Cider SG 1.070... Too high???

[Chalkyt]

Just joined... lots of information to soak up (I like the cooktop pasteurising idea already!)

Anyhow, after a failed crop of apples last year (killer frost got all the forming fruit), this year the trees have gone mad.

However the first mixed batch of juice has a SG of 1.070... wow! This is getting into the Apple Wine region. Is it O.K. to add water to bring SG down to something like 1.050 or will that make the final brew a bit wishy, washy?

Are there any other "tricks" to drop the SG and still keep the flavour? I would have expected to have to add sugar to the juice, but it is what it is.

I am in Australia, retired in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains (Man from Snowy River Country)... cool climate, great for growing apples. I have already fallen into a few traps, like bottling too late and getting no fizz, not filtering enough and getting too much yeast residue (yuk!!). But with my small orchard I have to do something with the apples apart from eat them, so my excuse to SWMBO is "make cider!" We have several varieties of apples (Red Delicious, Pomme de Neige, Cox's Orange Pippin, Ballerina plus a few crab Apples. The problem batch is 5 litres (a gallon) of 50% cox's Orange Pippin (at least that is what we think they are), 40%Pomme de Neige, and the rest Red Delicious and Crab Apples

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Chalkyt, and welcome. Personally, I wouldn't dilute fruit juice but of you take a sample and dilute that and you still think the flavor is sufficiently there then it may not be such a problem. I suspect though, that to reduce the starting gravity to more like a cider you will be drowning the juice in water... Your call, of course... but your "cider" may be closer to a wine than a lower alcohol session drink.

 

[buMbLeB]

You got up to 1.070 without adding sugar? Wow, those are sweet apples. Like Bernard said, let your taste buds guide you, but if it were me I'd leave it alone, I bet it's great!

 

[Drewed]

Yeah, I'd just ferment as it is. It will be a stronger brew, or sweeter, but either way, it should be good.

 

[Chalkyt]

Thanks for the replies. They are pretty much in line with my gut feeling. I will go with what I have got

Maybe this year, "sit in the shade" might turn into "fall over and sleep in the shade!" The second batch (single variety Pomme de Neige which I have found to be quite good by themselves) came in at 1.052... happy with that. Both batches are quite merrily bubbling away at around one "plop" per second in the Hot Water Cupboard beside me.

I don't quite know the "biology" of apples but I rather suspect that with no crop last year, more of the tree's energy has gone into this year so maybe for whatever reason the sugar content is higher. They are all very sweet and juicy to eat (especially the Red Delicious... which I found previously are great to eat but made a fairly characterless cider)

It certainly was a surprise to find such a high SG with the mixed apples batch when I had expected to add sugar.

Anyhow it was great to find a forum that focuses on Cider.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not an expert by any stretch of the imagination but I would think that most apple juice will come in around 1.050 . A batch of 1.070 sounds incredible. Do you know what variety this was?

 

[Chalkyt]

Not sure if the photo upload/attachment is going to work. If it does, L to R Pippin, Pomme de Neige and Red Delicious with the Crab Apples in front. But here is the "word" version just in case...

Thanks for your interest, I was quite surprised at 1.070 too. I even checked it a couple of times before adding the yeast starter. Anyhow the mixed apple 5 litre batch (about a gallon carboy) comprises the following apples (we aren't certain, but reasonably sure of the varieties, as they were here when we moved in 10 years ago)

50 qty Pippins of some sort (maybe Cox's Orange) yielding 2.5 litres, 40 qty Pomme de Neige (Snow Apples) yielding 2 litres, plus 80 qty crab apples yielding 0.2 litres plus 6 qty Red Delicious yielding 0.3 litres to make up the 5 litres.

Apart from the Red Delicious, none of the other apples are particularly sweet so ????

A subsequent batch of single variety Pomme de Neige gave a SG of 1.052. They are a quite nice "eating apple" and a couple of years ago made a good cider.

I will squeeze some small batches of each apple juice and look at each individual juice SG.

Meanwhile both batches are quite happily Bloop Blooping away beside me.

 

[madscientist451]

Thanks for the post, I've never considered trying to grow the Pomme de Neige for cider, maybe I'll try them, although it may be a little too warm in my area.
I make cider every fall and just accept that its going to be different from year to year.
So my approach would be to leave the juice as it is. If the cider comes out too strong for your taste, you can always dilute it later.

 

[Maylar]

All hail the mighty apple.

 

[Chalkyt]

Did a few test juices and got...
apple that we thinks is some sort of Pippin SG 1.072 still ?????
Pomme de Neige SG1.050 (as per the single variety batch)
red Delicious SG 1.060 (as ecpected)
This doesn't quite explain the overall SG 1.070 of the mixed batch but it does help to understand a bit since the 1.072 is 50% of the juice. Wow, no wonder the old batch that I made including this apple was a bit fierce since I also included a cup of sugar "because the recipe said so". Hmmm, a hydrometer is useful after all.

Anyhow, sit and sip under the tree will reveal all in the fullness of time.

 

[Maylar]

What season are you in there in OZ? We won't have apples here for another 6 months or so.

 

[Mainer]

Wow! That sounds like a great cider blend. I covet your pippins.
I say let it go, don't water down.
RDWHAC.

