jimmyriggin some cider with minimal resources

[Steiner]

Ok, so I'm living in Egypt and have been suffering from brewing withdrawals. I've decided that I'm going to have a go at brewing some cider if possible. I've come across this juice that I particularily like that I'd like to try and make into a cider. It's cherry-apple. Anyway, I've found bread yeast in the grocery store (they don't have WL or RedStar for some reason!) and wanted to know if you think this could work? I've never brewed with bread yeast and the only cider I've made is fermenting back at home. The only time I've head of using bread yeast was in JA Orange Mead. As far as the other components, I can acquire a plastic water jug for fermentation and can craft an airlock assembly as soon as I find some tubing. Bleach will have to do here, as I've only ever used soap and iodophor in the past. Either way, I'm exciting about the prospect, and who knows if it will work. Let me know if you have any feedback, tips, and advice. Cheers!

 

[SteveM]

It's worth a shot. A while back there was a thread started by a guy who brewed up a batch of beer with bread yeast and by his account, it came out OK. What do you have to lose?

 

[Revvy]

Are there any bottle conditioned beers available where you are (I don't know if all of egypt is dry)? I'm wondering if you could rig up some slants and harvest some beer yeasts. Also are there any local wine makers where you are, maybe they'd take pity on a brewing deprived yank and give/sell you some yeast.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Here ya go...funny I think he ships international.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Red-Star-Montra...1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem#ShippingPayment

 

[Steiner]

ya i think i'll give it a shot regardless. if nothing at all, it at least will be a learning experience and a test of my sanitizating techniques. wow, i never thought of buying off ebay and shipping internationally. it would take a couple weeks and i dont know what my program would think of importing wine yeast. there are no bottle-conditioned beers. in fact, there are very few beers to speak of. no imports and the local stuff aint much to speak of. alcohol is tabooed here as muslims aren't supposed to consume alcohol. i'll give it a shot and definitely will let you guys know. any thoughts on hydrating it first or just pitching it?

 

[Revvy]

ya i think i'll give it a shot regardless. if nothing at all, it at least will be a learning experience and a test of my sanitizating techniques. wow, i never thought of buying off ebay and shipping internationally. it would take a couple weeks and i dont know what my program would think of importing wine yeast. there are no bottle-conditioned beers. in fact, there are very few beers to speak of. no imports and the local stuff aint much to speak of. alcohol is tabooed here as muslims aren't supposed to consume alcohol. i'll give it a shot and definitely will let you guys know. any thoughts on hydrating it first or just pitching it?

Yeah I googled for you to see if I could find any breweries or wineries in egypt for you to contact. It's strange considering you're in the cradle of brewing...there's plenty of historical sites about egyptian brewing/winemaking...but I guess things have changed.

But there might be some closet brewers/winemakers around...especially some old guys who have been doing it for decades...you never know until you start talking to people...You may even learn some great techniques.

Where in eqypt are you BTW? Are you there in the miliatary or a student?

I don't think it would matter with bread yeast whether you rehydrate or not...I think with Joes...he just pitched dry.

A few thoughts....

Definitly do small 1 gallon batches until you get something you like...that way if you fail, you're not out a lot of money, time or effort...Plus you can experiment with different ideas.

You could experiment with natural fermentation....that's what the ancient used out there...so you might be surprised.

Also consider seeing what natural yeasts exist on some of the fruits available...I don't know if they grow grapes, much...but look at figs and dates...some mead and cider recipes call for a few grape skins thrown in...I assume for their natural yeast on the skin...figs and dates probably have their own...plus figs and dates have a lot of sugar...so a wine produced with them might be awsome (I saw a recipe for fig wine in a magazine recently. I'm going to try it sometime. It actually uses rehydrated dry figs instead fresh, surprisingly.)

If you want that recipe I could transcribe it...

If there's honey available, consider doing meads, cysers, melomels and pyments with natural fruits.

There's some ancient recipes floating around the web for meads that are pretty rudimentary, so they may help you...Also Meads have been discovered in egyptian tombs...

