What ratio of cooking to eating apples should I use?

[JDΗ]

I want to make cider out of the apples that grow in my garden, which limits me to two varieties - neither of which I know the name of. All I know is that you can eat one of them fresh and the other is only good for cooking. I have read that the best cider is made from a variety of apples, so I intend to use both. Unfortunately I have no idea what ratio to use, so if you could help me I would appreciate it very much.

Another question I have is what to do with tea to get some tannin into it. Should I drop the teabag into the demijohn or pour brewed tea into it?

 

[Maylar]

Without knowing what they are I would just press whatever you get from the trees and taste the result. Mix the juices literally by taste and see what you get. Have a pressing party and get the opinions of friends.

If you Google "UK apple varieties" you'll get sites like this one that might help you identify what you have:

UK Apples

 

[Chalkyt]

Yep, what Maylar says.

Many of us have the same issue and a bit of trial and error is needed. However, there are some things that you can do to improve your blend for cider. If your cider is lacking in acid (i.e. it is a bit "flabby"), adding Malic Acid to bring the Total Acidity up to between 5g/L and 7g/L will make a big difference. You can measure the TA with a test kit available from most brewing suppliers. Be aware that these kits are usually intended for wine where the major acid is Tartaric, whereas cider has mostly Malic Acid so the test kit results need to be multiplied by 0.89 to convert to Malic.

Most eating apples have a TA in the order of 3g/L whereas some cooking varieties such as Granny Smith can have a TA of 10g/L so If you know what you have it will give you a guide to blending.

Ideally your cider should have a pH of 3.8 or below in order to protect it from pathogens until the alcohol level builds up. Adding acid helps with this since many eating apples have a pH of 4.0 or higher

As far as tannin is concerned, there are also a few "tricks". Adding black tea (made with boiling water to sterilise it) works as does adding oak chips etc. I have used tannin powder successfully and have recently tried adding red apple peel (this has higher concentration of tannin than the flesh) to primary fermentation.

There are some excellent papers on this subject by Micah Martin and others published by Cornell University (googling "tannin, cider, Martin, Cornell University" should find them for you.

Hope this helps.

 

[OleBrewing]

find some crab apples the tartness and tannins go a long way.

 

[Raptor99]

The best apple blend will have a good balance of sweetness, acidity, and tannins. If you have a less than ideal blend, as I often do, you can add some malic acid and tannins as required.

Malic is the main acid in apples, so it is best to use this if the cider is not acidic enough. You can add tannins by blending in crab apples, adding powdered tannin, and/or aging on oak chips.