 

[Chalkyt]

Hi Dave C
We are more or less in the middle of Autumn (Fall). Tree colours have changed rapidly and this week leaves are starting to fall.The apples have really sweetened/juiced up and early snow is forecast for tomorrow above 1,000M (we are right at 1,000M). Generally I work on (and get) about 1 litre of juice from 20 apples, regardless of the variety.

The apples were a bit slow this year because of a hot dry summer but March and April saw good rains and some cool weather so now we are over-run with apples.

I found a reference to Crab Apples being high in sugar (sounds strange given their taste but Dr Google is usually right). So I will juice and measure the SG of some tomorrow and see if this helps explain the 1.070 batch.

 

[Drewed]

I'm not entirely sold on that last apple being a red delicious. It doesn't look dark enough, and it also looks the wrong shape. The red delicious we have in the states is an uber dark red with a pinched bottom. It also has very little flavor to it, and is pretty mealy. Almost an apply sawdust.
I could be wrong, I'm not an apple expert.

 

[Chalkyt]

Like I said at the start, still fairly new to this stuff and only started because of an abundance of apples a few years ago, so any comments, advice etc is welcome. It was good to find a forum about cider rather than brewing generally.

Re Drewed's observations, attached are some pics taken this morning (after a bit of rain and sleet!!). These are what we know as "Red Delicious". you will see that some are red all over and some a bit stripey, all on the same tree. They are quite sweet and juicy with a grainy flesh and they crunch well when you bite into them. These apples (even store bought ones) have always been known as "Red Delicious" here in Oz. I had tried a single variety batch with these but the result was not very exciting as a cider. Quite flavourless when compared to them as an eating apple.

First racking of both batches this morning. Both at 1.000 but not as clear as they were when first allowed to settle in their carboys. The process was to juice the apples into the carboys and add a tsp of pectic enzyme then let them sit for 24 hrs. I ended up with reasonably clear juice with distinctive colour and lots of pulp/sediment in the bottom (about 3/4 inch). Then filtered through cheesecloth to leave about an inch of juice pulp and sediment behind, into another carboy before adding yeast, nutrient and airlock.

The juice has come from cored apples (with skin) through a juicer. It produces a lot of foam as well as juice but the foam does settle and release some juice. I do have a small grape press but it is useless on hard bits like apples and I haven't really figured out a good way to make pulp before juicing, hence the juicer. Any thoughts on this (it seems that a lot of the posters use bought juice from mills, which we don't really have).

The batches were bloop-blooping quite enthusiastically on Monday, dropped to almost nothing yesterday, and stopped today (Wednesday) so I racked into secondary. That is only seven days from juicing to now (1.070 to 1.000). Intuitively it seems a bit quick but there didn't seem to be any reason not to get off the lees ASAP.

I left a previous year's batch on lees for too long and it was all a bit yeasty and yuk. Other bad experience was to be over enthusiastic about filtering because of this and got no fizz (didn't back sweeten with sugar... duh!). The very first batch ever was beginner's luck. I must have bottled at around 1.005 - 1.010 and got a really nice batch. (Didn't even know about hydrometers and how it all worked then...)

 

[MarkKF]

Yeah, I'd just ferment as it is. It will be a stronger brew, or sweeter, but either way, it should be good.

Ferment it as is till dry. Then stabilize and backsweeten with more fresh juice to drop the abv and raise the final gravity.

 

[globell]

Let it go...keep temps low and enjoy. Just drinking a 'papple' (pear and apple) that started at 1.078 and fermented out fully. It's 11% and LOVELY!

 

[Chalkyt]

This is a bit of an update on the sugar levels of the apples and sort of explains the 1.070 that had me a bit fussed. As outlined before...
Pippins 1.072
Snow Apples 1.052
Red Delicious 1.060
Granny Smith (added to recent brews but not this one) 1.055
Crab Apples 1.080!!!!!
There must be something about our cold temperatures that bumps up the sugar. Anyhow since more than 50% of the juice has SG of 1.072 and 1.080, no wonder that the overall result was something like 1.070 (BTW just finishing secondary and tastes great already).

Hmm... I wonder what a straight crab apple brew might do next year!!!! BOOM!

 

[Anon111]

So I was wandering: what yeast do you use? Most yeast would (in my extremely limited experience) chug straight through to 9%-ish (SG 1000), and I assume you'ld rather have it stopped at SG 1020 (around 6%). Or do you Use Campden tablets?

edit: forget the last question. Already been answered elsewhere (yes I intend to read it all). Still interested in the former question. Because artificial sweeteners are not an option for me.

 

[Chalkyt]

That particular batch was with Safcider yeast (recommended by the brew shop). I found that after fermenting, in the past there was a slightly yeasty flavour. I have since found from reading other posts that this may be due to fermenting too warm. I have two more small batches going (still in primary) with the same mix of apples using EC1118 and Nottingham which seem to be favourites on the forum, and... fermenting in the outside cool room (15 C which has now dropped down to 10 C) which was maybe a bit too cool, so I have moved them inside to a 15-18 C cupboard. I guess the missing part of the "experiment" is that I don't have a "cool" batch using Safcider to see if the yeasty taste goes away with lower temperature fermenting (running out of apples).

The reason for considering artificial sweeteners was firstly that I wanted to carb with sugar when bottling and secondly to mask the yeasty taste. I didn't like the Stevia after taste and will try Xylitol, but only if I really need to sweeten, I may well even bottle some without carbing because at this stage it seem good to drink uncarbed (perhaps a bit like a reduced alcohol apple wine?)

The adventure continues!