn't. What she does is adds a little simple syrup to the glass, or a splash of 7UP. That way one batch gives me the cider I like with an option for her.

 

[eb314]

Yes, I did get the impression from the description and comments for the Apfelwein recipe that it would be more dry and tart than what is typically expected from a cider. I figured I would like it the way it was, and my wife could mix it with a little bit of sprite/7up/whatever she wanted to.

The problem is I haven't made it yet, so I don't know what it will taste like. I kind of wanted to get the standard recipe made before trying to mess with it, so I'll probably do that.

What would risk killing the yeast?

Because if I put a hole in the balloon, it would no longer be a closed system. I don't have any experience with brewing and am not sure how delicate the yeast is, but it seems that people go to great lengths to be sure that nothing is contaminated.

 

[rycov]

it wouldn't kill the yeast, but it could potentially let other things in to infect your beer. making it nasty. a pin hole is really small though and i doubt that anything would creep in there. maybe like 1 out of 100 batches might get messed up. but the airlocks are so cheap and you have to get yeast anyway, might as well put that in with your order.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

If there's activity, thus co2 pressure, the chances of contaminates entering a pin hole in a swollen balloon are minimal at best.
Personally, I'd use an airlock, they cost about the same as a pack of balloons. But you asked about a balloon. If you use a balloon, you need to give it a way to vent or it'll just pop off as soon as the pressure builds up.