First Cider

[cbazzle]

Hello all.

I've been brewing for a few years, mostly recipe kits, never cider. My local homebrew store had a cider pressing on Saturday, and I am now a proud owner of 6 gallons of mixed apple cider and one vial of liquid english cider yeast.

One of the more experienced brewers gave me 6 campden tablets to kill off the wild yeast present in the cider from the pressing, and it will have been 48 hours this evening.

My questions are: 1) How long will it take to properly ferment; 2) Does using a secondary help, and why; and 3) how long is a good conditioning time? P.S. any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Skyforger]

1. Depends on what you mean by 'properly.' The sugars should be largely gone within a week. Often people don't fully ferment ciders though, as they will ferment to perfect dryness. Dry cider is great, but in my experience takes at least nine months to be really drinkable.

2. Not really. You can use a secondary vessel as a clarifying vessel, but unless you add a lot of sugar or honey the yeast should have no trouble finishing the fermentation in primary. Secondaries are, in my opinion, all but obsolete with the onset of good aeration practice and consistent monophyletic yeast strains. Only exception would be some stronger ales brewed with English yeast strains.

3. As I alluded to above, dry cider can take a good nine months to smooth out properly. If you halt fermentation before the cider is fully dry, you can probably drink it within a few weeks of fermentation stopping. But the best ciders I've had have been arrested at about 1.010, then let to age for nine months still.

Caveat: I have not used that yeast strain. The manufacturer claims that it leaves some apple flavor even when fermented dry, so some of what I said may not hold true. A lot of yeasts really kill the apple character if you let it ferment dry - at least, unless you age it for a long time first.

Anything else? Um, wild yeast is my favorite. It gives a great funky character and cold crashes out well if you want to stop fermentation before complete dryness (with wild yeast, you likely do - say at 1.008 or so - or it may well turn to vinegar). But the results can be variable. Maybe you could set a small amount aside from the 6 gallons to wild ferment, see how you like it?

 

[cbazzle]

Thanks.

How distinctive are the different flavors that are added when using additional sugars--honey, molasses, brown sugar--to back sweeten?

 

[Heidenweizen]

1. Depends on what you mean by 'properly.' The sugars should be largely gone within a week. Often people don't fully ferment ciders though, as they will ferment to perfect dryness. Dry cider is great, but in my experience takes at least nine months to be really drinkable.

2. Not really. You can use a secondary vessel as a clarifying vessel, but unless you add a lot of sugar or honey the yeast should have no trouble finishing the fermentation in primary. Secondaries are, in my opinion, all but obsolete with the onset of good aeration practice and consistent monophyletic yeast strains. Only exception would be some stronger ales brewed with English yeast strains.

3. As I alluded to above, dry cider can take a good nine months to smooth out properly. If you halt fermentation before the cider is fully dry, you can probably drink it within a few weeks of fermentation stopping. But the best ciders I've had have been arrested at about 1.010, then let to age for nine months still.

Caveat: I have not used that yeast strain. The manufacturer claims that it leaves some apple flavor even when fermented dry, so some of what I said may not hold true. A lot of yeasts really kill the apple character if you let it ferment dry - at least, unless you age it for a long time first.

Anything else? Um, wild yeast is my favorite. It gives a great funky character and cold crashes out well if you want to stop fermentation before complete dryness (with wild yeast, you likely do - say at 1.008 or so - or it may well turn to vinegar). But the results can be variable. Maybe you could set a small amount aside from the 6 gallons to wild ferment, see how you like it?

Cider newb question here...

When you let the cider age for nine months, do you age it in primary or do you bottle or keg first?

 

[Skyforger]

cbazzle - not very, except for maybe molasses. Or if you backsweeten a lot. It'll add an undernote of things like maple or honey.

Heidenweizen - you should rack the cider off the sediment within a few months of fermentation finishing. Yeast autolysis isn't as big a problem as some older books make it sound to be, but it's best not to leave a cider on the sediment for very long periods. I usually rack it into another, secondary vessel until it's ready to bottle or keg. That way anything else that wants to drop out in the interim can do so, and I don't hold up serving vessels for overly long.