Newbie!!

[crabbygirlalberta]

Hello Everyone, I have a small orchard of 15 crabapple and apple trees and wanting to make some cider and wine. Never made before so really could use some details and recipes of how too!

 

[mwbrewer]

Welcome! There is a whole recipe section on the main forum page that is broken down by type(lager, ipa,cider, wine, etc)and there are loads of recipes that are tried and true. I recommend finding one in there that sounds good to you and that way you can ask any specific questions about the recipe in that thread itself. But cider 101, pick apples, grind apples, press juice from ground fruit and collect juice, put in fermenter and add campden tablets to kill wild yeast 24 hrs before pitching your chosen yeast and let go til fermentation is finished, bottle and enjoy.Obviously a bit over simplified but that's it in a nutshell.

 

[zamo27]

Can I use an electric juice extractor for juicing or will I need to press the apples
Please advice
This one in the picture can juice tones of apples but the juice is cloudy so will I throw in some pectin enzyme?



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[MindenMan]

The cider will naturally clear on it's own when it done fermenting. Pectin enzyme will also clear. I use a juicer to make my cider, so the process isn't very fast, but I make less than 5 gallons.

 

[mwbrewer]

If a juicer is what you've got right now, then it will work but I've heard they are slow, messy and inefficient . They also filter out a lot of good nutrients and flavor components along with the skin and other junk.Its funny you ask because i was just looking into making my own apple grinder and fruit press, there are quite a few threads around on the subject if you do a search.I've used a friends homemade set up who has been making cider almost as long as I've been alive, but now am so obsessed with cider and fruit that i definitely need my own. But if you are only infrequently making smaller batches and especially if you have limited space,a juicer is probably the best option

 

[MindenMan]

It has been a while, but I saw a home made apple "processor" video using a stand alone garbage disposal. It did a great job juicing for what I could tell.
Talk about the mother of invention.

 

[WVMJ]

Like your name, perfect. You need a way to crush the apples into pulp and then press them. With 15 dwarfs you are going to have way to many for a kitchen juicer. A scratter and a press would make short work of all your apples. Hundreds of videos on youtube of people making their own, I always enjoy watching the guys make one from 24 pine and cracking them in half with a 2 ton jack What kind of apples do you guys have? Are your crabs tannic, make your mouth dry when you eat them or just pucker up like on a lemon or even both? If you only have culinary main apples blending them in the grinder with your crabapples will make it a lot better, adding some tannins and crab flavor. Cider isnt so much a recipe as it is a style of how you make it, the blend of apples is important as is how the juice is handled and what kind of yeast and what kind of temps you can ferment at. We all like orchard pics. WVMJ