First Cider Experiment Brew Begins.

[MangoMead]

So I could not wait for my fancy yeast and other stuff to get muled in from North America, I wanted to get something brewing ASAP, even if it turned out to be an unsuccessful learning experience. Luckily things seem to be moving along at a so far so good pace. Even though everything I have used is completely repurposed from it's intended use. Not a single LHBS item used.

Here is an expanded version of my notes from the brew:

2 x 5L aro brand apple juice from concentrate added to 2x 6L PET 'carboys'. I gave them a good shake for some aeration.

Cooked up some syrup. 2 kilos refined sugar (probably cane) + 500 ml 50% lime juice + 1500ml RO water heated to about 80c for about 1 hour then boiled for 2 hours and let cool covered with a water bath for 1 hour.

Equal volume of syrup was added to each 6L carboy, about 800ml each. Bottles well shaken again to mix syrup and for more aeration. Yeast was pitched dry and bottles well shaken again.

Placed carboys in foam cooler with 2 1500ml ice bottles and blowout tubes installed. 12:25 am oct 11 2013. There was plenty of yeast activity within minutes. With a little babysitting over the first hour I had almost no foamy overflow.

They have been bubbling away happily for a couple days now, though bubbles have slowed a tiny bit. Maybe 1 bubble a second now.

Yeast was a Thai brand of baking yeast. One 34 gram, 30 baht bottle, per carboy.

Probably should have added less water to the syrup, so I cooked it for a long time to try to reduce it a bit. I also should have probably used a lot less Lime juice but my internet was not up yet (just moved) and I was sort of working off of memory. The syrup was delicious! I may make more just to put on toast! The wort/must was pretty tasty too very sweet and appley with a nice citrus thing going on too.

Cooler is a plain foam cooler like the ones found all over around here. They were a little cheaper at Makro so I got mine there. Tubing from home-pro. Carboys are Nestle RO water. Alternating ice bottles to keep it cool in the cooler. No thermo yet but it is 'cool' in there. Cool being sort of relative as it's a 'cool' night now at 27c.

Used Iodophor sanitizer mixed up from a little 7-11 dropper bottle of iodine. Those are perfect really, since you need so little to mix the right solution, counting drops is the way to go. I only needed 1500 ml of solution so that was 25 drops for the right dilution.

I don't have a hydrometer yet, so not readings on SG. It's all guesswork from here.

The 'carboys' are 6 liter water bottles that come filled with the drinking water I buy all the time anyway so they are essentially free.

That's about all to say for now. I plan to rack the cider off the yeast after a couple days of no more bubbling. From there I'll let it settle for a couple weeks and see what it does. Not too worried about getting it crystal clear. Thinking of trying to carbonate some, backsweeten some, keep some as is and freeze a little to then melt out 50% volume for some 'Apple Jack'.

 

[oxpajama]

I like your fermentation chamber. Keep us updated, remember not to sample too much with such a small batch.

 

[MangoMead]

Thanks. I should have room for a bigger batch by the time I get some real wine yeast and some other gear. Honestly though I'm thinking I can get by with almost all repurposed gear. I've even seen info online about making your own hydrometer and calibrating it with pure water and other carefully created solutions.

 

[MangoMead]

5 days in and the bubbling has almost stopped. Interesting color changes. Debating giving one or both halves a shot of sugar to see what happens.

 

[Randzor]

Always fun to see the pictures.

 

[ROLLTIDE]

On your next yeast for cider, I recommend Safale S-04 ale yeast. It's pretty neutral tasting and does great at 65-75 Fahrenheit. I have 3 gallons going with distillers yeast I didnt want to waste and enough sugar to make an OG of 1.120 . Should make for some good jet-fuel Jack

 

[MangoMead]

Getting yeast is a bit of a PITA here so my options are pretty limited, one of the reasons I wanted to do an experiment with the local bread yeast is that it's something I can just go get locally, not have to have muled in from another continent.

I have some high temp tolerant Champagne yeast coming that I am feeling pretty excited about. Where I am it gets down to 25c sometimes. Rarely any cooler. We are at 25c now (at 11pm) but we also have a typhoon passing through and that is certainly not the norm.

The yeast I am most excited about is the K1-V116, listed as tolerant up to 35c and is supposed to be pretty happy in the 25-30 range and great for fruit wines and ciders. I have a bunch of that and some assorted others coming over with some friends over the next couple of months. Once I have those I'm planning on washing and propagating them in other ways to have a supply I hopefully won't run out of.

 

[MangoMead]

Last night I noticed one of the 2 jugs had stopped bubbling. The other I had given an extra step feed to see what the difference would be and it is still bubbling away happily. This morning there was still no bubbling and the water in the blowoff tube bottle had moved up into the tube so it seemed there was no real pressure being generated. When I looked at it, the top was already starting to clear a tiny bit.

I went ahead and cleared some room in my fridge and put that jug in to cold crash out the yeast. The pic is after about 6 hours in the fridge. I'm guessing at 24-48 hours it will be ready to rack off into a secondary and hang out there for a little bit before bottling.

I'm having to exert extreme self restraint to not taste some right now. I want to wait to taste it when I rack it. But a little taste won't hurt, will it?

 

[MangoMead]

Could not resist, had to pour myself a cup. It is Saturday night after all. Taste is about the same as last time though much less yeasty. all things considered I'm really happy with it so far. I think next batch I'm gonna use brown sugar, or caramelize the white sugar, as I think the caramel notes would be a really nice addition.

 

[ROLLTIDE]

Who can blame you for tasting?!?!? I personally get excited about EVERY new batch and it wasn't untill I started getting a pipeline going that I could actually let things go a bit before tasting constantly because I have previous batches to drink on. You are doing great, keep up the experimenting and tasting!

 

[ROLLTIDE]

One other thing .....don't bother caramelizing white sugar, put a little heat on the brown instead and add that and some cinnamon it at bottling time

 

[MangoMead]

Cinnamon seems a good idea. I think I'll get a few sticks to add to a couple bottles of this when that time comes.

Ended up 'tasting' 3 cups (~300mlx3) last night. Only able to operate one eyeball at a time when the 3rd one was done. Kind of a scary combo being so tasty and so strong!