Concentrate instead of sugar?

[Ego Archive]

I have been looking through a variety of recipes for cider, in preparation for starting my batch up this weekend. One thing I have been noticing is that all of the recipes seem to have apple juice, and cane sugar; is there a reason cane sugar is preferable to fructose?

I was thinking that since Apple juice concentrate is almost entirely sugar, it would make sense to just use that instead of sugar. Something like this:

5 gallons Apple Juice.
2 16oz. Organic Apple Juice Concentrate.
5 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 Red Star Wine Yeasts 5 grams. Cotes Des Blanc.

Possibly 1tsp Yeast Energizer, in a starter before pitching.

Any thoughts?

 

[jameswardpeterson]

It can work as a replacement, and you also get added sugar. But your not adding fructose exactly to it most likely. most likely your just putting in high fructose corn syrup. Someone more knowledgable on the topic may be able to fill you in on if this is bad or not. I would say stick with some sugar and some concentrate. If your just experimenting please play the honkie and do both and post back here with your results please

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Lots of people use apple juice concentrate in their ciders, it should work just fine.

The advantage of adding sugar instead of concentrate is you can tell exactly how much sugar you're adding, giving you more control. And it's cheap.

The actual sugar being added between cane sugar and fructose is pretty much irrelevant because they're both fully fermentable. The advantage to apple juice concentrate is that along with the sugar, you're adding more apple.

You should be able to tell if your concentrate has HFCS, I think it'll say on the can... if it does, I wouldn't use it just because HFCS is just about the worst invention modern science has given us and I try to avoid it wherever possible.

 

[Ego Archive]

Yeah that was why I went with organic concentrate. The concentrate I was looking at had one ingredient (apple juice), That way I don't have to worry about adding preservatives.

 

[CBBaron]

It can work as a replacement, and you also get added sugar. But your not adding fructose exactly to it most likely. most likely your just putting in high fructose corn syrup. Someone more knowledgable on the topic may be able to fill you in on if this is bad or not. I would say stick with some sugar and some concentrate. If your just experimenting please play the honkie and do both and post back here with your results please

Most apple JUICE concentrates are made from apples without any sugar additives. Fruit just cocktails like cranberry or fruit punch often do have added sugar usually in the form of HFCS.

Using juice concentrate does add sugar in a predictable way if you read the labels, or you can measure the OG after dilution. However they also add flavor and acid and will give the fermented beverage a different balance. I did this with an apfelwein variation thinking I would like more of a fruit flavor but found it was not nearly as good as the original.

It is worth an experiment but I expect you won't like the results as much as you first think.

Craig

 

[EvilTOJ]

I made my last batch of apfelwine with only apple juice and concentrate. It turns out just the same, maybe a little more apple flavor. Tree Top's only ingredients are apple juice in concentrate, ascorbic acid and water.

In fact I got a batch going now I need to bump the ABV up a little more . I added 4 cans of 16 oz concentrate to 2 gallons of apple juice, and got a OG of 1.089. After a week of rhino farts I added 4 more 16 oz cans of concentrate, bumping the OG to 1.099 (adjusted).

 

[Cazzi]

I made my last batch of apfelwine with only apple juice and concentrate. It turns out just the same, maybe a little more apple flavor. Tree Top's only ingredients are apple juice in concentrate, ascorbic acid and water.

In fact I got a batch going now I need to bump the ABV up a little more . I added 4 cans of 16 oz concentrate to 2 gallons of apple juice, and got a OG of 1.089. After a week of rhino farts I added 4 more 16 oz cans of concentrate, bumping the OG to 1.099 (adjusted).

I'm kinda new here, what do those numbers Mean in terms of alcohol percentage? I'm looking to do the same.

 

[Cazzi]

Oh these are very old posts, unless I'm reading it wrong. Does that mean no one will see the request I made?

 

[phug]

That would be about 13% abv if it goes all the way down to 1.000

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Cazzi, and welcome... Others on this forum may disagree, but IMO, so-called rhino-farts indicate poor technique and/ or poor recipe... so I don't know that you want to do precisely the same thing... There is never any need for yeast to produce hydrogen sulfide and the yeast will produce that gas if the yeast is needlessly stressed. One further danger is that under stress yeast will not only produce hydrogen sulfide (which can be eliminated ) but they can produce mercaptans (smells like burning rubber) and that is far harder to eliminate...

You want to make sure that the yeast has sufficient nutrients and that you aerate the cider during the active fermentation (best practice is to use a bucket as your primary and cover it loosely). You also want to ferment at the lowest temperatures the yeast prefers and not at higher temperatures ... and IMO, you want to use a yeast compatible with cider fermentation.. (wine yeasts such as 71B, for example). Good luck!

 

[stella_tigre]

I'm kinda new here, what do those numbers Mean in terms of alcohol percentage? I'm looking to do the same.

This assumes you have a hydrometer or refractometer that gives you specific gravity:
http://www.rooftopbrew.net/abv.php
http://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/
That's two of many calculators out there.

The more fermentable sugars, the higher the ABV, at least until the yeast gives out from lack of nutrients, or from hitting its alcohol limit. You can start with too much sugar which can stress the yeast. And in my limited experience, the higher the ABV the more "wine-like" it will be, in that the fruit flavors get consumed. They come back a little with aging. Ale yeasts seem to leave a bit more flavor.

 

[Cazzi]

Thanks for replying. I'm so new that I don't have a hydrometer...yet. I'm on my second batch of two gallons of Apple wine. So here's what I did: I put 2, 12 oz cans of concentrate and one and a half cups of corn sugar in a bowl and microwaved it until warm, stirred until sugar dissolved. Then added 1 tsp yeast nutrient and 1/4 tsp tannins. I poured it in slowly, equally between the 2, 1gal fermenters. After a few min it started bubbling at regular intervals. It's been fermenting for 2 wks, I racked at one week. I welcome suggestions. I love the simplicity and inexpensiv- ity of making apple wine. I'd be happy to have a 10-13% wine that tasted pretty good with as little back sweetening as possible.:fro: I guess I should get a hydrometer eventually...

 

[stella_tigre]

Well I've been futzing around with various yeasts and bottle juice sources and whatnot, trying to get some practice in for when we have our cider apple trees start producing. We did a batch of EdWort's Apfelwein, just bottled, and because of the juice I used I added a bit of tannins and acid blend (it was bland.) So far we like using a juice with Vit C added, vs not. Faster is not better, but a bit of yeast energizer seems to help. What kind of yeastie beasties are you using? BTW when you heat any of the juices much you might set pectins, I guess. Would suggest heating a bit of water instead, and not the concentrates.
I'm planning a May Day cider/wine using some Mott's, concentrate, and then in the secondaries raspberries in one, blackberries in another, and fizz it up with FAJC when I bottle. We've done a couple of these, also in cherry and love the stuff. It's dry out of the bottle when using EC-1118 or Cider House Select, less so with Nottingham or S-04, but we just keep some thawed FAJC in the fridge in a mason jar to temper that a bit!
And yes a hydrometer helps, especially if you are planning to bottle with fizz, you know where you stand, to prevent bottle bombs.