cheap juice found. what is minimum needed.

[Unhofliche_Gesundheit]

Hi All,

Can i get away with putting 20 L (edit actually 10L) (aprox 5 US gal: edit acutally 2.5 USG) of unpasturized apple juice in a 6 Gallon Glass Carboy with some nottingham yeast and some sugars to make hard cider, or do i have to add other things (Campden? Acid Blend? Pectic acid?, tannin?, yeast nutrient?) , and if so what is the minimum?

plan to carb in the bottle, maybe adding a little lactose and spices at bottling.

thanks -

details:
While picking milk at the discount grocery store this morning I saw fresh pressed apple juice at 1/2 price. So I grabbed 5 four litre (Correction! 2 Liter) jugs at 2$ each (10 liters/2.5 Gallons for 10$!) with idea to make hard cider. Problem is I know nothing about making cider and I dont have a lot of time to read the entire internet for this small, likely one time, cider making project. I'm sure the answers are here (In fact I have found every beer brewing question answered here with out the need to ever post) but in the case of cider i am in a hurry - not least as best before date on the apple juice is today!

If possible I would like to save a trip to the Local home made wine (and beer) store to buy things. Save time, save money, save cluttering up the place with more little plastic bottles of chemicals.

As for my back ground and equipment; I have done 44 batches of beer - extract & brew in a bag all grain, I am a cheapskate (example no keg, no wort cooler, etc) and this cider making is likely to not be repeated (unless more fresh pressed apple juice shows up half price ).

 

[BrewFrick]

You should be good with what you have right there.

5 gallons juice
several pounds of sugar depending on what alcohol % you want
and the Notty yeast (good for cider)

 

[Unhofliche_Gesundheit]

thanks BrewFrick.
unfortunatley or fortunatley - i left the house before your post arrived.
the tiny amount of reading i could do suggested yeast nutrient would be the minimum and due to my time line I dashed off to get some with the intent to buy other stuff too depending on price. turns out all of the chemicals are quite cheap so i just bought them !
yeast nutrient - 2 bucks - can always use in the home brew too to use it up
pectic acid - 1.60$ - to avoid cloudy end product - seems worth it
acid blend - 2 bucks - not sure what it does but the dude at the store assured me i wanted it!
grape tannin - 2.60$ - whoa a bit pricy but i like a bit of tartness and w. getting everything else why stop now.
oh and champagne yeast - again the dude at the store advised it - ninty cents. haha.
so i will just end up making something like "yoopers apple juice wine".

my math in my first post was wrong - i got 2.5 gallons (not 5 gallons) for 10$ - so total hit will be about 20$ for 2.5 gal.

cheers.

 

[biochemedic]

I generally do add tannin to my cider/cyser (apple mead). Don't add the acid blend until the end...it's added to taste, and can make your cider "pop" a little more. Honestly, the notty would be fine, as long as you're not going to go super high test...I don't think the champagne yeast would be any better, and the notty may even be better than the champagne...my preference for yeast is Wyeast English Cider strain, but if you're going for on the cheap, dry yeast is definitely preferable.

I also do use nutrients (I add in staggered fashion over the first few days of fermentation just as I do with my mead) and pectic enzyme in cider/cyser.

Either of these yeasts will take you completely dry...there are no unfermentable dextrans in cider like there is in beer, so you may want to eventually get some potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite (campden) to stabilize the cider after fermentation is done so you can then backsweeten it to taste. A little residual sweetness along with the acidity of the acid blend really makes a cider pop. You can incrementally add sweetness and acidity until you find something you like... However, if you want to bottle condition to carbonate, you can't stabilize... another option is to use lactose to backsweeten along with your regular priming sugar...I did this for years before I had a kegging system to allow force carbonation.

 

[UpstateMike]

My basic recipe is the following:
Apple juice
yeast
Corn sugar (If I want to boost the ABV)
Yeast nutrient
Yeast energizer
Pectic enzyme

And wait... And wait... And wait...

 

[Unhofliche_Gesundheit]

the point of my post .. thanks for the support and cheers!

-----------------
update;
i appreciate the moral and tecnhical support - your posts were cogitated upon. thanks biochemedic and UpstateMike (of brockport - hey do you visit the 'beers of the world' store in Henrietta? i hope so!).

i was intending to follow Yoopers Apple wine receipe but my beer background (not extensive mind) had me neurotic at waiting 24 hour prior to pitching yeast (as she would have you do) - so i threw in the hydrated Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast a scant 7 hours after starting the experiment:

apple juice : 10 L
table sugar : 1kg
amber sugar (i.,e light brown sugar) : 600grams
acid blend : 2.5 Tsp
Tannin : 1/2 Tsp
Yeast Nutrient : 3.5 Tsp
Campden 3 Pills
pectic 3 TSP.
yielding
=>SSG 1.102

re; Mike "My basic recipe is the following - .... yeast energizer."
hmmm yeast energizer is new to me - had to look it up; " is a mixture of Di-ammonium phosphate, yeast hulls, vitamins, and magnesium sulphate. It is useful to re-start slow or stuck fermentations". well i doubt i can buy this product locally so if my fermentation gets stuck 'the plan' will be to live with in and have sweeter cider.


48 hrs later after pitching the yeast there was no sign of acitvity (i.e yeast did not take off. in retrospect on pasturized apple juice i would/should/should skip the campden. )

so to be safe i threw in some harvested Nottingham- seemed to do the trick, or was a coincidence, but/and fermentation started in 24 more hours. i stirred each day for a few days more or less per instuctions and after 6 days of fermentation ( 9 days after starting experiment) transferred from plastic bucket to glass carboy (thinking earlier transfer would generate lots of C02 to flood the air space in the 23 L(6usga)l carboy with 10L (2.5g) of must) at that point got to 1.030.

 

[UpstateMike]

UpstateMike (of brockport - hey do you visit the 'beers of the world' store in Henrietta? i hope so!).

Sure do, every time I am in Henrietta. But I don't get my yeast there, they are way overpriced. For yeast I go to Sunset Hydroponics (and Brewing).

re; Mike "My basic recipe is the following - .... yeast energizer."
hmmm yeast energizer is new to me - had to look it up; " is a mixture of Di-ammonium phosphate, yeast hulls, vitamins, and magnesium sulphate. It is useful to re-start slow or stuck fermentations". well i doubt i can buy this product locally so if my fermentation gets stuck 'the plan' will be to live with in and have sweeter cider.

The yeast energizer I have is made by LD Carlson. It contains: Diammonium Phosphate, Springcell, Magnesium Sulphate.

DeFalco's For Brewers & Winemakers (435 Moodie Drive, Ottawa, ON K2H 8A5, Canada, +1 613-721-9945) has yeast energizer. Click the link below.

Yeast Energizer at DeFalco's