Show us your cider in a photo!!!

[Kshock]

3 weeks in primary-bottle, Crystal clear
Cider+safale S04 6%

 

[HopGobbler]

At the start

Fermenting away

And dry hopped...

 

[Booker140]

Pics from my Blueberry apple cider. 5 Gal of store bought apple juice fermented with EC 118 wine yeast and dark oak chips. then racked and sat in carboy with 4kg of frozen blueberries. After a month in the carboy rack to clean carboy and juiced the blueberries. Then topped it off with more apple juice to taste. Bottled and now I have another batch in the first stage. Side note... when the blueberries get juiced you need to run the juice through a cheese cloth. My drink had a lot of floaters that I didn't notice until drinking. But tastes amazing and comes out clear as you can see in the last pic.

Booker

 

[MarkKF]

That looks really good! Mine had 3 pounds frozen blueberries in the primary the I pressed another 3 pounds and put the juice in the keg. Came out greenish. Today is bottling day.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1499444151.786262.jpg

 

[Chalkyt]

Cracked the first of the 2017 Cider after a day's skiing yesterday. Thanks for all the good advice Forum...Yum!

Single variety Pomme de Neige, Bottle Carbonated, 6.5%ABV with Safecider yeast.

 

[Texbrewer79]

First cider in awhile, made with corn sugar and brown sugar as ajuncts. Used ciderhouse select yeast for the first time, and it took off like a rocket in like 5 hours.

 

[Frognostic]

Apple and blackberry cider, wild fermented.

I made this last year (2016) and left it in secondary, with a lot of headspace, on the lees until about last week when I racked it into 2 litre bottles. Bad practice but it smells and tastes okay. It's dry but that's how I like it. I got about 14 litres of it in total and I'm racking it into 500ml bottles 2 litres at a time.

 

[BILTIT]

Fresh pressed, a few different yeasts and some with brown sugar destined for applejack.

 

[AnthElliott]

The beginning of a new batch...

 

[Torontoblue]

My first ever try at making cider. Have a rather large apple tree in the back garden, which the previous owner (many years ago) very kindly grafted 3 other varieties onto the original, so I have 4 different lots of apples. The tree is giving up around 800 to 1000 lbs of apples per harvest. All varieties were pressed September 2016 and after fermentation they've been sitting in the cool basement in these carboys ever since. Going to blend the 2 together to soften the finished cider up a little as they both taste totally different to one another. And today is bottling day. I just hope it all goes smoothly. Hoping to get carbonation in the bottle to around 3.2 volumes.

 

[Scrumpy!]

Way to go Torontoblue! Nice clarity. Patience is a virtue in cider making and you have it. My advice is to draw 1 liter from both and make 50 ml mixtures to taste your blend before you commit to just blending 50-50. You may find that you want to create a blend and two pure varietals. Important considerations are how acidic the cider in each carboy is. If one is acidic and the other has no snap, you will want to balance them. If one is more tannic than the other, you will want to balance that if you can. My approach is to get the right acid balance above all other aspects. Too acid and your finished cider will be sour. Not enough acid and it will be boring. Tannins are far less important but add another dimension to the final flavor profile.

Be aware that after blending, fermentation may restart so look out for this when you are planning your bottle conditioning. For example if one finished at 1.010 and the other at 1.000, blending them might re-awaken the yeast and generate more CO2 in the bottle than you expected. Getting to a precise 3.2 volumes will require precise measurements with a "finish" hydrometer, an accurate scale to weigh your priming sugar, an accurate measurement of the blended volume, and some arithmetic. Your best reference for all of this is Jolicour's book, The New Cider Makers Handbook.

 

[Scrumpy!]

I have an update on my 2017 crop (pictures of trees in bloom on an earlier post). The squirrels ate all of my Northern Spy apples when they were the size of walnuts. Despite shooting several with my pellet gun, these tree rats won but not without some casualties. Now the tree pictured in blossom is under pressure from our local deer herd. Fortunately, they can only reach the lower branches. Lucky for them my 30-06 would cause a neighborhood riot if I discharged it in my suburban backyard early some fall morning. If I were an electrician, I would wire the tree to "light them up" when they came back for a midnight snack.

Despite these marauders, I will get a big enough crop for about 30 gal of cider from my backyard orchard. I have several neighborhood trees I can pick if I am ambitious enough. Meanwhile I am disgorgning the 2016 pomage which should be ready to drink as I press my late season apples in November.

When I have a final inventory of bottled cider in 2017 (2016 pomage), I will post it. The final amount in bottles should drop from 65 gallons to around 60 gallons due to loses in disgorging.

 

[Torontoblue]

Appreciate the advice, scrumpy!, and I will definitely be having some fun tomorrow trying to get the blend right. Both ciders finished well below 1.000, and I did draw some from batch 2 a few week's back just to sample, and then topped up with some fresh organic apple juice. I didn't notice any extra activity with the fresh juice added. The yeast from the organic juice floated around for a day and then dropped outta sight

I'm being optimistic with the 3.2 vol. All I'm gonna do is just add 3 cartons (861ml in total) of FAJC to my 22 litres of cider for bottle carbing, and put them all back down in the cellar where it's a cool 5 to 10c all year around.

And then, I am waiting for my apple grinder to arrive on Monday so I can start on this year's batch; harvest is early this far North! Got around 200 to 220lbs of mixed apples to crush, press and juice, and then the waiting process starts all over again. Going with a sweet mead liquid yeast for my 2017 batch.

Loving all the info on this forum; so helpful!

 

[Wovensummers]

I just finished pressing the last 70+ # of apples yesterday and got in in the carboy last night. Campden tablets added and I will pitch the yeast Tuesday morning.

