Apple Juice + Bakers Yeast

[Cheesepolp]

For fun I decided to pick up a bottle of apple juice and some bakers yeast. I've got nothing to loose. I added some sugar and the yeast. Left it in the bottle and put a balloon over it. The apple juice had the following: Apple Juice, Maltodextrin (Soluble Dietary Fiber), Absorbic Acid (Vitamin C). It was pasturized, but from what I've read It won't hurt. As long as there isn't any sodium benzoate it should be fine. Well here I am, A tablespoon of bakers yeast, 2 cups of sugar, and a balloon later.
12 hours ago I assembled this concoction. Its been bubbling like crazy. But they seem like Co2 bubbles. Now is this thing actually going to be hard cider, or just insanely carbonated apple juice?

 

[Mirilis]

It will be hard cider.. the maltodextrin wont ferment but the remaining sugars in the juice as well as the sugar you added will all ferment out.

 

[Demon]

They should be co2 bubbles, that is what is produced during fermentation.

 

[Tonedef131]

I have done this exact same thing and it made a very nice drinking cider. I actually liked it a lot more than the apple wine I made with montrechet, but it probably wouldn't age nearly as well.

As for the bubbles, they are co2, but as long as you are letting it vent it will finish as normal and you can carbonate by priming later if you want.

 

[Nitsujsedohr]

The yeast eats the sugar and the by-products are CO2 and Ethanol. Welcome to Brewing, this is the start of a fairly interesting Hobbie you decide to continue

 

[Bradinator]

That is an interesting idea. If something like this could work, you could easily buy a dozen bottles of apple juice (similar to the ones you get in glass bottles at deli's) some balloons and bread yeast to create already bottled, extremely cheap cider.

You would probably need to filter it before drinking, but that would be easy enough if your just pouring it straight into glass.

I have some questions about this. Would using bread yeast leave a palatable drinking cider? How much would you need to use? How long do you think it would take to ferment? If not could you split up a single package of wine/beer yeast across the bottles with similar effect?

Too be honest though my curiosity it killing me and I will probably stop at the grocery store on my way home, buy the juice and balloons and setup an experiment using trying a bread yeast, ale yeast and wine yeast.

 

[catsintheworks]

I have tried using a bread yeast and I don't really have the best results from it.I think I tried The Breadyeast the comes in a jar for a bread making machine.It started almost right away (2hours after adding sugar to the container).It made a pretty strong sulfury smell kinda like rotting eggs.I can't remember having any sucess with the bread yeast making any good platable cider.I used motts apple juice and domino pure cane sugar and the yeast .I think maybe where I went wrong was not putting a ballon with a hole on it and just poking a hole in the top of the lid of the apple juice container.but I'm interested in trying this out again .I would like to hear what others have done to make a good cider out of this concoction.I'm aware though it's best not to try and rush the process and that the best cider is aged for a better taste

 

[c.n.budz]

Using bread yeast will get you hard cider but it will more than likely taste like there's an old nasty slice of bread in your cider. A packet of dry yeast isn't much more expensive than bread yeast, I'd suggest picking some up.

 

[Tonedef131]

Using bread yeast will get you hard cider but it will more than likely taste like there's an old nasty slice of bread in your cider.

What temperature did you ferment at when you experienced this bread slice cider?

 

[Cheeto]

Be forwarned any fermenting with Bread yeast is normally looked at like a "hooch" more than a decent brew.

Good luck on your experiment.

I hope that balloon doesn't blow off of there when friends are around, the SO2 smell building up in there will be intense !

 

[catsintheworks]

I would say this is important because because you won't really know what works until you actually try it.I have tried making this kind of stuff before and It hasn't yielded me any good results.But I do still think it's good that people like me try again because it helps to build a good beginning into this hobby.

 

[SeamusMac]

The key to something like this might be racking it off of the yeast cake early on, letting it finish in a secondary and quickly bottling and carbing it once you hit FG. I've only tried a cider I've made with a Hefeweizen yeast and in that case you want the yeast flavours to be present, so I'm not entirely sure how to go about avoiding them...

