Adding tannin and acid to simple cider

[giuzep89]

Hello dear friends,

I've been making cider for a while now, and so far the only tannic addition to it has been black tea. However, I'd like to experiment using apple peels like they do here:

To me that seems like a very appropriate way to do it, a bit like you would do by leaving grapeskins in winemaking. Same goes for lemon juice: I feel that a bit of extra citrus notes would compensate for the lack of tang in dessert apples.

The juice I use comes from a local company and it's decidedly more sour than any supermarket product. Therefore I'm not expecting to add a whole lot of lemon juice to it. The addition of peels is where I'm most interested in seeing results.

Has anyone done this before? If so, what quantity of peels have you used? I'm looking to obtain a rather bitter cider, something resembling traditional English ciders as much as possible.

Thanks!

 

[Raptor99]

The right balance of sugar/acid/tannin is essential to making a good cider. The amount of tannin in apple peels would depend on the variety of apples. Crab apples have a lot of tannin, so if you can find any you could add some of them. Powdered wine tannin is easy to add. I usually add some to the primary. Sometimes I age my cider on oak chips.

 

[Maylar]

I agree with Raptor, adding tannin by powder is more predictable than using apple skins. Plus you don't risk any funky bugs. For cider or light wines and meads, the white version of tannin works well: Tannin Blanc. It takes a few weeks to integrate, so it needs to be added either in primary or before aging.

Acid adjustments must always be done to taste, after all is done and you're ready to bottle or keg it. There's no magic formula for xx grams per gallon. One thing that would help in judging that is to get a kit that measures TA (Titratable Acidity) when you start the batch. Good numbers to look for would be about 6 gm/liter. Typical table cider is usually about 5 and high acid presses (crab apples or Granny Smith etc.) get towards 7. Only experience and experimenting can help you get to where you want to be.

 

[Raptor99]

Just to expand a bit on what @Maylar said, pH measures acidity while TA measures the amount of acid. They are related, but not the same thing. pH is important at the beginning, to be sure that it is in a good range for yeast fermentation. I usually aim for around pH 3.3 or 3.4. It is also important to protect the cider from going bad after bottling. A pH above 3.7 or so is much more prone to spoilage.

TA, the amount of acid, is more directly related to the taste of the cider. In practice, I adjust pH before fermentation, then adjust acid as necessary before bottling to get the flavor profile I want. Currently I do not measure TA, but rather let my sense of taste be my guide.

For both pH and TA, there is not a set formula of adding X grams per gallon. The pH and TA can vary quite a bit depending on variety, ripeness, specific conditions in the orchard, and weather that year.

When I make cider from grocery store apple juice, I always need to add some acid and tannin. The simple way to do that is with powdered tannin and malic acid, which is the primary acid in apples. With the right blend of apples, that would not be necessary, but I would still want to measure/taste to be sure.

 

[Chalkyt]

All of the above.... plus to answer your question about peel. I have used peel to good effect. See my post to lyanman 15 Oct or use the search function on the top RHS of the forum. I probably use a bit more peel than the video suggests, but it works for me.

 

[giuzep89]

I like the idea of using peel just because it's easy and natural. I'm honestly not concerned about spoilage, I've never had a single spoiled batch and I've been doing this for years. I've even tossed some very homemade sourdough starter in some juice and it fermented just fine. Of course I'm sure that tannin powder would be more measurable and reliable, but I might try this first anyway. How long would the peels have to stay in?

 

[giuzep89]

The right balance of sugar/acid/tannin is essential to making a good cider. The amount of tannin in apple peels would depend on the variety of apples. Crab apples have a lot of tannin, so if you can find any you could add some of them. Powdered wine tannin is easy to add. I usually add some to the primary. Sometimes I age my cider on oak chips.

I'm going to use Goudrenette, a local Dutch variety that's among the ones with most tannin content. At least if we exclude wild crabapples, I guess.

 

[Chalkyt]

I left them in primary for a few weeks until the colour had leached out of the peel (I have a 5 litre, large flip top fermenter which is drilled to take an airlock). At that time the SG had fallen to below 1.030 and the cider was racked into a secondary fermenter to mature and topped up as needed.

You might like to look up "The Beverage People" their web site has lots of great write-ups about all sorts of cider stuff.