Ok, that makes sense. There’s an apple orchard 4 miles from me I need to visit.My cider made in the fall is for next spring and summer. Yes, you can do things like cold-crash to speed it along, but I just let it condition naturally. When the all the yeast drops and the cider is clear, then it's time to bottle and start drinking it.
Any recommendation for yeast? Im just going to get a few gallons of their cider.Ok, that makes sense. There’s an apple orchard 4 miles from me I need to visit.![]()
I have both yeasts and the buddy I’d be making in for likes a dryer cider so I’ll use the EC1118. Thanx.It depends on what you want. Do you want some refined, dry, white wine-like cider? Or do you want it to be more of a fresh pressed apple cider with alcohol? EC1118 will get you a dry cider for next year. Nottingham yeast will get you something to enjoy for this fall, with a semi-dry characteristic with esters, and letting it naturally ferment with it's own wild flora will get you something like a sweet, fresh pressed cider without too much acid bite.
I need to take a class somewhere. Half of what you guys are saying is a foreign language to me. All I know is add yeast to cider, after a couple months rack it, few more months rack again then bottle at the end of a year. Try not to laugh.I generally find that cider made in the Fall is quite drinkable towards the end of Winter but gets even better with more time.
If you want just a touch of sweetness, both S04 and M02 can stop naturally at a bit above SG1.000 leaving some unfermented sugar (a bit like 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee).
My general purpose go-to is S04 and I sometimes bottle around 1.008 then waterbath pasteurise to stop fermentation at around 1.004 to get a lightly carbonated cider with the tart edge taken of the fully fermented version. With other yeasts such as EC1118, bottling at 1.004 may give you a bone dry carbonated cider or just let it continue to 1.000 (or even below if there is a lot of alcohol) and ferment all of the sugar for a flat dry version.
I’ve used Fermentis Safcider yeast.
I’m going to be buying some fresh apple juice cider blend from my hb shop this year. I’m thinking I need to sorbate or sulfite the cider after its finished fermenting. The one I did last year went off and went funky in the keg after a few months. I’m thinking you’re supposed to sulfite or sorbate to lock it down. Nobody else doing this?
They buy it in bulk from a commercial place that does real blends for cider. You take in your keg and they fill it up.If the cider is dry, it may not be necessary to arrest further fermentation. If you want to keep any amount of sugar, then you should arrest fermentation at the desired stopping point.
One important detail there is how the juice blend was processed before you bought it. If your homebrew shop presses the juice in house and sells it in buckets, you may need to add your additive of choice to wipe out any native occupants--especially if you want a dry cider. It is possible to dry out a cider but then have native yeast or bacteria remain that will funk it up even with little to no sugar remaining. If you intend to lock in any amount of sugar, it may not be necessary to hit it before primary fermentation. If the juice from your shop is sulfured or pasteurized and you're still getting unwanted occupants, there is a point of infection somewhere along the way in your equipment.
If you don’t stop fermentation the ABV won’t reduce will it?Getting a bit more advanced...
As a rough guide (to make something that you "actually like with a good alcohol content") you can figure out the potential alcohol level by calculating how much sugar you will need to convert into alcohol and CO2. A common formula is (OG-FG) x 130, e.g. (1.050-1.000) x 130 = 6.5% ABV). Measuring the SG after you have added honey, brown sugar, juice or whatever to boost the potential alcohol is probably easier than trying to calculate how much sugar has been added to be fermented, so a hydrometer is the first bit of essential equipment that you need (they are cheap and easy to use!).
So for example, the rough calculation (and "rough" is usually near enough for craft cider making) if you want to finish an uncarbonated cider with say 8% ABV and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar (2.5+ grams) remaining per 12 oz bottle, you will need to start with an OG of about 1.063 and stop fermentation at 1.003 (7.75 g/L of sugar). Google "Vinolab" so see their calculator of SG vs Sugar or go to the Brewer's Friend calculator. Or... just go by taste.
One way to stop fermentation where you want it is to heat pasteurise the cider and kill the yeast. Putting bottles of cider in hot (65C) water for 10+ minutes is a simple way to do this. Also see Papper's post about a slightly different method at the top of the forum. There are also chemical ways of stopping the yeast.
Understood. Does it matter how much yeast you put in a 3 gallon batch of cider if the yeast will continue to eat the sugar that’s there for a year?No, the ABV will increase. In the example above if you don't stop at 1.003 the continuing fermentation will chew up the sugar to 1.000 generating another 0.4% or even more ABV.
With a high ABV your fully finished SG could end up below 1.000. Because alcohol has a lower SG than water (0.789) the resulting mix of alcohol and water might end up with a measured FG in the order of 0.995.
Adding fermentable sugar to increase OG at the start is the way to get high ABV. For example, adding 20g/L (four teaspoons per litre) of sugar to a typical 1.050 apple juice will increase the OG by 0.008 which is roughly another 1% increase in potential ABV from 6.5% to 7.5%.