Juicer?

[Rbeckett]

My wife gave me a juicer for Christmas and I juiced a 10 Lb bag of apples and got a rather thick juice almost like apple sauce, Should I strain this juice before attempting to use it to make a cider, or should I put it all in the fermenter after a good boil and let it go. Also should I add any additional sugar or is what is in the fruit going to be enough to make a hard cider. I'm not particularly interested in creating a high alky drink, but more interested in a strong apple flavor and tang. I used a mix of green tangy and red sweet apples for my first attempt. Since this is my first venture into fruit based ciders and spirits I am totally in the dark. Also what would the best yeast strain be to create a lot of apple esters and low yeast flavor aftertaste. Sorry about the long post with so many basic questions, but I am still a newb after a couple years brewing beer only.

Wheelchair Bob

 

[schwiz]

Ahh! Don't boil it!! Not sure about your other questions.

 

[roastquake]

like schwiz said, dont boil it, instead pasteurize it by bringing it up to 140 degrees for 30 minutes. Look up a pasteurization chart to confirm the numbers, mine may be off. If you boil it the pectins will set, giving you extremely cloudy cider

 

[Rbeckett]

Thanks for the heads up on the pectins setting. Pasteurize it is then. What about yeast and additional sugars? Any recommendations on those two points???

Wheelchair Bob

 

[Hello]

If you want higher alcohol then add sugar. I'm not sure if you can skip the yeast after you pasteurize.

 

[roastquake]

pasteurization kills yeast so once you do that, then wild fermentation is out the window and you have to pitch yeast. as for yeast strains, I don't know much about cider yeasts but since you want fruity esters, I'm thinking something English. use the search function I bet it has been discussed. and about sugar, do you have a hydrometer or refracometer? you can take a reading of the juice and if its gravity is too high then water it down, if its too low add sugar, if it's just right add nothing

 

[Rbeckett]

Thanks Roast. I didn't even think about checking the SG and adjusting from their. I have some English yeast that is pretty decent in beers so to avoid a trip to the HB store I will use what I got on this batch and see how it comes out. It was an out of the blue kind of thing when the wife gave me a juicer, so I just bought a bag of green and red apples and tossed them in to see how well the machine worked. I got a little better than a gallon out of just under 10 Lbs of apples so the conversion factor is pretty good as far as quantity goes, I am a little concerned about the thickness of the resulting juice,, but that may have been from poor juicing technique too. I'll let everybody know how it turns out after a pass through the fermenter...

Wheely

 

[mopar318]

We get about 2.5 gallons per bushel using our bladder press. That would be a little over .5 gallons per 10 lbs. And we end up with a very dry pulp left.

My concern is what you have is a very fiberous rich pulpy juice which may not be what you want for the cider. I would filter it.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

What kind of juicer was it? I have an older model and I've never gotten apple-saucy juice from it. It's one of those centrifugal type juicers where the center chops and it spins the juice through a strainer and into your container.

I agree with moprar, you might want to squeeze that through some cheese cloth and hit it with campden before pitching your yeast.

 

[Rbeckett]

PP,
It is one of those centrifugal machines like you described. It seems to have been my beginner juicing method that created the saucy high pulp juice more than anything. That thing gobbles up the fruit pretty darn quickly so I just kept feeding it instead of allowing it to spin out all the pulp before I added more. I will run the juice through a cheese cloth and put it in my Mr beer minikeg fermenter and see how it does. Any recommendation on a target SG and a target FG? I am pretty sure it is very high and I will need to thin it down a bit to keep the alcohol level in the cider range and not into the moonshine range. I don't really care for the high alky brews, I prefer a milder tastier brew with flavor and character more than alky... Thanks for the great guidance so far guys and gals. I am a cider newb and just would like to get it as close to right as I can to begin with, rather than trying to figure out what went wrong later on...

Wheelchair Bob:rockin:

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

Typical apple juice will be in the neighborhood of 1.050. Of course it will all depend on the apples you use and the sugar content of them. I wouldn't add any additional sugars unless you are on the real low side of that. If you let it ferment all the way dry (or close to that) you should get about 6% ABV which is pretty typical for most ciders. You can always put a splash of apple juice or sparkling water in your glass when serving if it's still too strong for you.

Congrats on the new juicer and Happy New Year to ya'll!

 

[FuzzBeckersHB]

Same as above, I used a Jack Lalane juicer, centrificul type . Slow feed all juice and some residual pulp into bucket, Campden tabbed for 2-3 days, stirring a couple of times a day. Then strained through paint strainer bag to yield juice. Pitched yeast, Notty, no sugar added. FG a little above one. K-met and sorbated, now ready for sweetener. You could always skip k-met and sorbate and bottle carb at 1 oz. per gallon. Should be good on the bottle bombs issue...Let us know how it goes...

Good luck,
Happy Brew Year

 

[WVMJ]

If you have sulfites you dont have to worry about heating up your apple juice, just dissolve a little sulfite in there and it knocks out the wild yeasts and bacteria. If your juice is so pulpy some pectinase might help a lot to get it cleared and settle the lees to the bottom. You are going to loose a bit of your total volume with all that pulp in there, the pectinase would have cut it down some. WVMJ

 

[Tnels977]

I had the same problem when I juiced some orchard apples back in the fall with a centrifugal juicer. If you filter through cheesecloth, make sure you squeeze or press the pulp before discarding it. You'd be surprised how much extra juice you can get out of moist pulp.

 

[Boins]

Lactose powder after fermentation will add sweetness but will not reinvigorate the fermentation process

 

[oregonbrew541]

I'd brew it and use max amount of pectin enzymes add like a pound and a half of sugar and use some champagne yeast like premier cuvée. With the enzymes and yeast it will settle and clarify. And yea never boil out it in carboy and drop in sulfite a wait 24 and pitch. If u want wild ferm. Why even pasteurize?