Death brew?

[Firelion70]

Ok so I decided to try and bring it back to basics to test out the priming and racking and to get the ideas put into practice! A few of you hard core may gasp but here's what I did!
Took 3 litres of tesco apple juice
Added 2 teaspoons of bread yeast
Added 4 teaspoons of honey
Then left it split between two, 2 litre pop bottles with a balloon on top!
Been bubbling away all day but was wondering if this will be safe to drink and what kind of alcoholic out come I can expect to see!

 

[HexKrak]

Needs more honey! But I know there's other recipes out there that use bread yeast (see JOAM) so why not?
I don't know what's in tesco apple juice, but assuming there's no weird chemicals that react with the yeast/alcohol then it should be fine to drink. I make apple wine all the time with bottled juice, and honey.

 

[Inodoro_Pereyra]

What you've made is, basically, traditional hard cider. And, yes, it should be safe to drink.

The alcohol concentration you should expect depends on the juice's S.G.
I don't know the juice you used. A couple of days ago I started a batch of EdWort's apfelwein, using 100% apple juice, with a S.G. of 1.050. If you had used that juice, you could expect about 6-7% ABV. I don't think 4 TBS of honey would add much, in 3 liters of juice.

 

[Firelion70]

How much honey would you suggest? I would like it to be fairly sweet and carbonated so I was going to add a little more honey before racking? If you think adding some more honey/sugar I would be grateful! Cheers

 

[Inodoro_Pereyra]

Adding honey won't make the cider sweeter: it will increase the alcohol content.
If you want to make it sweeter, you can either kill the yeast after fermentation (using potassium sorbate), and then add sugar or honey and force carbonate if you so decide, or you can use a non fermentable sugar, as lactose, or an artificial sweetener (like splenda, which I'm planning to use on mine), and then add the priming sugar for carbing.

 

[Firelion70]

Thanks alot for the info!

 

[Inodoro_Pereyra]

Glad I could help.

 

[DoctorWho]

Death Brew! That's what I'll call my next batch. It'll be a hit. A mob hit. I'll print labels with skull and crossbones and dare people to try it.

On to your side of things:

lots of people make cider just using the natural sugars from the apple juice. These have a lower ABV, but finish fermenting faster and don't take as long to age before they taste good. I think you would be fine if you wanted to not add any more honey.

Honey as a priming sugar has been done (not by me though,) but I know that it takes a lot longer for yeast to break down honey as opposed to regular cane sugar and dextrose (which is most commonly used.) So if you go that route it might take 4 or 5 weeks to carb up nice.

Otherwise, have fun and enjoy the spoils (the good kind of spoils!)

 

[oldmate]

You won't be able to have a sweet, carbonated cider without either a) force carbing with a kegging system, b) pastuerising or c) non-fermentable sugars such as lactose and xylitol.

 

[Firelion70]

I think I'm going to take the artificial sweeter route with something like aspartame or some thing!

 

[dinnerstick]

try a small glass first with aspartame before you pollute the whole batch! you may well like it but to me that stuff tastes like p1$$ (that means piss)
good luck

 

[Firelion70]

Haha will do cheers

 

[oldmate]

try a small glass first with aspartame before you pollute the whole batch! you may well like it but to me that stuff tastes like p1$$ (that means piss)
good luck

I agree with this, I've head that xylitol is rather good because you don't have to add as much as the other unfermentable sugars to get the same amount of sweetness.