Newbie at brewing.

williams52977 · Jan 22, 2014

I have my 1st cider fermenting right now. At the suggestion of another homebrewer/friend, I am trying a very simple recipe. I just used apple juice and the yeast cake leftover from a beer my husband finished brewing.

It has been about 5 days now and the airlock has stopped bubbling.

When do I bottle, and when do I drink? Do I do anything special when I bottle?

For the beer we brewed we added honey during the bottling process. Would that be a good idea with the cider? (the beer was much easier because it came with step by step instructions!)

My friend isn't able to help me much at this point because he has a much more sophisticated system than I do, he uses the secondary fermenter, etc. I am hoping to go straight to bottling.

I have been Googling this info for days, and it is a lot harder to find clear answers than you would think.

solbes · Jan 22, 2014

Welcome to the forum!

Not surprising the yeast is done, as you had a lot of yeast to ferment the apple juice. I would wait 2-4 weeks more until most of the yeast drops to the bottom. It should be relatively clear, but need not be really clear. Then carefully rack it to your bottling bucket and bottle.

Easiest way to prime your cider is to add 4 or 5 oz of corn sugar (dextrose) that has been boiled/cooled and add to the bottling bucket as you are starting to rack the cider in. This way it mixes nicely. You could use honey instead, but most of the flavor will disappear with just a hint of sweetness left.

After bottling and capping, keep it in a 65-75F room for 3 weeks to carbonate. You can then chill and drink anytime, but the longer you wait the better they will be. By 6 months the apple flavors will intensify and will continue to get even better for another 6 months.

williams52977 · Jan 22, 2014

Thank you so much for the response. I can tell you know what you are talking about. I am glad I asked on this board because I was really about to mess up. I thought I needed to bottle it now. (or really soon)

I am so anxious to try it. The waiting is killing me.

Thanks again!

solbes · Jan 22, 2014

You can bottle as soon as the gravity remains the same for 3 days. So at the soonest probably 1 more week. Waiting an additional 1-3 weeks will leave less sediment in each bottle as more will fall out in your primary fermenter.

Patience is so hard when you're first starting out. If you like the samples at bottling, I would suggest starting something else, another cider, cider with other fruits, fruit wine, or mead. That way when you drink some cider at the 2 and 3 month mark, you are still leaving some to make it to the 6 and 9 month mark as you have another batch to be drinking from. Once you have a decent pipeline, its really easy to age some beverages.

You can look at the Ed's apfwelwein post here, there are thousands of posts about it as it's very popular:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/

williams52977 · Jan 22, 2014

I have been reading a ton of these threads and I have a few questions. When I started this, I didn't shake it or stir it. I just poured it on the yeast cake. Was that a a mistake, and if so, should I stir/shake now? (5 days in)

I also didn't know that I needed a juice without preservatives. I have no idea if I mine had them or not. But since it bubbled a lot for a few days, sounds like I might be ok?

I also see a lot of people use more juice as a sweetener/to add flavor when bottling. Would that be a good idea, and how much would you add to a one gallon brew?

solbes · Jan 22, 2014

1) Aeration of the juice (or wort for beer) helps the yeast reproduce as they need oxygen at this stage. After reproduction is over and the yeast start to chew through the sugars, you no longer want to introduce oxygen as it can lead to staling reactions due to oxidation.

Since you used an entire beer yeast cake (lots of yeast!) you likely had very little reproduction going on as there was likely enough yeast already there to get the job done. In an average gravity beer this might be overpitching (too many yeast cells for given level of sugar). Overpitching is considered by most to be less of a problem than underpitching. In cider I'm not sure, but I would guess pitching onto a beer yeast cake will be just fine.

Regardless, do not shake now as fermentation started and has likely completed. If you can grab a sample with a sanitized thief, you can check the gravity with a hydrometer to show that it fermented the sugar (FG should be 1.000 or less for cider).

2) See answer above, if hydrometer is not showing sugar, your yeast crunched through it.

3) Its often more difficult to get the right amount of sugar from juice concentrate. You might get a tad more flavor, but with a risk of under or overcarbonatng. I would stick with corn sugar, brown sugar, or honey and go from there.