 

[Confucius]

Bread yeast and apple juice works well, but leaves absolutely no apple flavor, so don't hope for much in that realm.

 

[JoeSponge]

This is kind of like "stone soup". Sure, it's doing something, and sure, you'll get (some kind of) cider from it, but if you only had a ...

Each thing (sometimes very little things) will make the cider better. Since you've already started, you can look at this for the NEXT batch... if this doesn't taste really good, you do it all over again, but you change just the ...

So, how big was the bottle? Two cups sugar would be right much if you were using a 16 ounce individual service size. The more sugar, the longer it will take to ferment out. Also, different sweeteners ferment as different speeds... I hear that honey takes a long time.

You DID remember to put a pin-hole in the balloon, right? No sense jerking awake some night because of the "POP!" you heard in the kitchen. But, it will be OK, because you needed to get up to mop anyway.

Yeast that was meant for ale, beer, wine, cider, whatever-drink will work better than yeast meant for bread (at least in theory), but remember, people have been using whatever yeast they could get their hands on for millenia. Bread yeast will work. Hey, some folks didn't add ANY yeast, and just used what was left on the skins of the apples, or carried in on the bugs that got crushed w/ the apples or on the sweat that fell off the horses that powered the crusher, etc. Considering what people drank for centuries, no matter WHAT you get, you'll get something.

Consider that cider is a little like golf in that you will get better results if you remember to a) keep your head down, and b) follow through... and by "follow through", I mean, if it tastes kind of rough, or tastes kind of watery or flavorless, put it in bottles, cap it, and leave it alone. for a couple months. Or more. If it's not drinkable, it still may need to age.

I haven't been successful in that last one, because I get impatient and I wanna know what it tastes like NOW! And, from what I've been told, THIS is why you make a 5 GALLON batch (5 gallons? I'll NEVER be able to drink THAT much, if it all tastes like my last batch!) Bottle that sucker and let it sit. Put it in time-out and sit it in the corner. If it is lousy, start ANOTHER batch, but keep the lousy one and just leave it mellow. By the time "the NEXT batch" gets done, the previously bottled batches will be that much smoother. And smoother. And... you get the picture.

Lots of luck, and let us know how it is.

 

[ScrumpyMan]

You are making hard cider. Its unlikely that you're making a good tasting hard cider, but its hard cider. You'll want to look into "racking" your brew off the yeast after a few weeks. Its simple to do, but not inherently obvious for beginners. You also want to let the cloudiness settle (you can buy clarifying agents that do it over night, or you can wait several weeks). The "cloudiness" contains lots of yeast, which is not dangerous to drink, but has been known to be poor tasting and to have certain unpleasant impacts on the colon.

Have fun!

 

[rpbartlett]

i to have tried this, used 4 litres of apple juice from concentrate, 60g sugar and 1tsp bread yeast. Just racked it after 2 weeks, had a few mouthfuls to test and must say very nice still had apple flavour and some extreme amount of alcohol. Looking forward to trying the final product in 2 weeks. I am also doing the same with high alcohol yeast, champagne yeast, cider yest, but these are still stage 1

 

[Cheesepolp]

No doubt it would be nice to have some champagne yeast, but I don't have a LHBS. I'm not so invested that I'll get hurt if it comes out terrible. I used a table spoon of the same bread machine yeast (THE KIND IN THE JAR) so I'm just playing around with some fementables at this point. I poked several holes in the balloon. Im new, But I'm not THAT new.

 

[Cheesepolp]

Just an update here for any one who cares. I've smelled it through the holes in the balloon. Strongly of butts/ Moldy bread. Hopefully it'll mellow out over time.

 

[JoeSponge]

I gotta ask... I understand the moldy bread smell, that's not ambiguous... but what about the "butts"... Is that cigarette or the other kind?

heh.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Sorry, not only is this dangerously close to a hooch thread, the OP is underage. Closed.

Cheese - come back and see us when you're of age.