Beer Recipe Ideas and Cider Question

[Donutz]

I have now brewed two beers. One is a mutton's IPA extract kit with added hops and I have also done a ruination IPA. The Mutton's is now on its 3rd week of conditioning... and the Ruination is will be done dry hopping on Super Bowl Sunday!!!!

Anyhow, my wife bought me this home brew kit for Christmas (gave it to me about a week before Christmas). I promised her that I would make her a cider after I do the mutton's kit (YEAH RIGHT!!). After I the mutton's was fermenting, I saw an episode of craigtube and he showed the sediment caps. I went to the dudes site to check them out and I saw these things called home brew caps.
(http://homebrewingcaps.com). Then I saw the caps on the website that I just posted. They are some sort of caps that this dude developed. According to the video this dude made, you just pour in your favorite juice, add a cup of sugar, then sprinkle in some yeast...shake the bottle and you are done. You put his cap on. Here is the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9OHf7weO9I#t=79). That made me question it. Is this cap just an airlock device?? And Secondly, is making a cider this easy??? My wife loves cider. So, based on the above information, I told her about it, and I said that I don't know if I want to use all of my equipment to make cider when we could just do it in a milk jug and place an airlock on it!!! Let me know what you think about my above questions and this idea!!!

IF the above ideas and assumptions are correct... then I need an idea for a recipe for me!!! I do LOVE IPA's as you can tell. SweetWater, Bell's, Riverdog, Terrapin, etc etc etc. Give me a very strong hoppy IPA and I will have a smile on my face. I also like pale ales... Love me some Sweetwater 420, Fat Tire, etc... you get the picture. Stouts not so much.... I'm hit or miss... Does anyone have an outstanding recipe that they love??? I think I would like to do something like a clone... The reason I want to kind of stick with clones right now is that I can know if I am somewhat close or really far off with what I'm brewing!!!

Thank you for your time!!

 

[SDUqualitywines]

no idea

 

[TopherM]

I assume it functions like a spunding valve, where it basically holds pressure to about 12-15 psi, then once it gets above that pressure it pushes the valve open and lets the extra out and stays regulated at the 12-15 psi.

So, the fermentation will produce pressure levels above 12-15, but the bottle will always remain at that 12-15, basically carbonating it at the same time it ferments.

It's a good idea. In theory, that should work perfectly.

Once thing. When your wife thinks "cider" she probably things about most of the American varieties, like Woodchuck, that are sweet. If you just ferment apple juice/cider in a bottle with this cap system, you are not going to produce sweet cider, it will be more like British examples that are very dry and only slightly sweet.

The way to make sweet American cider is a little more complicated. You either have to use artificial sweetener, which more people don't care for the taste, or you have to incorporate a backsweetening procedure, which you would not be able to do with this cap system. Basically, you'd need to stop fermentation through pastuerization or cold crashing at exactly the right moment to make the yeast dormant and leave sugars in the cider. Very easy to do in a keg, a PITA to do in a bottle.

Just a tip, "cider" yeasts definitely don't produce the best ciders. I've experimented with several yeasts, and have seen others on the forum do the same, and cider yeasts are always towards the bottom of the list in blind taste tests. If you do do this, I would recommend Nottingham or Champagne yeast.

Let me know if you have any questions, but if you do like dry, British style ciders, then yes, it's that easy!

 

[Upthewazzu]

I just finished up a cider; 5 gal Kirkland Signature apple cider from Costco (plus one frozen concentrate aj and 1/4 cup brown sugar) fermented down to 1.001 with Wyeast Cider yeast (OG was 1.054), back sweetened with another gallon of KS cider, then bottled and carbonated for ~1 week. Just pasteurized all bottles the other day. Haven't really tasted the final product yet, they're conditioning in my crawl space @ 44° right now so the yeast and crap drops out of suspension.

 

[TopherM]

Upthewazzu: what you are going to run into is that the 1 week that you carbed may very well leave the cider undercarbed/overcarbed. Each fermentation is different, so there's just no way to really control and balance how much carb you get with keeping that sweetness from the backsweetening. It's a guess at best.

With a keg, it's simple. Ferment all the way out, add the sweet juice to the keg to backsweeten, then just chill below the yeast's temp range so they go dormant, and force carb.

With your method, you may end up with perfect cider, you may end up with undercarbed sweet cider, you may end up with overcarbed dry cider, and you can easily end up with bottle bombs. There are so many factors that go into the time it takes to carb that you just can't pinpoint WHEN exactly to pastuerize, just take a decent educated guess.

Anyway, just didn't want the OP to think it's just that simple, it's definitely a trial and error process to dial in that bottle carbing backsweetened cider procedure!

Best of luck, though!

 

[Upthewazzu]

Yep, I'm aware of all of that. I went into this thing blind, and we'll see what I end up with. All told it was about $33 so I'm not out a ton if it turns out bad. Prior to carbing, my wife liked it, so there's that!

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I assume it functions like a spunding valve, where it basically holds pressure to about 12-15 psi, then once it gets above that pressure it pushes the valve open and lets the extra out and stays regulated at the 12-15 psi.

So, the fermentation will produce pressure levels above 12-15, but the bottle will always remain at that 12-15, basically carbonating it at the same time it ferments.

It's a good idea. In theory, that should work perfectly.

Once thing. When your wife thinks "cider" she probably things about most of the American varieties, like Woodchuck, that are sweet. If you just ferment apple juice/cider in a bottle with this cap system, you are not going to produce sweet cider, it will be more like British examples that are very dry and only slightly sweet.

The way to make sweet American cider is a little more complicated. You either have to use artificial sweetener, which more people don't care for the taste, or you have to incorporate a backsweetening procedure, which you would not be able to do with this cap system. Basically, you'd need to stop fermentation through pastuerization or cold crashing at exactly the right moment to make the yeast dormant and leave sugars in the cider. Very easy to do in a keg, a PITA to do in a bottle.

Just a tip, "cider" yeasts definitely don't produce the best ciders. I've experimented with several yeasts, and have seen others on the forum do the same, and cider yeasts are always towards the bottom of the list in blind taste tests. If you do do this, I would recommend Nottingham or Champagne yeast.

Let me know if you have any questions, but if you do like dry, British style ciders, then yes, it's that easy!

This, but I will also just include that unless you keg(even then) its a lot of work and high probability of failure to pasturize properly and evenly across bottles.

Your best bet is to make the cider, carb it like you would a beer and serve it dry. If people want sweet they can put a sugar cube or two, or some honey or other sweetener in their cup when they pour it, or cut it with some sprite/7up/apple juice.

Some people want their ciders mind blowingly sweet, others not so much...its way easier to just not mess with the product and do it on a per serving basis than potentially ruining an entire batch by over sweetening it. Hell even day to day my tastes change, with some food a nice sweet cider is good...for others a nice dry cider.

 

[Donutz]

I thik I will just stick with buying here a 12 pack of angry orchard and start another brew for myself!!! HMMMMM, what do I want to drink!