First taste of a recent experiment, cider on skins

[foasty]

Hi Everyone,

The grocery store had organic red delicious apples on sale recently so I bought a bushel. I read recently that red skinned apples had most of the tannins concentrated in the skins and seeds, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to see what would happen if I fermented on the skins. My wife and I peeled the apples and ran them through the juicer and stuffed everything into a 6.5 gallon carboy. Since it seemed like a ridiculous ratio of peels to juice, I added some more juice (from concentrate) to top it off. I also added some pectinase.

It's been fermenting with White Labs English Cider yeast for about a week. I just took a sample. The gravity is still pretty high (about 1.040). The color has really started to come out of the peels so the cider looks more like ruby red grapefruit juice, and I definitely taste tannic compounds. It will be interesting to see how it turns out in the end! I plan on fermenting it until dry and racking it into secondary to age for a while.

Has anyone else tried this before?

 

[foasty]

Here's a picture of the cider after aging/bottling/etc. You can see that the color is a reddish orange. There's a strong aroma and a good flavor, far better than a cider made from just plain apple juice. Next time I'm considering having it on the peels in secondary instead, as when primary fermentation was complete and I racked it off the peels, there was plenty of flavor left in the peels.

 

[MindenMan]

Nice looking cider, is it a still cider? What was your F.G.? The next time I juice apples, I will be adding skins to the fermenter like you did.
Great job!

 

[Yooper]

I ferment some of my ciders and wines on the crushed fruit for about 5 days, much like I do with grape wines, before pressing and finishing up the fermentation.

I've never used red delicious apples, but instead I use a mix of bittersweet, sharp, tart, etc apples and it comes out great that way.

 

[foasty]

Nice looking cider, is it a still cider? What was your F.G.? The next time I juice apples, I will be adding skins to the fermenter like you did.
Great job!

No, it's carbonated, but it hasn't fully carbonated yet. FG was pretty much right at 1.00.

 

[foasty]

I ferment some of my ciders and wines on the crushed fruit for about 5 days, much like I do with grape wines, before pressing and finishing up the fermentation.

I've never used red delicious apples, but instead I use a mix of bittersweet, sharp, tart, etc apples and it comes out great that way.

Yeah, I couldn't find any local sources of good tannic apples, but I got a good deal on the red delicious and I had read about the tannins in the skins so I figured I would give it a try. Next time I'm going to freeze the peels and add them to secondary instead.

 

[Frognostic]

Very interesting.

I wonder if steeping crushed apple pulp or apple skins in a pulp bag in the cider would have a similar effect? I'm thinking of those Wine Expert kits where you add crushed grapes in a pulp bag.

 

[MindenMan]

If it works for Yooper, it works. Period. Her decades of experience are priceless to those of us in our first decade.

 

[Newsman]

Wonder how adding maybe a pound of crabapples to a 5 gallon batch of store-bought cider would work? Obviously you'd want to rinse and maybe soak the crabapples in some star san before grinding them up.

 

[Yooper]

Yeah, I couldn't find any local sources of good tannic apples, but I got a good deal on the red delicious and I had read about the tannins in the skins so I figured I would give it a try. Next time I'm going to freeze the peels and add them to secondary instead.

I'd be cautious about that. Apple peels are noted to have wild yeast on them, and if you don't sulfite the skins well, you may introduce a contaminate when adding them. I sulfite the entire mix when I mix up my must, and use a sanitized press when I press them. And, before I got a press (or when I make a small batch), my 'press' involved sanitized hands and arms squeezing the pulp/skins bag on about day 5.

Wonder how adding maybe a pound of crabapples to a 5 gallon batch of store-bought cider would work? Obviously you'd want to rinse and maybe soak the crabapples in some star san before grinding them up.

I think you'd want to sulfite (not star-san), but I think using fresh crabapples or some sort of tart or bittersweet apples is a great idea to add some depth to store bought juice.

 

[Yooper]

If it works for Yooper, it works. Period. Her decades of experience are priceless to those of us in our first decade.

Thank you for the kind words- you're making me blush!

I'm no expert, but I have done a lot of winemaking in the years behind me. I normally learn the hard way, so I'd like to help others avoid the same mistakes I made if possible!