Beginner with a few questions

[wesdelaney]

So I am trying my first cider and trying to get all of the steps right, and had a couple of questions. I have done some research is answer some questions and created some others.
One of the things I learned is that the yeast needs oxygen to reproduce. So people don't add an airlock right away but cover with cheesecloth or something similar. Is this common practice?

The cider I have going now is started with Ryan's apple juice (it says cider), no preserves or additives http//ryansjuice.com/heritage-selection-2/opal/ . I did not add any sugar but pitched red star champagne yeast into both bottles. The bungs I bought were too small to fit the bottles so I kept the caps slightly lose. Its been 6 days and the fermentation is slowing down and I am now burping the bottles. I think in a few days I will sample some from one of the bottles. At this point, I'm not too worried about long-term storage.

In the near future, I will be buying 1-gallon carboys and san star although I was also considering installing an airlock on wide mouth half gallon mason jar for primary and secondary. I figured a wide mouth jar would be easy to clean inside.


This is my understanding of the process. Does this sound about right?

1. Cut and juice fruit
   
   
2. Sanitize juice and gear
   
   
   1. Heat
      
      
   2. Camden tablets
      
      
   3. Star san
      
      
   4. Hydrogen peroxide
      
      
   5. Distilled vinigar
      
      
   6. Bleach (needs to be rinsed with water)
      
3. Add the right yeast.
   
   
4. (alow oxygen) until yeast starts.
   
   
5. Add air lock to keep oxygen out. Co2 is a protective blanket over wort.
   
   
6. The air lock is absolutely required during secondary fermentation or when co2 slows down.
   
   
7. Bottle in sterilized bottles, not mason jars. I was going to do mason jars.
   

Thank you so much. Im sory to hit you guys up with a heavy post, just trying to get things right.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi wesdelaney - and welcome. Only going to comment on one or two of your points.
First - what is the hydrogen peroxide for and the vinegar? The last thing you want anywhere near wine is vinegar (especially if that vinegar is alive) Acetobacter in the presence of alcohol and oxygen will transform your cider into cider vinegar. Also, bleach may have been the best that was available a century or more ago but today K-meta is all you need. Bleach in the presence of wine bottle corks produces a compound that "corks" (spoils) wine. K-meta is all you need.
Second, there is no mention of any hydrometer in your list. Best to get one (or two - they are notorious for breaking just when you need them). They inform you precisely when to rack from the primary and advise you when you might bottle. Take the guess work out of those activities and they help remove the clock and the calendar from the measurements you might use (counting bubbles is for young children, not wine makers , and taking action according to the length of days or weeks that has passed is for your mortgage company not for wine making.
Third, Yeast may need oxygen to bud (reproduce) but that is not why you want to loosely cover the primary fermenter. Budding is not necessary if you pitch an appropriate sized yeast colony. What is necessary is for the colony of yeast cells to build and repair their cell membranes and yeast need nutrients and O2 to begin that process. If there is enough sugar in the must the yeast will avoid O2 and ferment anaerobically. Introducing O2 will in fact cause off flavors because of the different compounds the yeast will produce. So why loosely cover the fermenter? For at least two reasons. A) you want to stir (not aerate, stir) the cider several times a day to remove CO2. CO2 builds up and causes stress for the yeast both chemically (it acidifies the already acidic liquid) and mechanically - since half the weight of the sugar is transformed into CO2 (the other half becomes ethanol) that is a heck of a lot of CO2 that needs to squeeze through any airlock. Providing a large surface area with no counter pressure allows far more of the CO2 to escape. And b) You may want to add nutrients or spices or oak. you may want to measure the change in specific gravity (that hydrometer again) and needing only to remove a cloth cover makes that action so much more easy.

That CO2 being produced by the yeast means that the surface of your cider is thickly blanketed in a heavier gas than air. Sure, over time, the CO2 and the air will mix but while the yeast is burping out gas the pressure is from the cider and not the atmosphere. so while the gravity is still above , say, 1.005 the yeast is still banging out CO2 and O2 does not stand a chance of getting even a toe inside.

As an aside , adding powder (nutrients) to a liquid saturated with CO2 in a container with a narrow neck allows the contents of the fermenter to paint your walls and ceilings - 1) because the powder causes the CO2 to nucleate and 2) the narrow neck rifles the cider pushed up by the gas. Fermenting in wide mouthed buckets avoids such volcanoes.
Good luck!

 

[mredge73]

Do not heat your juice. If you are using fresh juice squeezed at an orchard or personally, use camden tablets the day before.
Skip if store bought in sealed containers.

Use unscented Oxyclean or similar to clean and remove grime; it needs warm water to mix well.
After you clean, rinse well. Use star san to sanitize afterwards, do not rinse.
You don't need vinegar, bleach, or peroxide unless you don't have the above chemicals.

For a simple cider you need an OG of 1.05-1.06, pressed apple juice will fall somewhere in this range without the need to add sugar or water.
If you go too high add some water, if you go too low add some sugar (dextrose or white cane sugar). You will need a hydrometer or refractometer at this point in the process.

If you have a bunch of pulp or skins you may want to get a little pectic enzyme. This will help break this down.
This takes a little time to work, about a day or so. Cider/Wine yeast will produce a little pectic enzyme but adding more will help it along.

Before you pitch yeast, shake the crap out of it to add oxygen.

Assuming you are making a simple cider and not a high gravity wine; pitch hydrated yeast, close the fermentor, install an air lock, and leave it alone.
You don't need to degas daily or make any additions, and the yeast do not need any more oxygen than you already put in.
Apples have lots of nitrogen so you don't really need additional nutrients. Keep temperature on the low end of the recommended scale on the yeast packet.

Allow 2 weeks to ferment unless you are in a huge rush. It should finish a little earlier, you can use your hydrometer to determine when it is done.
Should finish around 1.0.

At this point you will have still dry cider that is ready to drink.

You will find that dry cider made from concentrate is fairly tasteless. However there are many post-fermention things people like to do at this point.
You can cold crash and bottle, keg, add spices, carbonate, stabilize and back sweeten, turn it into vinegar, do a MLF fermentation, pasteurize, etc...

 

[Bombo80]

Very nicely stated !!!

 

[Maylar]

No heat.
No peroxide
No bleach
NO VINEGAR.

We had a fella here put just a few ounces of vinegar in his cider for "flavor" and it turned his entire batch into vinegar.