Is this recipe right?

[palantier]

Hi,
found this recipe for scrumpy in a brewing book:

3.6 kg apples, any type
10l water
28g root ginger
juice of four lemons

looking at this it doesn't look like there will be enough fermentables, I'm getting something in the region of 5-6% estimated alcohol, but if I cut down on the water volume by half it gets more in line with what a strong scrumpy should be, anybody know what the average fermentables content of apples is so I can check a bit more accurately. (note: this recipe is a bit thin on details and consists mainly of soaking and crushing apples then adding the ginger and lemons and leaving it for a few months, should be cloudy). can anybody shed some light on this?

 

[brewkinger]

I had to look up what a "scrumpy" is.... LOL!!!!
Basically it is a still (or slightly carbonated) cider (associated with Southern England).

Here are my thoughts (so take them as opinion):

8# (3.6kg) of apples are gonna give you a juice that is usually (in my experience) somewhere between 1.040 and 1.050 gravity.
How much juice???
Hard telling, not knowing!!!

Diluting it with water is gonna bring whatever gravity that you have down; which is going to make the final product even weaker ABV.

There does not seem to be any additional fermentables in the recipe, except for possibly a TINY amount of sugar in the lemons and/or ginger?

I think that I would just juice the apples and gather whatever amount of juice that they offer. Check the gravity of the juice.

If a 5-6% cider is what you are after, then your starting gravity should be between 1.045 and 1.050. If you let the yeast ferment completely down to around 1.000, you will end up with a still cider / wine (that usually has little to no apple taste) with an abv of somewhere between 5.5 and 6%
You could stop there and have a still cider (more like an apfelwein / apple wine IMO)
OR
You could kill the yeast off at that point with potassium sorbate and sweeten it up and have a sweeter cider.

You could stop the ferment when it gets down to around 1.010 and have a sweet cider.

The point is... you have options and things that you have to decide about the final product before you get too far.

 

[palantier]

thanks,
your right about scrumpy being flat but you don't make it like cider, in that you juice the apples then add yeast, with scrumpy you take "windfalls" chunk them up then leave them in water, the fermentation is caused by natural yeasts on the apples, the other thing about scrumpy is that it's quite strong anywhere between 7-15%, it's a bit like a Lambic cider because traditionally it starts fermentation in open air.

some of the things you've suggested can be done but work better with cider, the way I'm thinking of going is half the water and carry on as normal, think it would work?

 

[brewkinger]

with scrumpy you take "windfalls" chunk them up then leave them in water, the fermentation is caused by natural yeasts on the apples, the other thing about scrumpy is that it's quite strong anywhere between 7-15%, it's a bit like a Lambic cider because traditionally it starts fermentation in open air.

Interesting...

In that case, I am at a loss.

10L (2.5 g) of water with 8# of cut up apples. I would not think that is enough water to cover the apples completely...

Cutting it in half seems like it would make it worse.

I guess that if it were me, I would use all 10L of water (or at least enough to cover the apples) and then let it rock and roll.

 

[palantier]

thanks,

I'm not sure about some of your numbers there, 10L is metric and should weigh around 10kg not 2.5 g , I think one US penny is about 2.5g, and I'm not sure what "8#" means?

 

[brewkinger]

I was abbreviating gallons /2.5 Gallons

# means pounds, so I meant 3.6 kg = 8 pounds


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[palantier]

ahh, sorry I've never seen that before

apples a fairly dense so I would have thought that ten litres would definitely cover the apples especially since I'm chunking them up, by chunking them up I mean a kind of rough dicing about 2cm on a side, plus I'm not even sure I need to cover the apples, I'm thinking they would sink down once they absorb enough water?

 

[JStokerJr]

Why not use juice instead of water?

 

[palantier]

don't know, possibly because I'm using whole apples?

 

[palantier]

well in further news because it's starting to get cold here I went ahead with what the recipe said, and it looks to be doing fine, the yeast seems to be breaking up the apples as it consumes the sugar in them which leaves behind a white fluffy mass of broken up apple fibre which also seams to float.

 

[palantier]

I have noticed this smell once or twice from some of my brews, some elderberry wine and mead, and with the last straining of this recipe I noticed it in one of the demijohns when I cracked it open, it's like a sweet smell that hovers in the background, not sure if it is affecting the taste of the brew or what is actually causing it, any help would be appreciated thanks