 

[Torontoblue]

I got around to finally bottling my 2016 batch of cider. I started the process at the beginning 3rd September 2016, they sat in the fermentation bucket for around 4 week's; it was a slow fermentation. Racked off to 2 x 3 gallon carboys, topped up with organic fresh apple juice and then let sit in secondary for a few week's. Once the yeast had totally dropped and the cider was clear, it was again racked into 2 more carboys, topped up and left alone until we bottled last weekend. Out of the 2 carboys we managed to get around 20 litres out and into bottles. It's a little sharp, so was back sweetened, a touch of yeast added to the bottles, and they're now back down the cellar to do what ever they are gonna do.

This is just the first pour into clear 500ml bottles. We then went to larger 750mls for the rest of the cider.

 

[Torontoblue]

Then this weekend, it was time to make our 2017 batch of cider. I only managed to get around 200lbs of apples from the tree (she generally fruits around 1000lb, or so), but as some were picked a few weeks back to let them rest and get a little bit juicier, I lost around 30lb to rot, bruising, fruit flies etc. Anyway, I ended up with a total of 164lbs of apples; with a total of 4 different varietals from the tree.

Had to build a base for the scratter and fruit press, but it was so nice being able to work outside at this time of year. Last year we were stuck indoors due to torrential rain and a temp of around 3c!

Brand new scratter & hopper:

Basic work bench for the scratter and fruit press:

Actually took an OG reading this year; something I forgot to do last year:

During the pressing, the juice had this lovely bubbling foam sitting on top all day long:

The finished barrel full of lovely sweet apple juice, and a packet of Wyeast Sweet Mead Yeast.

Started at 12pm, and everything was finished by 7.45pm. Definitely going to start earlier next year and try doing slow presses of juice, as I know there's a lot more in the pulp. We did an initial press of the freshly scratted apples, then gathered all these in another bucket, then mixed all the pressed pulp up and got another pressing out of them.

An enjoyable day as the weather also played ball, too; it was a lovely 19c, which ain't bad for a late September in Edmonton.

Now it's the waiting game again

 

[Scrumpy!]

Nice pictures and it looks like fun.

 

[Wovensummers]

Got my first 1 gal batch bottled today. Apple Raspberry. 5 more gallons is bubbling away. It should be ready to rack in 10 to 14 days.

 

[MarkKF]

This is my latest heirloom blend. Incredible how clear it is.

Yes, that is an eye chart behind it!

 

[Scrumpy!]

This is my latest heirloom blend. Incredible how clear it is. View attachment 562433
Yes, that is an eye chart behind it!

Hey Mark. Great clarity. Did it finish at 1.006? If so, is this a wild ferment or did you use commercial yeast?

 

[MarkKF]

I was gonna do a wild but it didn’t take off so I pitched Brewers Best Cider House Select. I need to check S.G. but I’m sure it’s close to 1.000

 

[Scrumpy!]

I picked up on "1.006" that was written on the carboy. Sometimes it takes a while for a wild ferment to take off. Mine go off like fireworks because I let the pulp sit in a bucket for a day or two before I press it. It probably helps that my scratter and press have seen a lot of pulp go through so there is probably a residue of yeast that lingers from year to year.

 

[MarkKF]

Yeah that was the rack S.G. I usually rack before finished completely.

I’ve waited it out before with a gal. of cheap juice. But this was 5 gal. and not cheap!

 

[Zachjkd]

I'll go first.

Plum cider and apple/peach cider.
All hand juiced with a kitchen aid type juicer.... Never doing that again....

My first cyser 8% abv. Added two cinnamon sticks as well. Tastes great.

 

[reynardthefox]

fresh, pure apple juice, no added sugars or extra chemicals, baker's yeast

 

[Brew2Be]

fresh, pure apple juice, no added sugars or extra chemicals, baker's yeast

View attachment 569236

Looks good Does the cider have any yeasty taste? I experienced that in the past when using baker's yeast.

 

[bmd2k1]

Blueberry cinnamon...[emoji111]

Zero chemicals...S04 yeast.

Tasty!

 

[bmd2k1]

Blueberry cinnamon...[emoji111]

Zero chemicals...S04 yeast.

Tasty!

 

[reynardthefox]

Looks good Does the cider have any yeasty taste? I experienced that in the past when using baker's yeast.

i actually cold crashed at 1.005, racked and bottled but the little buggers managed to eat most of the remaining sweetness. after a month in the bottle, it has quite a nice apple-y aroma, and a clean, off-dry apple-y taste, and no noticeable yeast taste. the yeast brand is called Saf-Levure. Viva la France. cheers

 

[MarkKF]

Over two years since fermented and 16 months in the bottle, yum!

 

[user 260118]

View media item 69803View media item 69802

 

[MarkKF]

My latest and the rest of Fall 2018

 

[MarkKF]

12 hrs later, 36 hours into fermentation. Lotsa bubbles!

 

[Justwingnit]

Two of mine

 

[Justwingnit]

4.5 gallon English Cider

 

[Toxxyc]

My first (and only) cider was a "cheat" cider, made with a Mangrove Jack's pouch. Mango and Raspberry - came out MAGNIFICENT:

 

[Justwingnit]

I'm calling this Apple Fire Wine about 11.5% ABV it is my Cinnamon Apple Cider with Jack Daniel's Fire

 

[bmd2k1]

I'm calling this Apple Fire Wine about 11.5% ABV it is my Cinnamon Apple Cider with Jack Daniel's FireView attachment 598471

Looks great! What's the makeup & yeast profile?

 

[Brewingmich]

30 gallons that I picked and pressed, have to take pictures of the other 15 still

 

[Maylar]

2018 cider from a special pressing by a local orchard. Fermenting with WLP-773 from the vault. Down to 1.010 and racked to secondary.