Noob, worried about Cider SG

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simonl75

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This is my second attempt at HB, complete novice so please bear with me....

Here in AUS you can find Bulmers (Cider, I think it's common in the UK) on tap, it's not very easy to find but some places serve it and I love the stuff.

After reading the "Man, I love Apfelwein" thread I said to myself "Self, you must have a crack at this" and so I have.

My fermentor is 11.5L (3 gallons) so I pretty much halved EdWort's recipe and planned the following;

10 litres (2.5 gallons) Apple Juice, pastuerised with no preservatives
500 grams (1 pound) Dextrose
1 Packet Dry Wine Yeast

I get my apple juice no problems and off I go to the LHBS to grab my yeast & sugar - I explain what I want to do, the fella I spoke to was excellent and advised that perhaps it would be better if I used a brew booster ALONG with the sugar so I took his advice. He estimated my SG would be 1.050.

The recipe turned into this;

10 Litres (2.5 gallons)
1kg (2.2 pounds) Brew Booster (500g Dextrose, 250g Maltodextrin, 250g Light Malt
500 grams (1 pound) Dextrose
10 grams of Wine Yeast

If I used my hydrometer (1st time ever) correctly, the SG was 1.222 @ 23C (73F)!!!!!!
Note to self, use hydrometer on the juice before adding anything next time....

Twelve hours later she's happily bubbling away at one bubble per 3 seconds.

My concern is the SG, what is this going to turn into? Can the yeast handle this?Would it be even remotely enjoyable?

I'm sure it'll sit me down pretty quick if the end result is palatable.....

No matter what I'll leave this thing going and see what happens, I know I'll be able to answer my own questions in time, but any feedback would be appreciated

I'm going to New Zealand for a week tomorrow, so at least it will be safe from my prying eyes for 7 days!
 
Your gravity reading is way off. Juice runs 1.050-1.070 and you added about 60 points of sugar. So, the reading should have been around 1.120. You probably just didn't stir the cider enough before taking the gravity. Wine yeasts can handle 1.120 without any problem.

Normally a cider would finish around 0.990-1.000, but you've added 10 points worth of MD which is not fermentable, so your final gravity might be as high as 1.010.

This will be really harsh until has aged for 6-8 months.
 
Thanks for your reply david_42, I think i was reading the wrong side of the hydrometer as there's two sets of measures on it.

I think this is more correct, SG 1.084 and I got home yesterday and it's now 1.028 and no activity in the airlock, I'll take another reading this arvo when I get home....
 
Hi david_42...

Do you have a rule-of-thumb for how long a cider (or other beverages) will need to age and how "harsh" it will be? You said this one would be harsh and will need 6-8mo of aging... just curious if there's a way the rest of us can estimate the aging required for a certain recipe.

Thanks!
 
i bottled my cider today it was started oct 22 using cider, applejuice and 2 lbs dark brown sugar. over the course of the ferment i added 2 extra cans of frozen concentrate and it finished at 1.000 after originally starting at 1.063.
i primed with another can of concentrate and drank the dregs from the bottling bucket and it was good - not what i would call harsh.
i will try a bottle in 3 weeks and then decide if i have to age 6 months
i have no time frame suggestions - just try a bottle every 2-3 weeks until it is where you like it
 
4-6% one month
7% two
8% three
9% five
10% seven, but more can only make it better.
 
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