First time using fresh pressed apples

[adnanthemadman]

I've made a bunch of ciders in the past with either concentrate or tetrapak juice, but wasn't a fan of all the waste it created. This year, I got a bunch of apples. Some picked, some from a friend, and someone nearby on facebook was giving a bunch of windfalls away for free. They grow wild and are super abundant in southern Ontario, so you can easily get a bunch for free.

The Deets

• 67kg of apples total mainly were fairly sweet with thick skin (not sure of the type.) 5% were some crabapples I picked to add tannin.
• Pressed them at a local farm, and got 35L of juice, then bought 10L more from another fellow who had a whole truck full of juice
• Added a packet of EC1118 yeast to the 45L of unpasteurized juice, and 2 days later there is some serious Krausen forming that looks like a pumpkin pie.. Fitting for thanksgiving.

Some I pressed by hand with a food processor and a wooden circle... I don't recommend as it took 1-2 hours for half a gallon lol.

Half I plan to ferment dry, then bottle carb
The other halt, I will halt the fermentation, and make some apple wine with flavorings, such as ginger syrup, blackberry, spices etc. Let me know if you have any recommendations!
Hoping it clears up nicely naturally with time. My house is about 19C (65F). I could always take it outside to cold crash it, but I am more concerned about the fruit pulp settling than the yeast not dropping out.

Will keep this updated with the results!

 

[OffbeatBrew]

Congrats on your first batch from fresh pressed apples! Did you take gravity or ph readings?

As a silly American, I was looking at 67kg of apples and 35L of juice and thought it sounded like a terrible yield, but after mathing it, that sounds exactly normal

I've experimented with all kinds of flavor additions, but I usually do so with fully dry cider instead of dealing with cold crashing, potential bottle bombs, etc.. Some things add an illusion of sweetness.. for instance both Jasmine Tea and Earl Grey tea have been fun additions that increase perceived sweetness at a low final gravity.

I live in Arizona, and last weekend I picked a bunch of prickly pears when I was down in Tucson and will be adding that to one of my cider batches. I'll try to remember to make a separate post about that one.

 

[adnanthemadman]

Congrats on your first batch from fresh pressed apples! Did you take gravity or ph readings?

As a silly American, I was looking at 67kg of apples and 35L of juice and thought it sounded like a terrible yield, but after mathing it, that sounds exactly normal

I've experimented with all kinds of flavor additions, but I usually do so with fully dry cider instead of dealing with cold crashing, potential bottle bombs, etc.. Some things add an illusion of sweetness.. for instance both Jasmine Tea and Earl Grey tea have been fun additions that increase perceived sweetness at a low final gravity.

I live in Arizona, and last weekend I picked a bunch of prickly pears when I was down in Tucson and will be adding that to one of my cider batches. I'll try to remember to make a separate post about that one.

Thanks!
OG Came in at 1.048

I don't mind it dry either, but if it is not carbonated then I think a little sweetness may be better.. Don't have enough grolsch bottles for this batch.
Good tips about the tea. When do you add them in, when racking into secondary? Any rough quantities you'd recommend?
I used black tea in one of my store bought clear juice ciders for tannins, but I could imaging earl grey could be interesting. Maybe I'll play around with a couple half gallons and do some experimenting in secondary.
Cider/perry mix sounds delicious

 

[OffbeatBrew]

For the tea, I’ve made a strong batch (with boiling water) and added to taste at bottling once cool. You can take a small bit of your (8oz or something) and add the tea to taste and scale up.
I should note, the better the cider I end up with, the more likely I am to not add flavorings! Hopefully your batch is so good you don’t want to mess around with it!

 

[adnanthemadman]

Update

Primary fermentation finished in just 1 week, fermented completely dry very quickly. My house temperature is about 19C.

About 1 month in, all the yeast and haze has settled out of the cider nicely. It tasted pretty good but it is a little sharp and tart, so I figure it needs some more time.
I was a bit late to transferring to secondary since I've been busy, but figured I would do it today as I saw some surface yeasts forming, probably due to too much headspace, and since I didn't sulfite the juice at the beginning. I also added a bit of sugar (dissolved in boiling water) to get a bit of fermentation to create CO2 in the headspace just to be safe and ensure this surface yeast doesn't thrive. So I racked it from the demijohn into two 5gal carboys, and one 1 gal. The 1 gal was last so a bunch of the lees got kicked up with it. I figured this can be a good experiment to test the "sur lie" method. From what I've read, this can help malolactic fermentation which mellows out the cider. I'll do a taste test at the end to see if there is any discernable difference between the two.

 

[adnanthemadman]

Yesterday I primed by adding one container of concentrated apple juice to the cider, and bottled it. I used some grolsch bottles, and some wine bottles with corks. The wine bottles will be drunk within a few weeks - I hope before the corks pop off.

Also, I added some blackberry puree to 3L of the cider as a test to see if it makes a good blackberry puree.