As to sanitization....try to find out what is used as a sanitizer if anything in the dairy industry...A bunch of us discovered that here in the states, they sell a product similiar to iodophor in farm and feed stores to sanitize the milking machines....it is a gallon of concentrated iodine that sells for about 8 bucks a gallon, you mix the same 1 tbs/5 gallons of water...there may be a similar product in use in Egypt...So that will hopefully cover your sanitization needs.

Best of luck....

 

[Steiner]

Thanks for the great ideas and effort Revvy. Ya, with all the brewing history it's disappointing there isn't a brewing culture here AT ALL. The cab drivers often ask if I like to drink whiskey, after I tell them that I am an American. I don't know much about finding some underground brewers- it's a taboo sort of thing here, but you never know. I haven't been bold enough to tell any Egyptians (except a few Christians, but they don't subscribe to the drinking restrictions) about my brewing hobbies. I figure if I got the reception by some that I was a drunk in the States for brewing, it would probably be the same or worst here since it's so polarized. Ya, you guessed it- I'm here on a grant to study Arabic. So far things are going well.

I've never experimented with natural fermentation. Any tips on that or is that a stupid question to ask? Either way, let me know. I was planning on using boxed cherry-apple juice.

That's interesting that you bring up dates and figs because Egypt is supposedly reknowned for its dates and figs. I have yet to have any myself (here or anywhere ever) so I don't know if it's something I would like, but it could be worth a shot, especially if I could get some natural fermentation in there.

There is a bunch of honey as well, more than I've ever been able to found even in the delicatessen grocery stores in America. I'm afraid of the time constraint I may be faced with with the mead since I have less than 3 months left here, even though I've heard that both ciders and meads may require a considerable conditioning period.

Sanitation-wise- I think you may be on to something. i may not go so far with the daily producers, but I bet some of the local pharmacies here would carry some iodophor-like stuff. there are pharmacies everywhere in this city as most people seem to skip the doctor visit step and personally prescribe. you can any drugs right over the counter it seems. i think they might have some tubing for me, or a medical supply store if i happen to stumble across one.

 

[Kai]

+1 on dates or figs as natural yeast. That's how they've been doing it for millennia. It might not taste "clean" like a pureculture cider, but it'll be delicious.

 

[BeerCanuck]

Sounds like a tastey combination dates and cider juice

Cheers
BeerCanuck

 

[Revvy]

Sounds like a tastey combination dates and cider juice

Cheers
BeerCanuck

Same with figs...I may try to make a small batch of either fig and cider or fig and mead...or both!

 

[Revvy]

Here's a honey fig wine recipe I found...

ngredients



· 2 pounds dried figs

· 2 campden tablets

· 1 teaspoon pectic enzyme

· 2 cups honey

· 5 cups brown sugar

· 1 lemon, juice and rind

· 1 orange, juice and rind

· 1 teaspoon nutrients

· 1 package yeast

· water

Dissolve honey in an equal amount of hot water in a large saucepan.

Pour 8 cups boiling water over the figs and one campden tablet. Cool. Remove the figs, chop them roughly and pour another 8 cups boiling water over them with the other campden tablet. Leave overnight.

Strain the liquid from the figs and discard the pulp. Combine the two batches of liquid in the primary fermentor. Add pectic enzyme, sugar, prepared honey, nutrients and lemon and orange juice and rind. Add water to make up to 1 gallon. Add yeast.

In 3 to 5 days, when the frothing ceases, strain the wine and place it in the secondary fermentor and attach air lock.

For a dry wine, rack in six weeks, then every three months for one year. Bottle.

 

[Steiner]

Wow, you guys have shined some light on my dismal nonbrewing existence. I'm excited to give that recipe a shot Revvy. Thanks bud! I've got a few questions though:

- what about pectic enzymes, nutrients, and campden?
- instead of dried fruit, should (or could) I use fresh fruit? would it have more natural yeasts in there? I've heard of rotting fruit fermenting and people/animals eat them later finding themselves a little buzzed.
- aeration/maximizing yeasts (or at least the right ones)- leave out overnight?
- what sort of time frame would i be looking at here? i'm only here for 2.5 more months and would like to taste the stuff as soon as possible. how could i cut the time down from brew to mouth?
- finally, any suggestions? i dont have a bunch of time for experimentation here, and i've never had dates or figs (but soon will). i've also never made a mead or cider that i've tasted (left 2 meads and 2 ciders fermenting back in the states)

thanks folks. i'm gonna get on this and let you know. who knows, maybe i'll just turn my back on the concept of commercial yeast altogether from this point. :cross:

 

[Revvy]

I would definitely use fresh figs or dates since they're available there... and I would do 2 one gallon batches....one with the fruit and a few grams of bread yeast... and one trying open fermentation in a closed sanitized vessel...seeing what yeasts exists on the fruit itself.

I found an article on open ferm for you...

http://www.brewery.org/library/OpenFerm.html THis one says you only want about 2 weeks of fermentation...so you're good in your time frame.


There's some interesting stuff on here including a series of videos on making wine on the cheap. http://makinghomemadewineandbeer.blogspot.com/search/label/Wine Making Articles The blog writer has a blog on there about Open Fermentation...so there may be some good info on there...or even writing to him about it.

As to cambden tablets and yeast nutrients, I don't have an answer....I don't know if you could find sodium metabisulfide used outside of the winemaking industry there, same with yeast nutrients...so you may just have to wing it and try doing it without....like they did in the old days.

 

[Steiner]

Hmm...I never really considered open fermentation. Like the article said, I was always under the perception that open air spelled out contamination. I would be a little hesitant in my case to open ferment because there is a sizeable amount of fruit flies here in Cairo and I don't want to change one of them landing in. I may try to brew one with bread yeast, another with no added yeast just the real dates or figs and pray for some natural thing to kick off. I'm doubtful on what I'll be doing or how it'll turn out but I plan on trying this weekend. Let me know if you have any other advice, especially regarding my previous' post's questions.

 

[Steiner]

Well, I didn't pursue the fig/date honey wine idea. Although a good one, I started to run out of time. I brewed a successful batch of apple-cherry cider though. Pretty tasty stuff that really packed a punch. I pulled together some juice mixes, bread yeast, an empty water jug, and plastic tubing and it did the trick. I was pretty proud with my scarcity of resources. I may have over yeasted the mix, because that was probably the "healthiest" krausen I'd even seen. Or maybe that's what you get with bread yeast and super sweet juice mixes. Anyway, I've now returned back home in the States, able to drink and brew as I please and it's wonderful. Thanks again for all the help everybody.

 

[Revvy]

So did you ever find any "brewing culture" while you were there? Any hidden wine/beer makers who invited you into their secret wrkshops for some good homebrew, while their ducky daughters plied you with figs??

 

[Steiner]

Ha, ya I wish, Revvy. I stuck to the familiar Stella and picked up some Arak (aniseed-flavored Lebanese liquor) and other stuff from the Airport Duty-Free Store, which were both pretty good compared to surrounding products. There is pretty decent beer and wine just outside of Egypt (Israel and Lebanon particularly), where you can also get big name major imports, but Egypt is still lacking in both. I actually brought back some Lebanese wine and enjoyed their Almaza (means "diamond" in Arabic) beer. But don't even dare drink the Egyptian imitation hard liquor. There's an underground market for real Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels in Cairo, interestingly, and the beer is extremely limited. Exports are virtually nonexistent. Paulaner and Guinness could be found at the Marriott (at a hefty price), but even with what I saw at most of the other high-end hotels, there was nothing else imported. The Grand Hyatt, a 5-star major hotel in Cairo under Saudi ownership, just went dry and dumped all their boos a few months ago. So I didn't uncover any underground brewing culture practicing age-old practices. Nothing like this...
http://www.dui.com/dui-library/dui-shorts/tuts-brew